,,, receive the prayers ...
Proper 10 The Sunday closest to July 13
O Lord, mercifully receive the prayers of your people who
call upon you, and grant that they may know and understand
what things they ought to do, and also may have grace and
power faithfully to accomplish them; through Jesus Christ
our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.
call upon you, and grant that they may know and understand
what things they ought to do, and also may have grace and
power faithfully to accomplish them; through Jesus Christ
our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Our collect for next Sunday is an interesting prayer, but a flaw always jumps out at me. It speaks of God’s people in the third person plural when it should speak of us in the first person plural.
... grant that WE may ... things WE ought to do ...
Another thing is the word “ought.” Years ago someone said, “don’t should on me, don’t ought and should on me.” That has kept me mindful that being told what we ought to do and what we should do, or being chided about what we should have done, can be a real downer, and can be really annoying and a turnoff to a relationship. So, ought and should are generally banished from my vocabulary.
There is one other thing about the collect -- the phrase “mercifully receive the prayers of your people.” It can be disheartening, even devastating to one’s faith, to pray for someone, and pray and pray and pray, only to feel that the prayers are not heard. This can be especially so when praying for a sick person who only worsens and dies. And the oft heard wisdom that "sometimes God says NO" is naive nonsense, an outrageous absurdity meant to let God off the hook or desperately deny the unthinkable apparent. Early one summer just over a dozen years ago a seven year old boy was injured in a boating accident. He had just finished second grade at our school. We held him up in fervent, unending prayer for days, more than a week. That the little boy died was one of the most devastating things that life has laid on me. Watching me throughout all this, a parishioner asked, “Can Tom’s faith survive William’s death?”
Faith is a choice, isn’t it. I can cling to it, or let it go. It may be all I have, my only hope. Sort of like a floating piece of debris in the middle of the ocean after the ship sinks: hold on hoping perhaps to be rescued, or let go and drown.
At the end of one Bible story, Jonah is angry, furious with God for not keeping his word about Nineveh. In that particular case, Jonah was wrong, because what he wanted God to do was evil. That isn't the case with us. We may be angry because God has not done what we know would have been the right and good and kind and loving and healing thing. We may be angry. Angry unto tears.
Nevertheless, pray. Faith anyway. Hold on.
At the end of one Bible story, Jonah is angry, furious with God for not keeping his word about Nineveh. In that particular case, Jonah was wrong, because what he wanted God to do was evil. That isn't the case with us. We may be angry because God has not done what we know would have been the right and good and kind and loving and healing thing. We may be angry. Angry unto tears.
Nevertheless, pray. Faith anyway. Hold on.
TW+