teach us to pray
Our Collect for the Day:
O God, the protector of all who trust in you: have mercy upon us, that, with you as ruler and guide, we may so pass through things temporal, that we finally lose not the things eternal.
The years I led adult Sunday school class, EfM, and midweek Bible studies, we opened each session with prayer, often the Collect for the Day, our Proper prayer for the Sunday. Then like dissecting a dead frog in biology class, we'd pick the Collect apart to discover its theologies, and whether we agreed - - in the Address to God, its theological assertion of who and what God is; and in the Petition to God, its theology of what we ask God to do for us.
Simple theological discourse is fun to work in a group seeking to discover the theology of the Episcopal Church, where "lex orandi, lex credendi" what we believe about God is easily seen in what we do and say and sing and pray when we gather for worship.
We have doctrine, though, NOT dogma: unlike many Christian denominations, in the Episcopal Church you are not told what you must believe in order to be a member in good standing. We do not check our brains at the door: as individuals with minds to think, we can look at what we do and say and sing and pray in worship, and work out for ourselves what we personally truly believe as Christians in the Way of the Cross. In some of our ancient hymns, for example, we sing theologies that no longer express what we believe about God, but we may notice those things and love singing them anyway because they've always been part of us!
Spiritual intellectual freedom is part of what I lifelong love about the Episcopal Church.
Anyway, it's my day in the pulpit, preacher’s choice, and I might preach about anything, especially from the day's Propers:
Hosea the prophet whom God commands to marry a prostitute because God loves an outrageous metaphor! The children of Hosea's marriage are not Hosea’s. From Gomer's various clients, every child has a different father, and Hosea knows it without modern DNA spitting in a bottle. Hosea even names one child of infidelity "Not My People", which is to say, "I ain't yo' daddy, boy".
Yes, it’s crude, but it’s God working in vivid, earthy metaphor to “show and tell” God’s dismay at Israel’s infidelity to their covenant with God. Every writer has an agenda, and God’s agenda through Hosea is to warn the Children of Israel, and us as God's people for all Time, of God’s pain at our unfaithfulness to our covenant with God. That's what the book "Hosea" is all about.
And then our liturgical response to Hosea, Psalm 85, lyrical Hebrew poetry in which we pray God to give us yet another chance to make things right. And yes, God of grace, God of glory, God always forgives and gives us another chance. Poor Yahweh, he’s such a Lamb, he never gives up on us.
If you’ve never noticed the theological richness of worship services, pay attention, learn something about us, and experience the riches of being an Episcopalian. Nothing we do and say and sing and pray in worship is random; every word, action, song and prayer expresses our theology, what we say about God.
And most powerfully, worship culminates in God feeding himself to us as Bread and Wine, the Body and Blood of God the Son: God becoming physically part of us, and us physically part of God, such that as we leave here, we carry God forth into the world, for others to see Jesus in us.
Or I could preach on Colossians, a weighty epistle that perfectly follows on Hosea. Colossians calls you to turn from your perfidy and be faithful to the contract you made with God at your baptism. Which, baptism is not at all about your personal salvation; baptism does not put you on the road to heaven, but on the Way of the Cross as your way of life. Baptism is “All to Jesus I surrender”, baptism is when you give up self and step into the Way of the Cross, promising to live as Jesus lived. So, from Colossians:
“As you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith.”
Or I could preach on the Gospel according to Luke: "Lord, teach us to pray!" as Luke opens a sequence of Jesus teachings about prayer. Do not let it bother you that we do not pray Luke's version of the Lord’s Prayer, we pray Matthew’s version, it's beloved, smoother and more polished. And it does not matter, both gospels proclaim Jesus as Lord.
But Luke's parable today is another thing. Luke has taken a parable about emulating God's gracious hospitality, and, like pounding a square peg into a round hole, awkwardly forced it into his prayer series, where it seems to have Jesus say "keep praying and knocking and banging on God’s door until you wear God down with your persistence and God opens the door and tosses out the loaves of bread you need." But it's not that at all. Luke leaves us wondering if God is a distant, impatient neighbor who cannot be bothered. Jesus never describes his Father that way; in Jesus we SEE God: gracious, hospitable, sacrificial, generous, God always ready to open the door and hear us. Yes, it's Holy Scripture, but Luke could have done a better job writing this!
But I’m not preaching on today's Gospel anyway!
As I do from Time to Time, I have my mind on our Collect for the Day:
O God, the protector of all who trust in you: have mercy upon us, that with you as ruler and guide, we may so pass through things temporal, that we finally lose not things eternal.
Today’s Collect is an ancient prayer that reflects theology and world views of long ago. In the Episcopal Church we love tradition and ancient sounds: this Collect is Gelasian, more than a thousand years old, it dates back to the 600s AD, times altogether different from today; with trembling perceptions of God, and anxious, fearful Soteriology (which is theology of salvation) - - just so - -
"the protector of all who trust in you" - - for all its quaint loveliness, the Collect's theology seems to limit God’s love to believers, which is nonsense to anyone for whom God is Grace, unconditional love for all people - - and
"we may so pass through things temporal, that we finally lose not things eternal" is lovely and lyrical; but it's theology from an age when a controlling church kept you fearful of going to Hell when you die.
And so, it bothers me: ancient theology of praying God to do things for me, instead of praying God to inspire me toward the godly life of Jesus.
It bothers me. Or, would bother me if I held to the theologies of fear from the Dark Ages in which this ancient Latin prayer was prescribed for the Roman Catholic Church from whence we came.
But for thinking Christians, theology is not static. From 20th century liturgical reform, our liturgy offers possibilities: including a new Collect* for today’s gospel. It’s a prayer from our mother Church of England, printed by our own Episcopal Church and approved by our church for us to pray to our loving God of grace. If it’s poetic, lyrical, hazy and nebulous, so is God, who is Spirit. This collect has in mind the Lord's Prayer that Jesus gave us.
Listen, mindful of it's affirmation of the Lord’s Prayer, as we pray:
Lord of gifts,
SHARE WITH US
a hunger for the Bread of your kingdom;
GIVE US
a yearning impatience with injustice;
FREE US
from clinging to debts gone bad;
TEACH US
to pray with honesty
in words filled with earth
and lit with desire;
through Jesus Christ, our JUBILEE.
Amen.
++++++++++++
Sermon, homiletic endeavor in Holy Nativity Episcopal Church, Panama City, Florida, on Sunday, July 24, 2022, Proper 12C, by the Rev Tom Weller.
* Prayers for a Inclusive Church, the Rev Steven Shakespeare, Church of England. Episcopal Church Publishing, New York. 2009, Canterbury Press 2008.
art: https://jorgecocco.com/bio/
Preaching Texts, the day's Propers:
The Collect for the Day
O God, the protector of all who trust in you, without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy: Increase and multiply upon us your mercy; that, with you as our ruler and guide, we may so pass through things temporal, that we finally lose not the things eternal; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Old Testament Hosea 1:2-10
When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, "Go, take for yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord." So he went and took Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.
And the Lord said to him, "Name him Jezreel; for in a little while I will punish the house of Jehu for the blood of Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel. On that day I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel."
She conceived again and bore a daughter. Then the Lord said to him, "Name her Lo-ruhamah, for I will no longer have pity on the house of Israel or forgive them. But I will have pity on the house of Judah, and I will save them by the Lord their God; I will not save them by bow, or by sword, or by war, or by horses, or by horsemen."
When she had weaned Lo-ruhamah, she conceived and bore a son. Then the Lord said, "Name him Lo-ammi, for you are not my people and I am not your God."
Yet the number of the people of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea, which can be neither measured nor numbered; and in the place where it was said to them, "You are not my people," it shall be said to them, "Children of the living God."
Response: Psalm 85
1 You have been gracious to your land, O Lord, * you have restored the good fortune of Jacob.
2 You have forgiven the iniquity of your people * and blotted out all their sins.
3 You have withdrawn all your fury * and turned yourself from your wrathful indignation.
4 Restore us then, O God our Savior; * let your anger depart from us.
5 Will you be displeased with us for ever? * will you prolong your anger from age to age?
6 Will you not give us life again, * that your people may rejoice in you?
7 Show us your mercy, O Lord, * and grant us your salvation.
8 I will listen to what the Lord God is saying, * for he is speaking peace to his faithful people and to those who turn their hearts to him.
9 Truly, his salvation is very near to those who fear him, * that his glory may dwell in our land.
10 Mercy and truth have met together; * righteousness and peace have kissed each other.
11 Truth shall spring up from the earth, * and righteousness shall look down from heaven.
12 The Lord will indeed grant prosperity, * and our land will yield its increase.
13 Righteousness shall go before him, * and peace shall be a pathway for his feet.
The Epistle Colossians 2:6-15, (16-19)
As you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.
See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the universe, and not according to Christ. For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have come to fullness in him, who is the head of every ruler and authority. In him also you were circumcised with a spiritual circumcision, by putting off the body of the flesh in the circumcision of Christ; when you were buried with him in baptism, you were also raised with him through faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead. And when you were dead in trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive together with him, when he forgave us all our trespasses, erasing the record that stood against us with its legal demands. He set this aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in it.
[Therefore do not let anyone condemn you in matters of food and drink or of observing festivals, new moons, or sabbaths. These are only a shadow of what is to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. Do not let anyone disqualify you, insisting on self-abasement and worship of angels, dwelling on visions, puffed up without cause by a human way of thinking, and not holding fast to the head, from whom the whole body, nourished and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows with a growth that is from God.]
The Gospel Luke 11:1-13
Jesus was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples." He said to them, "When you pray, say:
Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us. And do not bring us to the time of trial."
And he said to them, "Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say to him, `Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.' And he answers from within, `Do not bother me; the door has already been locked, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.' I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, at least because of his persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs.
"So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish? Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”
++++++++++++
My theology of preaching is that preaching is Sacramental, even a Dominical Sacrament (Matthew 28:18-20) like Baptism and Holy Communion. The outward and visible sign in Preaching is Word spoken, heard, printed, seen, taught, screened, offered. The inward and spiritual grace in Preaching is Challenge to contemplate, think, ponder, seek, be inspired.
T+
18Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28, NIV)