| 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. |
Year
C, LENT 1
Luke 4: 1-13 (Sermon 1: “We are the
Experts’)
(Sermon
2: “Getting Back to Bedrock”)
Romans 10:
8b-13
Deuteronomy
26:1-11
Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16
PREPARATION
On this first Sunday in Lent,
the grace of Christ Jesus be
with you all.
And also with you.
What is the chief goal of humanity?
The chief goal
is to glorify and enjoy God
forever.
It is an awesome thing to fall into the hands of the
living God;
But it is
tragic thing to fall out of them.
OR¾
On this first Sunday in lent,
I call you to put first things first:
Human beings shall not live by bread alone
You shall
worship the Lord, your God,
This God alone
shall you serve.
You who live in the shelter of the Most High,
you who remain in the shade of
the Almighty,
will say:
You, Lord, are
my refuge and fortress,
my God is whom I completely
trust.
PRAYER OF APPROACH
God most beautiful, God most holy, God most loving,
we ask for your blessing as we continue this journey through Lent.. Let us see through the triviality and deceptions which
accumulate in our daily living, and rediscover our spiritual truth, that with
integrity and vulnerability we may worship you with humble wonder and joy. Through Christ Jesus your true Son, and our Redeemer.
Amen!
CONFESSION AND ASSURANCE
Seek the Saviour while he may be found; call upon
him while he is near.
For he will have mercy and
abundantly pardon.
Let us pray.
Since even when we give our best and strongest love
to your service, we still fall short of the glory you intended for us; Lord
have mercy.
Lord have mercy.
Since even in our moments of sharpest clarity and wisdom
we are yet creatures of profound ignorance and much foolishness; Christ have
mercy.
Christ have mercy.
Since you know how hard it is for us the see your
truth clearly, to follow it fully, and to love you completely; Lord have mercy.
Lord have mercy.
Gracious God, the magnitude of our sins is far
outreached by the magnitude of your mercies. We your grateful people turn to
you in trust, asking through Christ Jesus that our sins may be forgiven and our
folly overruled by your abundant grace. Through this same
Jesus Christ.
Amen!
ABSOLUTION
The Scripture says: “No one who believes in God
shall be put to shame. For every one who calls upon
the name of the Lord will be saved.”
By the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, I assure all
who repent of their sins, that your guilt is annulled
and your freedom is granted.
Thanks be to God!
PRAYER FOR CHILDREN
Good
and Bad People
Loving God.
you understand all people,
both the good and the bad.
Please sort us out;
make the bad people good
and the good people nice.
Through Jesus Christ
our brother and Saviour.
Amen!
From¾ “Prayers For Aussie Kids”
Ó B D Prewer & Open
Book Publishers.
PSALM
91: 1-2 & 9-16
You who live with the highest Friend,
and rest in the shade of pure
Beauty,
shall say to the Holy One: “My
Home,
my Triune God in whom I
trust.”
Because you have trusted the Holy One,
making the Highest your own home,
no irredeemable evil shall
happen to you,
no hopeless disaster flatten
your flimsy life..
God places you in the care of angels,
to look after you wherever you
go.
They will steady you with their hands
so that you shall not trip
over a stone.
You shall tread on beast and serpent,
you shall trample the devil
under your feet.
God shall save those who cling to him,
and lift up those who call his
name.
When we shout for help, You
will answer us,
when under pressure, You will be
with us.
You will make us content us with a full life,
and display your saving,
healing love.
© B.D. Prewer 2000
THE LIAR
The Tempter
from the Dreamtime
is prince of lies;
he never tires
of spinning
tales
“just for our gain;”
sadly his wiles
are not in vain.
The Tempter
in the desert
plays his best role,
yet meets his match
in one pure Soul
who shares our cry
yet in the test
sees through the lie.
© B.D. Prewer 2000
COLLECT
We thank you, loving God, that
we have a Saviour who knows how hard it is to combat temptation and how easy it
is to fall.
May we, in fellowship with his tenacious Spirit,
face our testing times with humility and courage, neither expecting
too little or too much of ourselves, and never underestimating the power
of your love to rehabilitate us if we should fall.
Through the grace of Jesus
Christ our Lord.
Amen
SERMON 1: WE ARE THE EXPERTS
Luke 4:2
“For forty
days he was tempted by the devil.” Luke
4: 2.
Today the subject is one on which we are all
experts: temptation. We will look at Jesus’ temptations and ours. Correction; not every one of “ours” because to do so might take
until midnight?
I said, in matters of temptation, we are definitely
the experts. Yet........yet....like many so-called “experts” in this world, we
may not see things as clearly as we reckon. Maybe we don't see the wood for the
trees?
So let’s look closely at temptations. Those of Jesus, and ours.
Firstly, Jesus’ temptations were real ones. I need to emphasise that, because when we
read them in the gospel stories, they seem very unlike from ours. All that
stuff about camping in the wilderness without food, the devil actually taunting
him about turning stones into bread, jumping from the temple tower, ruling all the world. Is
that the stuff of your temptations? They
are not of mine.
Therefore I underline it again: they were real
for Jesus. The tempter knew that Jesus’ strengths could also be his
weakness. So he targeted them. Jesus
felt capable of doing those extraordinary things which the devil suggested. He
was after all, the most gifted man ever to be tempted.
Jesus was tempted to misuse his strengths; and to do
so in order to prove his identity as God’s chosen Son.
That is where his temptations meet up with ours.
Broadly speaking, there are two types of
temptations: we can be tempted at the point of our weaknesses, or we can be
tempted at the point of our strengths.
TEMPTED AT OUR WEAK POINTS
If I gave you five minutes to list your weaknesses,
I reckon you could list half a dozen with two minutes to spare.
Most of our weaknesses are easy to spot. The seven
deadly sins, with a few contemporary variations, are not difficult to identify.
It is obvious that we can be tempted at the point of our known weaknesses. We see it coming and exclaim: “Ah Oh! Here we
go again! Another arm wrestle with the old enemy!”
However, there is one particular brand of weakness
which makes things easy for the tempter. This is the weakness we do not want to
recognise, the one (or ones) we hide from ourselves. He
who thinks he has no lust, is as they say, a sitting duck. She
who thinks she has no pride, is, as the say, up sewer creek without a paddle. They who shout the loudest that their faith is strong and without
any doubts, are the very ones likely to be teetering on the brink of collapse
into faithlessness.
I will leave obvious weaknesses, and the ones some
refuse to admit, there for now.
TEMPTED AT OUR STRONG POINTS
How about strengths?
Now, suppose I gave you five minutes to list your
strengths, how would you go? I reckon you might ask for an extension of time;
not because you have so many strengths to list, but because of your confounded
modesty. Modesty? Yes, your modesty.
Not all of you, but most of you.
Like me, many of you have been socially conditioned
not to think about your strengths lest you get a swollen head. All kinds of
religious puritanism, both catholic and protestant,
frowns heavily on thinking “too highly of yourself.”.
That kind of modesty, puts
us at special risk in the hour of temptation. With false modesty, we are half
way to losing before we start.
Recognised or not, they will become the focus of
some of the most potent temptations.
For example,
* Beautiful women or a handsome men,
are often tempted
to use their good looks to manipulate others.
* An outstanding sportsperson who is in a position of
considerable influence can be tempted
to “fix” the outcomes.
* It is the extremely smart and trusted accountant who
is most likely to be tempted
to “cook” the books.
* The brilliant computer nerd is the one who is usually
most at risk of being tempted
into the world of computer crime.
* The lawyer who is deft and fluent with words can often
be easily tempted
to camouflage or twist the truth.
* The humble woman can be tempted
to take pride in knowing that she is seen by others as being
humble.
* The very wise man may sooner or later fall for the
inevitable temptation
of admiring his own wisdom.
* The popular child at school may
be tempted
to misuse their school yard fame to isolate and hurt any who
cross her/him.
* The extraordinary Jesus Christ, was tempted
to prove his status by putting on a spectacular display for
the masses.,
using his special strengths for the wrong reason.
When we are tempted at the nerve point of our well
recognised weaknesses, we usually see the danger coming. The red lights flash
vigorously!
But when we are tempted at the point of strengths,
we may be blithely oblivious to the danger. We too easily fool ourselves. It is
only after we have fallen, that we realise what we have been “done like a
dinner!” Tempted, overrun, fallen, corrupted, often
without a struggle.
COUNTERING TEMPTATION
What to do about it?
First of all, we need to realise what is
happening.
Here is a Lenten
penance for you : Know yourself better. Challenge your self
deceits. No longer permit yourself to “fudge” in the area of weaknesses and
strengths.
The Gospel of Thomas has Jesus saying: Know yourself. For those who know themselves shall reign. They shall be in charge of
themselves.
How?
* Really listen to yourself: Hear your softly spoken
thoughts, drag into the light the ones that try to hide like silverfish. Feel
your feelings, confess them to yourself, expose them
to the gaze of Christ.
* Be ruthless with yourself. Deal with whatever
“fudging” you hear yourself saying, face up to what
the Spirit of Christ whispers to you. Ask: “Do I really want to withstand
temptation? How much do I want to conquer with Christ? ”
* Listen to others. They see things we may not see.
Often they try to warn us, usually so gently that we brush their concern aside.
Trust the God who might be speaking through others.
* Listen carefully to the words of the Bible. The
Scriptures remain a potent resource for self assessment and guidance. Their
accumulated insight stills shines through like a beam of sunshine into the smog
and illusion of this self deceived culture in which we are immersed over our
heads.
* Don’t be discouraged when you have sincerely tried
yet fallen. Failure is not a lack of faith, but it is a lack for faith to wear
your guilt like a hair shirt. Let Christ pick you up, dust you off and sent you
on your way once more. Hopefully much wiser.
CHRIST UNDERSTANDS
Your Christ understands. I am tempted, you are
tempted, Jesus was tempted.
Jesus was tempted, tested to the human limit, not
just in the wilderness but throughout his travels in the regions of Galilee,
Samaria and Judaea. With a humble majesty of Spirit, he came through
uncompromised, and has become the only person fit to be named our hope and
salvation.
Here again is your
penance for Lent: Know yourself better, and do not be afraid of uncovering both
unpalatable weaknesses and unaffirmed strengths.
And pray. Pray often.
Lord
Jesus, true brother, true Saviour, please lure us on
by the beauty of your Spirit.
Let
us have a zest for what we might yet become,
a zeal which outweighs our tiredness from past bruising or
defeat.
Give
us buoyant spirits, born of a confidence
in your resourceful grace.
Amen.
SERMON 2: GETTING BACK TO THE BEDROCK.
Luke 4: 1-13
Jesus answered
the devil:” It is written: You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only
shall you serve.” Luke 4: 8
Are we good or bad people?
In Gene Wolfe’s fecund and insightful novel, “Return
to the Whorl”, the hero named Horn, a truly admirable person, is on a journey
by horse back, travelling with companions. Then this statement:
“We met other travellers today, four merchants with their servants and pack animals. We were glad to see them; but they, I believe, were even more glad to see us, because they had quarrelled and were eager to air their grievances. I listened as long as I could bear it and longer, reminding myself of the foolish quarrels in which I myself have been involved, often as the instigator.
It is
educational, as well as humiliating, to listen to others voicing complaints
like our own. They
were all thoroughly bad people of the type to which I belong—that is to say,
bad people who are pleased to think themselves good.”
Ah! Bull’s
eye!
They were all
thoroughly bad people of the type to which I belong—that is to say, bad people
who are pleased to think themselves good.”
That hit me like the proverbial ton of bricks!
They were
all thoroughly bad people of the type to which I belong—that is to say, bad
people who are pleased to think themselves good.”
That comment seems to me an apposite, though
discomforting, word with which to commence the penitential season of Lent.
Coming out of the blue in a novel, the truth
bypassed my usual religious defences and cut deeply. Am I numbered among those
thoroughly bad people who are pleased to think themselves
good?
JUST LISTEN TO OURSELVES
I reckon that I might often be in that category.
And most of my friends are.
And most members of the church with whom I deal.
I should really listen to myself and others talking.
Then it would become painfully clear that we spend
much of the time, comparing ourselves favourably with others. We act as if we
are better and wiser than most. We bemoan the conniving foolishness of
politicians of the “other party,” we criticise the greedy and the ruthless in
our society, we “damn with faint praise” our colleagues who taste a little
success, we seize on half-truths about other congregations or denominations
that appear to be doing better than we are, we feel sorry (in a patronising
way) for the sinners whose names make it into the newspapers and on TV.
“They were all thoroughly bad people of the
type to which I belong—that is to say, bad people who are pleased to think
themselves good.”
THE MORE SUBTLE TEMPTATIONS
That brings me to temptation. Temptation is the
usual theme for this first Sunday in lent.
When we think of temptation, what kind of things
come to mind? I would make an educated guess that it would be temptations like
sexual lust, greed, dishonesty, hurtfulness, jealousy, gluttony, gossip,
violence, and in some cases the lure of alcohol or gambling.
These tend to be the easily recognised evils.
Churches who are big on temptation, sin and guilt
and the wiles of the devil, like to loudly denounce these obvious evils. A few
go further into racism, sexism, and social injustice.
What about the more subtle ones?
Now I ask you this: How often, when the word
temptation comes to mind, do we think about the temptation to consider
ourselves “nice” people. To see ourselves as the nice people whom God must
surely like, rather than the horde of cruel, greedy, ruthless reprobates around
us in the world?
Maybe, the Tempter has got away with a big, though
subtle, one?
Maybe we have gently yielded, day after day, to the
temptation of self-righteousness? Maybe we should recognise ourselves in the
character Horn in Gene Wolfe’s story: “They were all thoroughly bad people of the
type to which I belong—that is to say, bad people who are pleased to think
themselves good.”
THE BEDROCK
Get back to bedrock.
Jesus answered
the devil:” It is written: You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only
shall you serve.” Luke 4: 8
In his temptations, Jesus turned back each time to
God:
“It is
written”. God was the ground of his confidence and his constant theme as he
repudiated Satan.
For this Lent I invite you to consider our core
disease.
Not so much particular temptations, but the fact
that without God we all diseased without hope.
Let us take the opportunity to re-ground
ourselves in the basic Bible insight that each one of us is a gravely flawed
soul who cannot afford to boast about anything except the saving grace of God
in Christ Jesus our Redeemer.
I am not asking you to fall backwards into the grim,
fearful, religious stuff.
Not self hate. Not those hair-shirted, guilt ridden,
body flagellating, attitudes. That is not the way of Christ. Please; not that
way! Don’t allow some sad, self-hating preacher push you down into that
miry pit.
Nor am I suggesting you ignore particular
temptations.
Christ had to deal with them. So must we. We must go
on combating those specific assaults on our Christian integrity, including the
self righteousness of which I have warned. Each day is a contest between light
and darkness. So “fight the good fight with all your might.”
But more fundamental is the bedrock of God’s grace.
God’s self-sacrificial love for creatures who are chronically infected by self interest. We need to
reclaim that bedrock of God’s grace, and rest our souls there. Not comparing
ourselves favourably with others, but gratefully accepting God’s acceptance of us, and praying for his help to
more adequately glorify him in all we say, and do— or refuse to do.
Jesus answered
the devil:” It is written: You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only
shall you serve.” Luke 4: 8
God first. Have faith in your God. Not
our good efforts or failures, but God. God’s saving grace first.
Perhaps among the most terrible of temptations are
those
that seek to dislodge us from
this Divine Bedrock.
THANKSGIVING
Above all earthly power and authority
reigns your almighty meekness,
O
generous Creator.
Give thanks to
God, whose
goodness endures fore ever.
Beneath all human pity and tenderness
runs your everlasting mercy,
O
generous Saviour.
Give thanks to
God, whose
goodness endures fore ever.
Through all laugher and all tears
flows your eternal intimacy,
O
generous Counsellor.
Give thanks to
God, whose
goodness endures fore ever.
Earth and heaven are filled with your glory
and we are the recipients of grace upon grace,
O
generous God of our salvation!
Give thanks to
God, whose
goodness endures fore ever.
Through Jesus Christ our
Lord.
Amen!
INTERCESSIONS
God of infinite resourcefulness, give us the will so
to pray for others that we may come to love them, and having loved them, watch
out for those specific occasions when you would have us serve them.
For those whom we find repugnant: the abusers and
exploiters, the rapists and murderers, the sadistic and the apathetic; for them
we pray:
May the grace
which nurtures us, work in them for your glory.
For the victims of inhumanity; the oppressed and the
despairing, those sexually corrupted and then thrown aside, the abused child,
battered spouse, neglected grandparent, and the tortured prisoner; for them we pray:
May the grace
which nurtures us, work in them for your glory.
For the foolish folk who are easily swayed to do
evil; in school or home, at work or in the pub, in sporting club or politics,
police force or trade union, in the ordained ministry or in the medical
professions; for them we pray:
May the grace
which nurtures us, work in them for your glory
For the church wherever it has yielded to popularity and material
prosperity, arrogance and exclusiveness, introversion and other worldliness,
self righteousness and sectarian stridency; for these we
pray:
May the grace
which nurtures us, work in them for your glory.
For the members of this congregation: if we have
succumbed to the immoralities of our era, the self-serving habits of those
around us, or allowed our faith to be diluted by cynicism or let our love for
Christ grow cold; for these we pray;
May the grace
which nurtures us, work in them for your glory.
God of Jesus and our God,
do not let us go blindly into temptation, but open our eyes and deliver us from
evil;
For yours is
the gracious kingdom, the power and the glory of costly love, forever and ever.
Amen!
SENDING OUT
It was never promised
that you will not be tempted,
not thrown into turmoil,
not stumble or fall ,
but that by grace you will be
saved, through trusting God.
Let it be,
dear Lord, let it be
.
Grace is a free gift of God. Gift.
Just ongoing gift. For me. For you.
Let it be,
dear lord. Let it be.
You have a destiny to inherit, over which the angels
in heaven marvel.
The quiet strength of Christ,
the humble power of God,
and the pervasive light of the
Spirit,
is yours
today and always.
Thanks be to God.
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