Let the words of my
mouth and the meditation of my heart be always acceptable in thy sight, O Lord
my strength and my redeemer. Amen
Today is
Rogation Sunday; the Sunday that remind us all gifts come from God. The rain, the sun, the blessings and the
curses that fall upon the earth, and every breath we take – comes from God. It is in God we trust that the seeds we are
planting this time of the year will grow into crops to harvest in Fall, and provide
seeds to plant next year; in other words, seed-to-seed. For this reason. today’s lesson centers
around the Lord’s Prayer -- the foundation of Christian prayer, the foundation
of our spiritual formation, and the foundation of our learning to dwell in
God’s mercy.
As we have
talked about in the past, the foundation of catechesis is comprised of three
basic things -- the Lord’s Prayer, the Ten Commandments, and the Creeds,
particularly the creed commonly called the Apostles’ Creed. From this foundation, we learn and grow. The Ten Commandments stir-up our conscience, showing
us both what right-living is, and our
failure to live it. The creeds teach us right belief, and help us to know God. The Lord’s Prayer tells us how we are to
approach our Lord, in the fullness of supplication.
If we as a
congregation desire growth in spirit, and in numbers, one thing we must continually
learn is to trust God. And, not only
trust Him, but learn to depend on him fully, and continue to be prayerfully
dependent upon God. It is God who will nurture
and strengthen our souls. He will direct
our walk towards right, and
compassionate actions. He will transform
our broken souls into reflections of His glory. In His sanctifying grace, we are made into
reflections of His glory. It is therefore,
important to take a little time to dissect the Lord’s prayer -- because it was Christ’s
instruction that we, “pray like this.”
This
commandment from Christ is to not only pray these words, but to also formulate
our prayers from them. This prayer
Christ taught us is both words to which we can cling, and a foundation on which
we can build a solid and vibrant life of prayer.
It would
now be a good time to say together, again, the Lord’s Prayer, so let us pray as
Christ taught us:
OUR Father, who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive
those who trespass against us. And lead
us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and
the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.
It is
common for this prayer to be broken into seven parts. It has been suggested, by some, that these
parts can be applied to each day of the week, so I have included a little card
in the bulletin this week, that you can take home, and use each day to meditate
on these short, but essential truths. God
uses this prayer to teach our hearts, and align them in the right way of living.
While there
is some disagreement where the breaks should be, I have made my best venture at
the divisions, as I see them. The first
portion: OUR Father, who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy Name.
Our relationship with God is two-fold -- we
come to Him in the fullness of adoration on bended knees, yet, we also learn to
recognize that He is the source of life, our caretaker, and the ultimate Father. He is our protector, and our caregiver. In some cases, we are instructed to come to
God in the full closeness of this relationship using the word ‘Abba’ that
translates very roughly, to ‘daddy.’ But,
if we leave it simply at ‘Daddy,’ we do a disservice to this word, because it
is deeper, and more respectful, than we might think when we say it. Some commentators have said it is more akin
to ‘daddy-sir,’ which perhaps provides a better idea of what this relationship
is. It is a deep, intimate, and
profoundly respect-filled relationship to which we are called.
When we come to God it is to give
glory and praise to His name. We sing
with joyful voices: hallowed be thy name.
We say blessed be your name, all glory be to thee, O Lord. So, we recognize that God’s name is blessed
above all things. The most important
thing, above all these other observations, is that we come to God, that we come
to Him when we are joyful and we come to Him when we are sorrowful. We approach the king of Kings, on bended
knees – giving Him all that is within us.
Thy kingdom come.
We are
reminded that we are to look forward to His second coming. We are to look forward to the freeing
judgment, when we come to fully dwell in Christ’s righteousness, when His
righteousness is infused completey into our being when our sins are washed away,
and Christ’s righteousness becomes ours, and when we are bathed in the blood of
the lamb. This is the promise, and the
hope, of the church. We pray for His
coming, because we know in that day we will be set free -- finally, fully - - from
our sins, and in that time all things will come to light.
Thy will be
done, On earth as it is in heaven. We pray that we might learn to submit to God’s will
for us. This is no easy task, and we
often find our hearts are far wilder and rambunctious than we might realize or
admit. We are not always willing to
allow God to dictate the next steps in our lives, and so often when one door
closes, we buck and thrash against His will.
Yet, we are called to be sheep, called to follow his gentle guidance,
because Christ is the true, and only shepherd of our souls. When we come to experience heaven in its
fullness, we will learn what it is to bask in God’s good guidance fully. It will be then that the dance of His will,
and ours, comes to be in perfect sync. This
is our expectation, and to what we look forward. Until that day we pray, and learn slowly what
it is to submit our wills to Him.
Give us this day our daily bread. We are to look to God to be our sustainer in all things. This does not dismiss us from working hard to
provide for our families, and for ourselves.
However, we are to learn to recognize that it is God who provides all
good things, and it is by His grace that we have air to breath, food to eat, and
a bed on which to sleep. We are to pray
for these things, and trust that He will continue to provide them. Though we understand how agriculture works, and
how plants go from seed- to-seed, we also give God the credit for this, recognizing
it as one of his miracles. It’s a
paradox that we understand how things work, while knowing God works in them, not
as a distant engineer who winds the clock, then walks away, but as the actual
builder himself; the constructer, the designer, the great creator. It is through this constructing that He
sustains us.
And forgive us our trespasses, As we forgive those
who trespass against us. Many would split this, saying that we are to pray
for forgiveness, and then forgive others, but, in my opinion, these two things
must go together. Our fragile hearts
cannot forgive, or be forgiven, if we cling to disdain for those who have hurt
us. So, we must forgive, and we must let
the hurts that others have caused us to become bygones.
In conjunction with forgiving, we must pray that our hearts will soften
so these things do not become walls separating us from compassionate living,
and seeking of God’s mercy. If we bear
grudges against someone, we must confess them to God. And, if they continue to
haunt us, we should confess them to our confessor, to our priest.
We must also pray that we are forgiven for our sins, both the ones we
know and do willingly, and the ones of which we are unaware. God will forgive these sins when we repent,
and turn from them. If we cannot overcome
them, we confess them to our confessor. It is part of the priest’s responsibility to
hear those confessions. So, these two
are completely linked, because to live peaceably with God, we must also live
peaceably with our fellow man. We must
flee from our sins, and let go of the sins committed against us by others. Clinging to the sins committed by others will
kill our soul, and letting go will make us come alive.
And lead us not into temptation, But deliver us from
evil. Learning to submit to God’s will is hard, but we, as the church, must do
it. For no other thing will bring us
where we are to be. It is easy to be
discouraged when the world around us collapses, and sorrows sneak up on us,
unplanned and unannounced. Surely, when
Fr. Henthorne died suddenly, we felt discouraged, dismayed and abandoned. The past six months have been difficult for
us. Yet, we trust that God has a plan, and
that God has something glorious for us. If
we submit to His will, learn to delight in it, and trust that He will not bring
us into any evil thing on our path, our hearts will learn to delight in His
goodness. For the Father will quench our
thirst with the living water, and give us strength with the manna from heaven.
For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the
glory, for ever and ever. Amen. Finally, we are reminded to remember when we pray to God, He is the
ultimate authority -- the king of kings.
When the devil tempted Jesus, “all of this could be yours if you serve
me,” we know that it was foolishness on the devil’s part, because all of the
heavens, and the earth, is God’s. Alhough
the prince of the world still roams and tempts, God will smite him at the end
of times. Not only is God the sovereign
of all, but all power is his, too.
All power is his. He can give life, and take life away. He alone knows the total of what our lives
hold. It is to Him that all glory goes,
and for this reason we sing our strong and beautiful songs of praise to His
glory. It is His glory that we desire to
reflect.
When we pray, let us pray as we have
been taught to pray- coming to God as our father. And, not only as our father, but also the
supreme sovereign, praying to Him in the dynamics of this being, praying for His
coming again, trusting always that that day will come. We must trust in His will, not seeking our
own design, rather submitting to Him, acknowledging and trusting in His
provision. We ask for forgiveness and
forgiving, trusting that He has a good plan for us, and seeking always to avoid
evil. Finally, we give laud and praise
to the King of Kings, for He is a mighty and good king.
It is this that we learn and lean
on, on Rogation Sunday, that God, the sovereign Lord -- Our Father – is our
provider, both for the body, and for the soul.
The ultimate provision of God is to give us the salvation of our souls. We should always remember that. We come to Him every day on bended knees,
trusting in Him for all that we need – temporally and eternally.
Amen
