| New Book now Available Here is an anthology of over 1100 brief prayers and thought-starters, for each day of the year, with almost 400 original prayers by Bruce Prewer. Included is both a subject index and an index of authors-- an ecumenical collection of about 300 different sources. |
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| Title: Brief Prayers for Busy People. Author: Bruce D Prewer ISBN 978-1-62880-090-6 Available from Australian Church Resources, web site www.acresources.com.au email service@acresources.com.au or by order from your local book shop or online on amazon. |
SECOND SUNDAY AFTER CHRISTMAS
John 1: 1-18 (Sermon 1: “Where are we going?”)
Ephesians 1: 3-14 (Sermon 2: “Stuffed to the gills yet starving”)
Jeremiah 31: 7-14
Psalm 147:12-20
CALL TO WORSHIP
Wonderful is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus,
who in Christ has showered us with every spiritual blessing.
Sing aloud with gladness, people of the New
Israel,
lift your
voices, first of all nations.
Through Christ he has made know to us his hidden purpose-
that all the universe. all in heaven and on earth
should be brought into a unity in Christ.
Proclaim the good news and say,
“The Lord has saved his people.”
OR
The Word that was in the beginning with God,
the Word that was God,
has taken a human body and lived among us.
We have looked upon his radiant beauty,
such beauty as befits the Father’s only son,
full of grace and truth.
Praise the Lord, you people of God,
praise the
Lord in the city of God.
God strengthens all your defences,
and blesses your children in your presence.
He gives peace within your borders,
and fills
you with the finest bread.
PRAYER OF APPROACH
God our most wonderful
Friend, we come before you overflowing with glad gratitude.
That you launched this
universe and shaped us in your own likeness, that is wonder-full.
That you sent your eternal
Word to become one of us, is wonder-full.
That you are with us by your
Spirit, counselling and energising us, is wonder-full.
Help us to worship you with
best we have to offer, holding nothing back from so great
a Lover of humankind. Through Christ
Jesus our Lord.
Amen!
CONFESSION
AND FORGIVENESS.
Although the New Year is only a few days old, it is already contaminated with evil. Let us make our confession.
Let us pray.
God our Saviour, we bring before you the gifts and strengths that mark our common humanity, but also the deficiencies and flaws that are our common lot.
Loving God, we do not want to wallow in our sin, and thereby undermine our energy with fruitless guilt. Rather we repent and bathe in your salvation, that our sins may be forgiven, our shame washed away, and our confidence in your purposes strengthened.
Please build us up, enhancing our gifts and showing us ways of minimising the collateral damage caused by our failings.
In this New Year we cannot promise to be perfect Christians, but we do pray that we may retain our Christian enthusiasm and become improved followers of Christ Jesus. Give us the faith to rise above our fears, the resilience to rebound from setbacks, and the courage to seize each opportunity to do good things for Christ’s glory. In his name we pray,
Amen!
ASSURANCE
/
It is written in Holy Scripture “The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.”
Family of God, believe the living Word and trust the saving grace which covers all our sins. At this moment, all things do indeed become new.
Thanks be to God.
PRAYER FOR CHILDREN
Dear God, thank you for this brand new year of 2004.
Help us to be healthy and grow a lot through every week;
not just getting taller, but also wiser and more loving.
We don’t want to end up looking like tall sunflowers on the outside
but like prickly, stunted little weeds on the inside.
With the help of Jesus, we can improve a lot. Okay?
Thanks.
Amen!
PSALM 147: 12-20
See
“Australian Psalms” God’s Works Around Us.
Ó B D Prewer
& Open Book Publishers.
ONE LONE WORD
There is just one lone Word
which spoken here in Babel
reduces all others words
to unstable approximations
or delusive ramblings.
Hearing this one lone Word
a lost joy leaps within us
as if we have for the first time
heard our mother tongue
personally spoken to us.
We name this one lone Word
as the true Living Word
of the one, Holy God,
and in awe we worship
among its precious cadences.
B.
D. Prewer 2004
COLLECT
Loving God, the smog of ignorance
has been dispersed by the coming of your Light into our human affairs. By the
radiance of that Word that became flesh and dwelt among us, please continue to
enlighten and transform us. May exercise our right to become children of God
and be co-heirs with Christ Jesus; who lives and loves with you and the Holy
Spirit, one God to be adored for ever.
Amen!
SERMON 1: WHERE ARE
WE GOING?
John
1 and Ephesians 1.
The other evening I paused on my way between family room and study to watch a captivating brief segment on TV. One of those 5 minute “fill-ins” between two longer programmes.
It was a French-Canadian production, in cartoon style. I almost missed the title but I think it was: “From the big bang to Tuesday morning.”
First there was the pin prick of very bright light, which exploded out into countless fragments. These fragments formed into patterns. Before long living things took shadowy shape in sea, on land and in the air.
The picture then became dominated by a neat business suit, shirt and tie, which filled out as if worn by a male model but without any neck or head. Out of the hole where the neck should have been emerged a succession of reptilian creatures, leading on to mammals, then apes, then Neanderthal’s, and finally to modern homo sapiens. The climax of creation had been attained. The picture switched to the grand finale: a man in his business suit, sitting in a peak hour traffic jam on a freeway. That was it. From the big bang to Tuesday morning.
Is that what life is about? All that twelve billion years of creative process culminating in a human being sitting in a traffic jam? Is that the purpose of this immense scheme of things?
Is our existence as inane as freeway traffic jams on Tuesday morning? Or each evening sitting in front of an electronic picture box watching replays of “Mash” or “Neighbours”? Or living for each weekend to jam into grandstand barrack for a team of people kicking a leather ball around a small field? Or building smarter planes and dirtier bombs so that we can beat the hell out of some other nation? O getting worked into a frenzy about the election of one conniving politician at the expense of another conniving politician? Is that the purpose for which creation laboured for so long?
No it is not, thank God! I say again: Thank God!
Today we have read two brilliant passages from the Holy Bible: First the lofty opening section of the Gospel according to St John, followed by chapter 1 of Paul’s letter to those early Christians in the city of Ephesus.
JOHN’S PROLOGUE: BACK BEFORE THE “BIG BANG”
You will notice that John takes us back, not just to the “big bang” but before it. His announcement is in fact (to amend the title of that Canadian cartoon on TV) “From before the big bang to Sunday morning.”
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of humankind.
John is a man with a mega-voice, announcing the divine Word which lived before any-thing else existed. The Wisdom which preceded all things, launched all things, and fills all things, is not remote. This eternal Mind, the divine Light, takes human flesh in the person Jesus, and lives among us. The eternal Word “pitches its tent” in our midst, and we witness his glory.
John, a little later goes on to say:
To as many as receive him, who believe in
his name, he gives the right and power to
become the children of God.
And out of his fullness, we have received grace upon grace.
By grace, children of God. Wow! Far out!
That is our true destiny, which we can either embrace if we accept Jesus Christ, or we can ignore should we reject Jesus Christ. Our human destiny is not summed up by the absurd picture of hundreds of people in their business suits, sitting in mobile tin cans in a traffic jam. Nor is our destiny consummated in market places where we sell ourselves for more and more dollars.
John takes us far beyond such banal stuff. John gives us from the ‘Big bang to becoming children of God, nurtured by the grace of his true Son Jesus.”
That is an awesome message. If only you and I could hear it for the first time, it would rattle the windows of the house of life and shake the foundations.
PAUL: GOD’S LONG-TERM GOAL
Paul’s letter to the Ephesians proclaims a similar message. But it goes even further. Chapter 1, from verse 3, is like a majestic poem which celebrates God’s purposes from before the big bang to the present, and then to the end of time and beyond.
Praise be the God and Father of our Lord,
Jesus Christ, who has enriched us with every possibly
spiritual blessing.....He chose us, before the foundation of the world.......
to be
his children through Jesus Christ.......... For God has made known to us the mystery of his will, .......... his plan for the fulfilling of all time and space....... This plan is to gather together in harmony all things on earth and in the heavens.
How about that! What a stunning over-view of all things and all time! Our immediate role is to be children of God and to play our part in attaining a final consummation; a bliss-full future of reconciliation and unity. That is where all things are heading. That is where Christ is leading us, and at times shoving us with his wounded hands.
We are on the way to glory.
Not to traffic jams and business suits, the share market or screaming sporting events, or to silly fashions in clothes or food. Not to gaze blearily at repeats of “Mash” or “Neighbours” or to joining the ranks of frenetic billionaires. Not to being the dummies of political “spin doctors” or to overpowering enemies with superior military technology.
The thrust of God-full history is taking us to an amazing flowering of human dignity and ultimate victory through the efficacy of the saving grace of Christ Jesus.
John and Paul are certainly travelling on the same journey, inspired by the same hope. Children of God. Family of God. Love and harmony, peace and fulfilment.
THIS STRETCHES CREDIBILITY
Incredulous? Some may well say that such a belief is not just stretching the bounds of credibility but bursting it asunder!
And they are right! Of course they are. It is mind-boggling stuff!
Yet that is what we sorely need. We need our creed-ability stretched.
What we in these days accept as credible has been cramped and crippled by the materialistic myopia of the culture in which we live. Millions around us have been reduced to living for trivia. They have been mislead into chasing gaols that will never bring happiness. They scramble over one another in selfish rampage for possessions and power, that can only end in disillusionment and cynicism.
We desperately need to lift our sights to what God is doing through Jesus of Nazareth, the man of those beautiful parables and beatitudes, crucified and risen. Our creed-ability next stretching.
This is what our recent Christmas celebrations should have been about: Christ Jesus. Authentic good news. Genuine joy to the world!
It seems to me that the more people have lost the heart of Christmas, the more they go for a grandiose display of the externals. It is as if they hope to achieve a return to childhood Santa Claus-related innocence. They try to artificially create a celebration by massed pretty lights, reindeers on roof tops and Father Christmas astride chimneys, lavish eating and an extraordinary amount of drinking.
But at the heart there is an empty space; a cruel hollowness.
Before long they will grit their teeth and return to putting on their business suits and going bumper to bumper in freeway traffic as they jostle and fight their way to work, in order to pay for the Christmas extravaganza which had been provided by the phoney courtesy of their plastic credit cards.
We know better than that. Surely we do?
WE NEED STRETCHING
In God’s name I beg you let St John and St Paul, rescue you from cynical myopia.
We need our creed-ability stretched, even though the stretching (like any serious exercise) may prove painful. It has been cramped and crippled by the materialistic short-sightedness of our culture.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of humankind.
To as many as receive him, who believe in his name, he gives the right and the power to become the children of God.
And out of his fullness, we have received grace upon grace.
Praise be the God and Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ, who has
enriched us with every possibly spiritual blessing.....He chose us, before the
foundation of the world....... to be
his children through Jesus Christ..........
For God has made known to us the mystery of his will,
.......... his plan for the fulfilling of all time and space....... This
plan is to bring together in harmony all things in on
earth and in the heavens.
SERMON 2: STUFFED TO
THE GILLS YET STARVING
John
1:14
So the Word became
flesh and lived among us, and we saw his radiant beauty, such beauty as befits
the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth.
Our contemporary world is stuffed to the gills with words. Yet we are starving for communication. We long for people to mean what they say, and do what they promise.
At a more intimate level we yearn for people to look us in the eye and be silent for a while, before softly saying: “I am here for you. Are you present and ready to meet with me?”
DECEIT IS AN EPIDEMIC
Have you ever had a new house being built, or maybe extensions made to an existing property? When the bricklayer says, “I’ll be there next week,” or the plumber promises “Tomorrow, at the latest.”.” Or when the builder says: “We’ll be finished by 31st July. No fret.” Never stake you life on them. Such words flow from otherwise honest people. In their professional role they will lie without the slightest blush; sometimes keeping three or four jobs on the go at the same time and fending off impatient clients with empty promises.”
Such words from the building industry are one symptom of the wider problem in our community.
Marriages can be starved and maybe wither, not because of a shortage of words but because of the soul-absence of husbands or wives in their words.
Children become alienated from their parents, not because of lack of parental opinions, which perhaps are delivered with pleading tones, or hurled at them at them like hostile missiles. They become alienated because of perceived hypocrisy.
The legal system is hooked on words. Lawyers are payed small fortunes to spin their clever phrases, and judges deliver sentence with pompous tones or indignant condemnations. But those courtroom words often avoid the heart of the matter, and rarely touch the souls, or bring healing, to either victim or perpetrator.
Journalists look for catchy headlines, or put together captivating exposes of human flaws and corruption. Editors use their columns to tell us what to think and how to vote. TV current affairs programmes edit their footage to present a story which will keep up the ratings, with scant regard for the whole truth.
Politicians even deceive themselves through an avalanche of words. Parroting the sentences purchased from clever speech writers and spin doctors. Fulsome words which carry little meaning except that of a thinly veiled ego in full mating plumage.
We preachers churn out thousands of words, week after week. But we shall be judged not by the smoothness of our oratory, or the power of our intellectual insights (and certainly not by the volume of our output!) but by whether we are sincerely present in our own words.
BETTER THAN WORDS?
Words can be ambiguous. Rarely does 100% message transfer between speaker and hearer.
I once mimed a 10 minute sermon. On that occasion, weary of my own words and their inadequacy; afraid of words and their seductiveness, I kept my mouth shut. No small feat! It was not a complex message, and I am a pathetic excuse for a mime artist, but it did me the world of good. What is more, I think most the congregation did not miss a movement I made.
God goes much better than this. Thank God for the living Word, Jesus of Nazareth. No mime in this event; it’s the real thing. It is the Word which stems from the very heart of God. The eternal, loving Word which becomes our flesh in this dimension of time and space. Embodied in a human life. The Word that looks you in the eyes and says: “Friend, what you see, is what you get.”
The holy incarnation expresses Divinity without ambiguity.
Gods own clearest message is lived. The Word that is 100%
present with us.
No room for confusion here. So the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we saw his radiant
beauty, such beauty as befits the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth.
No hint of deceit in this Jesus. No prevaricating or using words to manipulate. No hidden agenda. If only we could communicate like Jesus! If only we would be brave enough to be 100% present in our own words.
WORD AND DEED OF JESUS
How did Jesus do it?
How did he leave no credibility gap between word and action? I don’t know, but he surely did. Whatever it was, it marks a major difference between him and us.
It is truly awesome!
* “Don’t be anxious; learn from the wild flowers and the ravens?” He lived that message
when pressed in by crowds of sick and suffering people, or in a small boat on stormy Lake Galilee.
* “Your Heavenly Father knows your needs before you ask him?” He embodied that faith as he travelled around the villages, depending on well wishers for his food and shelter. Or on that dark Thursday when among the olive trees he prayed: “Not my will but yours be done.”
* “The first and great commandment is to love God with every fibre of your being?” He displayed such love, not only in his death, but every step of the way. Including that sad incident when he even turned his back on his confused mother and brothers who had arrived to restrain him.
* “Judge not, that you be not judged.” With deep sensitivity he demonstrated that word on the occasion when a woman was dragged before him who had been caught out in adultery; or when he went to dinner in the house of Zachaeas.
* “Blessed are the meek and the merciful?” Jesus fulfilled that word when at the Last Supper he washed his disciple’s feet, and later that same night when Peter denied knowing him.
* “Blessed are the peacemakers. Go the second mile, turn the other cheek?” That Word was put to the test. When confronted by police in the Garden of Gethsemane, and with Peter swinging his sword, Jesus calmed the situation and healed the wounded officer.
* “Forgive your enemies, pray for those who persecute you?” He upheld that to the last letter up there on the hill of Golgotha when soldiers hammered in the nails and a vitriolic mob heckled him. “Father forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.”
* “Try to save you life and you will lose it; lose it for my sake and you will find it?” Through the prolonged sufferings of black Friday, to the Easter dawn and the irrelevant tomb; he fulfilled the truth which his words had framed for his disciples.
The extraordinary Word that came from the heart of God did become perfectly “enfleshed” in that most lovely and most loving man, Jesus of Nazareth.
ONE WORD WE CAN TOTALLY TRUST
We can stake our lives on this one, holy Word.
This is the only Word in the whole world that we can trust without any qualification.
It is underwritten by the Source of the universe. A little
later in chapter one of John’s Gospel, he tells us: “No one has ever seen God, but God’s only
Son, he who is nearest to the Father’s heart, he has made him known.”
We cannot rely on the cacophony of words filling the atmosphere around us. I don’t always fully trust my own words, no matter how sincere I endeavour to be. Why not? Because tangled and dark are the secret motivations within the human mind, even for those of us who have pledged their all to Jesus Christ.
But we can always trust the one living Word of the eternal God of grace and glory. Jesus, son of humanity, Son of divinity.
Trust the revelation: So the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we saw his radiant
beauty, such beauty as befits the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth.
Trust the promises: “To those who receive him, who yield to him their allegiance, to these
he gives the right to become the children of God.”
Praise be the God and Father of our Lord,
Jesus Christ,
who has
enriched us with every possible spiritual blessing.....
He chose us, before the foundation
of the world.......
to be his
children through Jesus Christ..........
For God has made known to us the
mystery of his will, ..........
his plan for the
fulfilling of all time and space.......
This plan is to bring together in
harmony all things
on earth and in the heavens.
PRAYER OF
THANKSGIVING
-- Note: This prayer can be changed
into a creed. See below.
For at least 2 voices.
Thanks be
to you, loving God, that this universe is not some meaningless, accidental
process, but is the work of a loving Creator.
Thanks be to you, loving God for choosing the planet earth
to be the site of one of his riskiest projects, making creatures in the divine
likeness and giving them, free will.
Thanks be
to you, loving God, for raising up enlightened souls in every race, culture and
era, who called their people to go forward, responding to the pulse of the Holy
Spirit within and around them.
Thanks be to you, loving God, for
choosing one small nation to be a light to other nations; for the Jewish high
ethical values, spiritual insights, prophetic hopes and poetic songs of faith
and hope.
Thanks be
to you, loving God, for sending among us a humble person named Jesus, the very
Word and Wisdom of God; born as one of us, living among us, pointing us to a
narrow road that leads to abndant life, and then
dying and rising to make our new journey possible.
Thanks be to you, loving God, for
collecting an odd assortment of characters around the name of Christ Jesus, by
the Spirit welding them into one fellowship of the church, with the mission of
sharing the free grace of Jesus with the whole world.
Thanks be
to you, loving God, for the individuals who first told us the story of Jesus,
who nurtured us within Christ’s Body, the church, and who helped equip us to
love one another even as Jesus has first loved us.
Thanks be to your, loving God, for your contemporary
liberators, prophets, saints and poets, who by the grace of Christ Jesus take
on formidable tasks and achieve much more, and much better, than a just reward
for their efforts.
Thanks be
to you, loving God, for the purpose which still guides and empowers us, and for
the lofty destiny which nothing in life or death can annul.
Wonderful are your gifts, wonderful is your love, and
forever blessed is your name in earth and heaven.
Amen!
WE BELIEVE
** an
adaptation of the prayer of thanksgiving.
We believe in a universe that
is not some meaningless, accidental process, but is the work
of a loving Creator.
We believe in a God who has
chosen the planet earth to be the site of one of the Creator’s riskiest
projects; that of shaping creatures in the divine likeness, and giving them the
dangerous gift of free will.
We believe in a very caring
God who has raised up enlightened souls in every race
and culture; who called their people to go forward, responding to the pulse of
the Holy Spirit within and around them.
We believe is a purposeful God
who chose one small nation to be a light to other nations; giving the Jewish
people high ethical values, spiritual insights, prophetic hopes and poetic
songs of faith and hope.
We believe in a gracious God
who sent among us a humble person named Jesus, the very Word and Wisdom of God;
born as one of us, living among us, pointing us to a narrow road that leads to
abundant life, and then dying and rising to make our new journey possible.
We believe in the God who
collects an odd assortment of characters around the name of Christ Jesus, and
by the Spirit welds them into one fellowship of the holy church, with the
mission of sharing the free grace of Jesus with all peoples.
We believe in God who gave
each of us those particular people who first told us the story of Jesus, who
nurtured us within Christ’s Body, the church, and who have helped equip us to
love one another even as Jesus has first loved us.
We believe in God who
continues to send contemporary liberators, prophets, saints and poets; those
who by the grace of Christ Jesus take on formidable tasks and achieve much more
than a just reward for their efforts.
We believe in the underlying
Divine Purpose, which still guides and empowers us, and in a glorious destiny
for God’s people which nothing in life or death can annul.
Amen!
PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE: LIVING THIS NEW YEAR TO THE FULL
Bless, most generous God, those strong characters who have no fears about what this year will bring them. May they set their goals wisely, use their strength humbly, and help their weaker neighbours unpretentiously.
Bless, generous God, those fragile folk who are fearful about many things, and who have doubts about their ability to cope with new challenges. May they trust the resources of your Spirit, and gain in confidence and serenity.
Bless, most generous God, those brave folk for whom each day is a struggle against depression and anxiety. May they be blessed with understanding friends, and learn to congratulate themselves on each small victory.
Bless, most generous God, those optimistic folk who face every new day buoyantly. May they temper their heartiness with an awareness of the trials of others, and be patient with the more timid family members, friends and workmates.
Bless, most generous God, those suffering ones who find it hard to remember a day when pain was not present. May they receive the best medical help available, and ground their frail existence on the solid rock of your love.
Bless, most generous God, those healthy people who have never had a day’s sickness, and who may tend to see the poor health of others as some kind of spiritual weakness. May they learn humility, and develop compassion for the less fortunate.
Bless, most generous God, those battlers who in spite of hard work and careful financial management, endure misfortunes which keep them barely above poverty. May they receive not cheap pity but justice from those who have the power to improve their well being.
Bless, most generous God, those who find themselves with many material possessions, and who are tempted to put it all down to their own virtue. May they come to see how lucky they are, learn gratitude, and humbly use their prosperity to be a blessing on others.
Bless, most generous God, those who are of small faith, yet make the most of it, trusting Christ enough to do justly, love mercy, and to walk humbly with their God. May they experience the divine gifts of peace and joy which go beyond all human understanding.
Bless, most generous God, those of strong faith, who may imagine that their belief is a superior kind, and therefore think they have the right to direct others what to believe and how to act. May they come to realise that only the poor in spirit belong to the kingdom of heaven.
Bless, most generous God, each of us who present here today. In this new year may we count our blessings, give thanks for our gifts, accept our deficiencies, and trust the Holy Spirit to guide us in ways that will bring glory “to our Father who is in heaven.”
Through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen!
DISMISSAL
Seize the moment!
The New Year stretches before us with few certainties, some probabilities, and many possibilities for those who seize the moment with Christ Jesus.
God does not expect us to “climb every mountain and cross every stream” but to use the particular gifts we do have, in the particular situation where we are set, to do the best we can in the cause of Christ’s love.
The certainties we do have, which can never be torn away, are -
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,
the love of God,
and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.
Thanks be to God!
THREE BOOKS BY BRUCE PREWER
THAT ARE CURRENTLY AVAILABLE
BY ORDERING ONLINE
OR FROM YOUR LOCAL CHRISTIAN BOOKSHOP
