| 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. |
John 14: 15-21 (Sermon 2: “Truth Gets Personal”)
1 Peter 3:13-22
Acts 17: 22-31 (Sermon 1: “Too Sophisticated?”)
Psalm 66: 8-20
PREPARATION
Christ is alive!
He is alive indeed!
Now we know for sure
that God is not very far from any one of us,
for in God we live and move and have our being.
Wonderful are you, God
our God;
you do not scorn our prayers
or remove your committed love from us.
OR
Because of the living Lord Jesus,
we can confidently say:
We are never alone,
for the Counsellor, the Spirit of truth,
is with us forever.
Bidden or unbidden, God is always present.
As the sea is to the
fish,
as the air is to the bird,
so is God to all who live by faith, hope and
love...
Blessed is our God, who has never rejected our prayer,
nor ever removed from us the love that endures forever.
Bidden or unbidden, God is present.
PRAYER OF APPROACH
Loving God,
by your Spirit lace streamers of holy joy through this time of worship, that we
may be able to offer you something far brighter than duty and much livelier
than religious solemnity. Let us
worship you with love and love you with our worship. Through
Christ Jesus our ever-living inspiration.
Amen!
CONFESSION AND ASSURANCE
My friends, we come to God with prayers of confession, not to rake up added guilt and self hatred, but to become repentant and re-embrace the new life which God offers us through Jesus.
Let us pray.
When our faith becomes shaky and we fall into a deep trough of doubts and anxieties, Lord have mercy.
Lord have mercy and rescue us all.
When our hope and joy lapse and we get bogged down in the swamp of despondency, Christ have mercy.
Christ have mercy and rescue us all.
When our hearts grow cold towards the rights and needs of others and apathy settles in like a wintry fog, Lord have mercy.
Lord have mercy and heal us all...
When our minds become confused by the Babel of the world’s many religious voices, and we lapse into a spiritual cynicism, Christ have mercy.
Christ have mercy and heal us all
God, most holy and most merciful, grant each of us a sincere repentance, a heart open to forgiveness, a will ready to make amends, and a soul fixed on loving. Through Christ Jesus our Redeemer.
Amen
FORGIVENESS
It is true! You’ld better believe it! “Where sin flourishes the redeeming grace of God flourishes all the more.” We are a forgiven and reclaimed people.
Thanks be to God.
PRAYER FOR
CHILDREN
God our wonderful Friend,
please remind us
that by day or by night,
your Spirit is with us.
In our tears and in our laughter,
your Spirit is with us.
At home or at school,
in the play-ground or in church,
your Spirit is with us.
When we are with friends
or when we are all alone,
your Spirit is with us.
Through Jesus Christ
our big Brother and Saviour.
Amen!
PSALM 66: 8-20
Celebrate your God, you people,
let the songs of praise be heard loud and clear.
For God has given us a
great living
and has not
permitted our feet to slip.
You God, you have surely tested our faith,
like silver we have been assayed.
You certainly let the
pressures fall on us,
and we have been
kicked in the groin.
You allowed others to trample over us,
we have gone through hell and high water.
Yet now you have led
us out of disaster
and given us an
open space.
I will bring my offerings to your house,
I will renew my vows to you;
I will fulfil the
things my lips uttered,
all that my mouth
promised when in trouble.
I will give you the best of my possessions,
like sweet incense my thanks will rise.
I will make an
offering of my strengths,
of the choicest
that I have and am.
You who are in awe of God, come and listen,
...and I will tell of what has been done for me.
I cried at the top of my voice to my God
and praised with a joyful tongue.
If I had nursed evil in my heart,
God would not have listened.
But the truth is that God has heard
and known my outspoken prayer.
Wonderful are you, loving God,
for you have not been deaf to me,
or for one second removed your love
and faithfulness
from me.
Ó B D Prewer 2001
SEARCHING FOR
GOD?
OR
“NONE ARE SO BLIND”
“In God we live and
move
and
have our being.”
I met a “cool” magpie
perched on my back fence,
who
was on for a talk
of
religion and sense:
“I’ve found farms
and gold mines,
parks and city towers,
studied sky and landscape
through the long daylight hours.
The mountains and clouds are certainly true,
foxes and eagles are as real as you,
but as for the Air my mother adored
it’s not to be found at home or abroad.”
I met a “cool” dolphin
swimming off Byron Bay,
a
sharp witted fellow
who
had plenty to say:
“I’ve done all my research
from ‘round here to Fiji
to find that divinity
that some call the Sea.
I’ve found coral reefs, and a great clam’s lid,
sunken ships and sharks, and plenty giant squid,
but as for the Sea to which great whales sing,
I can’t find a sign of that sort of Thing.”
© B.D. Prewer 2000
SERMON
1: TOO SOPHISTICATED?
Acts 17:29-31
This is the era when
the world is to be justly judged by one particular man who God has appointed.
He has sealed the appointment of this one man by raising him from the
dead.
Whenever we talk about the resurrection of Jesus, there are some who shake their heads with pity and say: “We have come a long way since that stuff... We are too sophisticated to believe those naive tales.”
Even in the church we encounter some who imagine that we today are far more sophisticated than the people of New Testament times. “They were poorly educated and superstitious but today education and science have rid us of superstition. They lived with their heads in a cloud but we have our heads screwed on. They went in for wishful thinking. but we rationally face the hard facts.”
That is debatable.
ST PAUL AND A “SOPHISTICATED” AUDIENCE
Today we read from the Acts of the Apostles. We heard the story of that tireless missionary, St Paul, arriving in Athens and trying to preach the Gospel in that most culture-conscious city in the then known world. Beautiful Athens. In Athens sophisticated culture was all around Paul. Architecture. music, theatre, philosophical academies, skilful oratory, esoteric religions.
After spending some days chatting people in the public squares and market places, talking with philosophers of various schools, and speaking with Jews at the local synagogue, Paul came to the attention of the Athenian elite. He was invited to address the famous Athenian assembly in their meeting place on Mars Hill, not far from where the glorious Parthenon stands.
Paul, himself an exceedingly well educated man, learned in both Hebrew, Roman and Greek literature, took his place in the midst of the assembly and began his address in fluent Greek.
They listened attentively as he complimented them on their spiritual quest, their public altars and places of worship. He even quoted from their poets: We are indeed God’s offspring. The audience was impressed. Things were going very well for Paul.
Then he came to the core of what he had to say:
If we are then God’s own offspring,
surely we should not think of depicting God with idols
made of
stone, silver , gold or any other visible form inspired by human imagination
and
art. Such
things belongs to the era of ignorance, which God in his pity has overlooked
But now is the time to renounce such
things. This is the era when the world is to be justly
judged by
one particular man who God has appointed. He has sealed the appointment of
this one man by
raising him from the dead. (Acts
17:29-31)
Hear that last sentence again:
He has sealed the appointment of
this one man by raising him from the dead.
That was the moment in Paul’s address when things turned decidedly sour.
Were these sophisticated dignitaries of Athens, expected to sit there and listen to such superstitious prattle? This Jew was not the philosopher they had assumed. He was not worth listening too.
Some of the council members whistled and jeered when he spoke about the man who had risen from the dead. The more polite had Paul ushered to the exit, covering their embarrassment with saying “Maybe we will hear you again on this matter at some other time.”
Paul left in chagrin.
You see, it is not just smart contemporary thinkers who baulk at the idea of resurrection. We did not discover the skill of asking smart questions, and of doubting trite answers that some might give.
There were plenty of the so-called sophisticated people around in New Testament times. Jews, Greeks, Romans, Egyptians. There were plenty of educated thinkers. They knew that dead men remained well and truly dead. They did not rise up from death and (in some form of new body) present themselves to adoring disciples. The dead were entombed and they rotted. Dead was dead. That was it. End of story.
Paul himself was a sophisticated man. Unlike most Jews, Paul held full Roman citizenship. It was this sophisticated man who once had been the enemy of Christ Jesus, who now .made his witness to a sophisticated audience. He knew what he had to say could well be scorned.
As I said earlier, at first Paul tried to woo them by showing that he too was a man of letters. That was okay for starters. But he had to go further, or there was no point in him being there. He had to make his testimony to the fact of the risen Christ. It was a testimony stemming from that day some years before, when Paul as an enemy of Christianity, was on the way to Damascus to persecute Christians. There on that road, the Risen Lord Jesus appeared to him in a blaze of light. What had prior to that event seemed nonsense to a sophisticated Saul, became a glorious truth. Christ was alive. That experience captivated the man and turned him into the tireless Gospel preacher who ended up in Athens. He had to tell it as it was. He had to speak of the crucified and risen Christ Jesus.
This is the era when the world is to
be justly judged by one particular man
whom God
has appointed. He has sealed the appointment of this one man
by raising him from the dead.
At that time, and in every age since, there have been erudite men and women who have pondered deeply about the resurrection. Doubts are not a modern phenomena. It is only in our stunning arrogance that we think ourselves to be smarter and wiser than cultures that went before us. It is an arrogance that is close to hubris. Hubris? That Greek word used to describe the kind of human pride that the gods despised and would bring tumbling down. There is much hubris around in our world today.
ARE WE REALLY MORE SOPHISTICATED?
To find that the witness to the risen Lord Jesus leaves our reason floundering, is nothing new. It was too much for the wise men in the assembly on Mars Hill in Athens. It has perplexed, or offended, wise men and women in every generation since.
I would harshly question whether we are in any way more sophisticated than those Athenians were. Or for that matter than St Paul was.
It is true that we have exchanged a willow sprig for an electric toothbrush, flickering oil lamps for electric lights, and a choice of wine or ten wines for a selection of hundreds, but does that make us more sophisticated?
It is true that we may have replaced communal story telling while gathered around an open fire, with sitting around a TV and watching adds for face-lifts, condoms, and jeans, or viewing episodes of Neighbours or Who wants to be a Millionaire, or maybe repeats of Mash or The Bill. But I ask you, does that make us more sophisticated?
It is true that we have traded in donkeys, horses and camels for motor vehicles that slaughter and permanently maim millions of road users every year. Are we therefore wiser?
It is true that we have thrown away our spears and arrows and slings and gone in for machine guns, rockets and cluster bombs. Is that a mark of sophistication?
It is true that we have conquered polio yet acquired aids, installed a network of drains and sewers and pumped much of it’s pollution into rivers and the ocean. We have invented medicinal drugs yet also produced ecstasy and refined cocaine, split the atom, and stock piled nuclear weapons. Are we then more advanced in wisdom?
Sophisticated means wise. Wise in the way we think and the way we live. Wise in the goals we set and the methods we use to attain them. Wise in our choice of pleasures, wise in our politics and law making. Wise in our care for the young and the vulnerable. Wise in the home and in the workplace. Wise in our relaxation and recreation.
Are we wiser than those Christians of New Testament times? Too well educated to believe in the resurrection of God’s true Son? Proudly cultured like those Greeks who jeered and ushered Paul out the door? Or are we just as blind and self-opinionated? Maybe even more arrogant than the Athenians?
Are we too wise to believe in Christ as the very image of the invisible God, and in his glorious transcending of death to be with us always?
FAITH IS A GIFT OF GOD
Belief does not result from wisdom. There was no shortage of worldly wisdom throughout the empire of New Testament times. There is no shortage in our times.
There are plenty of people with IQ’s that may vastly outstrip ours, yet who firmly trust the risen Lord with all they have and are. They do so after fully weighing the arguments of others with similar intelligence who doubt the truth of Christ Jesus... And there are others with much lower IQ’s than ours who imagine themselves as being far too smart and sophisticated to take Christ seriously.
That Jesus lives, and is the source of liberation and healing to all who believe in him, has nothing to do with worldly wisdom. Nothing to do with scientific or technological sophistication. Our faith is a gift of God, confounding worldly wisdom and transcending mere logic. It is a gift, to be either accepted or rejected.
By trusting this Jesus we accept the gift and take leap of faith, and we then discover in our own lives that death did not hold him; no more than it will hold all those who share his love and die expectantly.
If ever we start thinking we are wiser than the first Christians, we are being abysmally stupid. Doubt can be a healthy thing, as long as we doubt our doubts with the same stringency as we do faith.
In my collection of poems and prayers, More Australian Psalms, the following is included in the section on discipleship.
THE FAITH THAT DOUBTS
Give
praise to God
for faith that
doubts
the world that brays
around us.
Praise
God for that
small mustard seed
that on the Wind
has found us.
By
faith we doubt
the progress myth
and the latest
science fashion.
We
do not trust
technology
that spawns without
compassion.
By
faith we doubt
that better schools
must elevate
the spirit.
Or
that more goods
and services
bring out the soul’s
true merit.
By
faith we doubt
that Einstein
was more advanced
than Dorcus.
Or
that breaking
genetic codes
makes us wiser
than Jesus.
The
worldly wise
have no such doubt
it’s not a gift
they vie for.
Yet
such a gift
let loose on earth
is something God
would die for.
If we are then God’s own offspring,
surely we should not think of depicting God with idols
made of stone,
silver, gold or any other visible form inspired by human imagination and
art. Such things belongs to the era of ignorance, which God in his
pity has overlooked.
But now is the time to renounce such
things. This is the era when the world is to be justly
judged by
one particular man who God has appointed. He has sealed the appointment of
this one
man by raising him from the dead.
(Acts 17:29-31)
SERMON 1: TOO SOPHISTICATED?
Acts 17:29-31
This is the era when the world is to be justly judged by one
particular man who God has appointed. He has sealed the appointment of this one
man by raising him from the dead.
Whenever we talk about the
resurrection of Jesus, there are some who shake their heads with pity and say:
“We have come a long way since that stuff... We are too sophisticated to
believe those naive tales.”
Too sophisticated? That is debatable.
ST PAUL AND A “SOPHISTICATED”
AUDIENCE
Today we read from the Acts of the
Apostles. T he story of that tireless missionary, St Paul, arriving in Athens
and trying to preach the Gospel in that most sophisticated city in the then
known world. Beautiful Athens. Architecture.
music, theatre, philosophical academies, skilful
oratory, esoteric religions.
After spending some days chatting
people in the public squares and market places, talking with philosophers of
various schools, and speaking with Jews at the local synagogue, Paul came to
the attention of the elite Athenian sophisticates . He
was invited to address the famous Athenian assembly in their meeting place on
Mars Hill, not far from where the glorious Parthenon stands.
Paul, himself an exceedingly well
educated man, learned in both Hebrew, Roman and Greek
literature, took his place in the midst of the assembly and began his address
in fluent Greek.
They listened attentively as he
complimented them on their spiritual quest, their public altars and places of
worship. He even quoted from their poets: We
are indeed God’s offspring. The audience was impressed. Things were going
very well for Paul.
Then he came to the core of what he
had to say:
If we are then
God’s own offspring, surely we should not think of depicting God with idol made of stone, silver , gold or any other
visible form inspired by human imagination and
art. Such things belongs to the era of ignorance, which God
in his pity has overlooked
But now is the time to renounce such things. This
is the era when the world is to be justly judged by one particular man who God
has appointed. He has sealed the appointment of this one man by raising him
from the dead. (Acts 17:29-31)
Hear that last sentence again:
He has sealed
the appointment of this one man by raising him from the dead.
That was the moment in Paul’s address
when things turned decidedly sour.
Were these sophisticated dignitaries
of Athens, expected to sit there and listen to such superstitious prattle? This Jew was not the philosopher they had
assumed. He was not worth listening too.
Some of the council members whistled
and jeered when he spoke about the man who had risen from the dead. The more
polite Paul ushered to the exit, covering their embarrassment with saying
“Maybe we will hear you again on this matter at some other time.”
Paul left in chagrin.
You see, it is not just smart
contemporary thinkers who baulk at the idea of resurrection. We did not
discover the skill of asking smart questions, and of doubting trite answers
that some might give.
There were plenty of the so-called
sophisticated people around in New Testament times. Jews, Greeks, Romans,
Egyptians. There were plenty of educated thinkers. They knew that dead men
remained well and truly dead. They did not rise up from death and (in some form
of new body) present themselves to adoring disciples. The dead were entombed
and they rotted. Dead was dead. That was
it. End of story.
Paul himself was a sophisticated man.
Unlike most Jews, Paul held full Roman citizenship. It was this sophisticated
man who once had been the enemy of Christ Jesus, who now .made his witness to a
sophisticated audience. He knew what he
had to say could well be scorned.
As I said earlier, at first Paul tried
to woo them by showing that he too was a man of letters. That was okay for
starters. But he had to go further, or there was no point in him being there.
He had to make his testimony to the fact of the risen Christ. He had to tell it
as it was. He had to speak of the crucified and risen Christ Jesus.
This is the era
when the world is to be justly judged by one particular man
whom God has appointed. He has sealed the appointment of
this one man
by raising him from the dead.
Alawys been erudite
men and women who have scorned the resurrection. Doubts are not
a modern phenomena. Only stunning
arrogance permits us to think ourselves smarter and wiser than cultures that
went before us. It is an arrogance that is close to hubris. Hubris?
That Greek word used to describe the kind of human pride that the gods despised
and would bring tumbling down. There is much hubris around in our world today.
ARE WE REALLY MORE SOPHISTICATED?
I would harshly question whether we
are in any way more sophisticated than those Athenians were. Or for that matter
than St Paul was.
It is true that we have exchanged a
willow sprig for an electric toothbrush, flickering oil lamps for electric
lights, and a choice of wine or ten wines for a selection of hundreds, but does
that make us more sophisticated?
It is true that we may have replaced
communal story telling while gathered around an open fire, with sitting around
a TV and watching adds for face-lifts, condoms, and jeans, or viewing episodes
of Neighbours or Who wants to be a Millionaire?
It is true that we have traded in
donkeys, horses and camels for motor vehicles that slaughter and permanently
maim millions of road users every year.
Are we therefore wiser?
It is true that we have thrown away
our spears and arrows and slings and gone in for machine guns, rockets and
cluster bombs. Is that a mark of sophistication?
It is true that we have conquered
polio yet acquired aids, installed a network of drains and sewers and pumped
much of it’s pollution into rivers and the ocean.
Sophisticated should mean wise. Wise
in the way we think and the way we live. Wise in the goals we set and the
methods we use to attain them. Wise in our choice of pleasures, wise in our
politics and law making. Wise in our care for the young and
the vulnerable. Wise in the home and in the workplace. Wise in our relaxation and recreation.
Are we wiser than those Christians of
New Testament times? Too well educated to believe in the resurrection of God’s
true Son? Proudly cultured like those Greeks who jeered and ushered Paul out
the door? Or are we just as blind and self-opinionated? Maybe
even more arrogant than the Athenians?
FAITH IS A GIFT OF GOD
Belief does not result from
wisdom. There was no shortage of worldly
wisdom throughout the empire of New Testament times. There is no shortage in
our times.
There are plenty of people with IQ’s
that may vastly outstrip ours, yet who firmly trust the risen Lord with all
they have and are. They do so after fully weighing the arguments of others with
similar intelligence who doubt the truth of Christ Jesus... And there are others with much lower IQ’s who
imagine themselves as being far too smart and sophisticated to take Christ
seriously.
That Jesus lives, and is the source
of liberation and healing to all who believe in him, has nothing to do with
scientific or technological sophistication. Our faith is a gift of God,
confounding worldly wisdom and transcending mere logic. It is a gift, to be
either accepted or rejected. T his is indicts us in to the very sophistication
of that Holy F r eind who is the Source and
Sustenance of all things seen and unseen.
If ever we start thinking we are
wiser than the first Christians, we are being abysmally stupid. Doubt can be a
healthy thing, as long as we doubt our doubts with the same stringency as we do
faith.
In my collection of poems and
prayers, More Australian Psalms, the
following is included in the section on discipleship.
THE FAITH THAT DOUBTS
Give
praise to God
for faith that
doubts
the world that brays
around us.
Praise
God for that
small mustard seed
that on the Wind
has found us.
By
faith we doubt
the progress myth
and the latest
science fashion.
We
do not trust
technology
that spawns without
compassion.
By
faith we doubt
that better schools
must elevate
the spirit.
Or
that more goods
and services
bring out the soul’s
true merit.
By
faith we doubt
that Einstein
was more advanced
than Dorcus.
Or
that breaking
genetic codes
makes us wiser
than Jesus.
The
worldly wise
have no such doubt
it’s not a gift
they vie for.
Yet
such a gift
let loose on earth
is something God
would die for.
SERMON 2: TRUTH GETS PERSONAL
John 14: 16-17
“God will give you
another counsellor, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth whom the
world cannot receive, because it neither sees it nor knows it. You know it
because it lives with you and will be in you.”
Have you met any truth lately? In the New Testament, truth is personal. Not some thing, but some One. Through Jesus and the Holy Spirit, truth gets personal.
In the upper room, on the night of his betrayal, Jesus assured his bewildered friends that they would not be left without divine assistance. There would be another Counsellor, the Spirit of truth. Here truth is not some abstract quality but personal relationship.
In our world where deceit is practised as a major profession, via political “spin doctors” and advertising specialists, it comes as a relief to know that there is someone called by Jesus. “The Spirit of truth.”
DECEITFUL TIMES
I have long suspected that in the Ten Commandments the most important command after the first two concerning worshipping God alone, is the ninth: you shall not bear false witness. It seems to me that as long as truth is respected, a community can deal with most sins. But when deceit rules, then all becomes chaos.
For example, society can handle theft as long there is integrity in police and witnesses. Society can sort out the breakdown of marriages as long as the participants will be honest. I have seen marriages cope creatively with adultery where painful truth has ruled. We can even cope with murder, providing witnesses, police and jurors and judges retain their veracity.
However, when the essence of the ninth commandment breaks down, when truth ceases to be the common bond in communal interaction, then all hell has broken loose. Sadly I believe we are very much in that situation in our times.
The “post modern” world seems to want it to be so. Relativity of all things, the quickest way to exert one’s naked self interest, the ruthless using of other people like furniture for one’s comfort or articles for one’s profit, is widespread.
I have a confession to make. I was very late becoming a fan of the TV series. I ignored it at first, then one evening I was languidly watching it and suddenly realised that I was looking into the soul of post modernist relativism. Here was the brave new world, not of the immoral but of the amoral. people. Here honesty had no status, people were there to be exploited, even one’s best friends could be laughed about behind their backs but lauded in their presence. Parents were a burden. Commitments were to be avoided. Marriage was a trap. Sex was a bargaining chip. This was a society of non-violent (most of the time) sociopaths.
I will admit that before long I also started to appreciate the humour of the Seinfeld show; the humour in trivial situations and comments and attitudes. In fact, I came to watch it for its humour rather than pondering its social comment. It has given me many a good belly laugh. But the fact remains it is a barren existence that Jerry, Elaine and George maintain, and if they are in some degree a mirror of our contemporary Western way of life, then we are in deep effluent.
Therefore I must ask it of myself, and ask it of you: ‘To what degree are we being seduced by this pervading ethos of deceit?’
ONE DEPENDABLE TRUTH
Thank goodness there is a Spirit of truth:to pneuma thV alhqeiaV .
On what can you depend in this deceitful world? The truth of God in Christ Jesus,
that is what! This is one reality
which is not relative, one on which we can completely rely, one voice that
never fools us, one great love which will never cheat on us. This truth is personal.
The Spirit of truth is of course God with us. As Jesus said: You know it
because it lives with you and will be in you.” John 14: 16-17
This truth is not erudite information about physics, or astronomy, or psychology, or theology. It is a relationship of God with humanity. A relationship which God initiates and to which we can respond with a “no,” or with a thousand celebratory “yeses” each day. It is the sheer veracity of God’s love leading us towards the fulfilment of self and community.
THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH SEES AS WE REALLY ARE
The Spirit of truth sees us as we really are yet accepts and treasures us. Nothing can be hidden from this truth. Nor is there any need to hide anything from this truth. For the pure veracity of God can face the degraded veracity which is our truth without disgust or despair.
I find this one of the wonderful things about the Spirit of truth. Here we do not have to pretend, or makes excuses, or try to hide any ugliness. Just as men and women found themselves at peace in the presence of Jesus of Nazareth, so we too find ourselves at peace in the Presence of the Spirit of truth.
The Spirit also sharpens our perceptions of life, and at times alerts us to dangers or opens our eyes to new opportunities for serving Christ. Traditionally the church used the words “convict” to describe this ministry of the Spirit of truth. The Spirit convicts us of sin, or convinces us of wrongs to be righted, neighbours to be helped, enemies to be forgiven, apologies to be made, achievements in others to be gladly applauded.
BETTER THAN OUR CONSCIENCE
Please do not confuse this work of the Spirit of truth with your conscience. Conscience is a handy but very fallible tool. It is a construct of the values of parents, teachers, friends, pastors, Sunday School, books that deeply influence us, and saints who profoundly inspire us. But sometimes our conscience is also corrupted from some of these sources.
The Spirit of truth is greater than conscience. In fact the
Spirit sometimes wishes to take some unnecessary burden out of our conscience,
or contradict some attitude embedded in conscience, or sensitise our conscious
to issues that we must take more seriously. The First Letter of John reminds us
that conscience is not absolute: “God is
greater than our conscience and knows the whole picture.”
To trust the Spirit of truth may mean enduring the pain of having conscience reshaped. And believe me that is indeed a painful business. I do not like change; especially not the change of deep down parts of my being with which I am familiar and comfortable.
The Spirit of truth is the Counsellor, the paraklhtoV who (like a barrister conducting a fierce cross examination) can make us face things that we thought were good but we now begin to see are distortions of the best that God wishes for us.
LOOKING TOWARDS PENTECOST
It is implied that Jesus himself has been God’s counsellor up to this point, “God will give you another counsellor.” The Spirit of truth is not different from Jesus, but gives the same hard challenges and the same warm comfort and healing that Jesus gave to those around him. No wonder that in the New Testament the words--the “Spirit of God” the “Spirit of Christ” and the “Holy Spirit” are used interchangeably.
Truth, God’s truth, is no kinder and no tougher than the Jesus whose life we admire and praise and love. There is laughter in God’s truth. There is compassion in God’s truth. There is judgement in God’s truth. There is grace in God’s truth. There is a cross in God’s truth. There are wounds in God’s truth. There is resurrection joy in God’s truth.
Around us in this twenty first century, there are mass of lies and deceits; like smog over a large city on a still autumn day, infiltrating our offices, our homes and our lungs... There are a few, maybe more than a few, deceits within us. Some of them are the same lies and deceits that had Jesus hounded, abused and slaughtered. But in the midst of all this the Counsellor, the Spirit of truth, will be personally with and within the friends of Jesus, determined to set us free from all falsity.
In a fortnight’s time we will celebrate Pentecost, that great eruption of the Spirit of truth in the young church. Why not, in this fortnight, make it your prayer and discipline to empty out some of the junk in your being and make more room; more room for more of what you already have but can have in larger fullness...
By the way, if you have more it will show itself in more love for others, for love is the only infallible sign of the Presence of the Spirit of truth.
I BELIEVE
I believe in truth as a living Reality,
not captured in theory or a creed,
but revealed to those who love;
the truth of Jesus,
the Spirit of truth,
the truth of God.
Because I believe I trust,
not blindly but open eyed and bold
as a child climbing into a mother’s lap;
the truth of Jesus,
the Spirit of truth,
the truth of God.
Because I believe I serve,
not as a slave that serves a tyrant
but like farmers reaping a harvest;
the truth of Jesus,
the Spirit of truth,
the truth of God.
Ó B D Prewer 2001
PRAYERS FOR OTHERS
Today there are many spaces in these prayers in which I invite you to insert your private love and concern for others. The following bidding and response will be used after each prayer:
Spirit of truth enlighten us all.
Spirit of truth lead
us into the fullness of Christ’s love.
Let us pray for those who are confused by life, and fear there is no Spirit of truth anywhere.
Let us pray for those who are too cocksure, who think they hold the truth without error.
Let us pray for those cowered by oppression & suffering, who fear that despair is the truth.
Let us pray for the severely handicapped, who are angry with whatever truth is responsible.
Let us pray for the very healthy and proud, who imagine that all the truth favours the strong.
Let us pray for the dying and those who love them, who fear that death is the ultimate truth.
Let us pray for those who nurse the new born, who today intuitively know that truth is love.
Let us pray for those who today find faith in Christ, and eagerly want to be led into all truth.
FOR OURSELVES
Holy
Friend, pervade us with your living Truth,
making us more at peace with ourselves
and more understanding of others.
Please give
us a deeper insight into, and concern for,
those who seem shallow, course or utterly selfish.
Make us
patient with all who easily irritate us
but firm with those who try to manipulate us.
Teach us
how to live loyally, lovingly, wisely,
courageously and with abundant good humour.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen!
THE SENDING OUT
Through the encouragement of Jesus, let the Spirit of truth be the abiding reality
in your sleeping and waking,
working and relaxing, praying and laughing.
For in the God of Christ
we live and move and have your being.
May the love of God be the strength of your mind and heart.
May the grace of Christ be the salve for your bruises and wounds.
May the friendship of the Spirit be the joy of your resilient soul.
Now and ever more.
Yes, now and evermore.
Amen!
THREE BOOKS BY BRUCE PREWER
THAT ARE CURRENTLY AVAILABLE
BY ORDERING ONLINE
OR FROM YOUR LOCAL CHRISTIAN BOOKSHOP
