| 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. |
 |
| 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 , SUNDAY 31
October 30 Nov 5
(SUNDAY BEFORE “ALL SAINTS”)
Luke 19:1-10.2
(Sermon
1: “Become Yourself?”)
Thess. 1: 1-4
& 11-12
Habakkuk 1: 1-4 & 2:1-4 (Sermon
2: “Do Not Lose Heart”)
Psalm 119:
137-144
ENTRY INTO WORSHIP
This week will bring us to November 1st:
All Saints Day. Today therefore, let us rejoice in that ‘great cloud of witnesses that surround
us, and make the hidden heavens a home to our hearts.’
We join with all who know the love Christ Jesus and
delight in him. We believe in the holy, universal church, the communion of
saints, and the life everlasting.
The glorious
company of the Apostles praise You.
The goodly fellowship of the prophets praise You.
The noble army
of the martyrs praise You.
The holy church
throughout all the world acknowledges You.
OR–
(based on 2 Timothy :1)
Grace be with you and
peace, from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
And also with
you!
We cannot help giving thanks to God always for you,
sisters and brothers,
which is only right, because your
faith continues to flourish,
and the love you show one
another is on the increase.
May God make
us worthy of being called Christians,
and help us to fulfil our good
resolutions and complete our faithful works by his own power in and through us.
PRAYER OF APPROACH
We want to keep thanking you, reconciling God, for
the gift of Christ, and the power of your Spirit weaving into a community. As
we come before you this day, may we forget our differences and set aside either
envy or indifference, that with genuine love for one another we may, as with
one mind, worship
and adore you as you alone deserve. This we pray in Jesus’ name.
Amen!
OR –
God our holy Friend, everything in creation sings
your praise, and all the children of eternity sing of your glory. We who have
been found by the love of Christ Jesus shall not withhold our voices! Please
set free the spirit of thanksgiving in us, that a
current of joy may flood through our lives, washing away our weariness,
sweeping away our hesitation, and cleansing us from all that is dark and stale
and defeatist. Through Christ Jesus our Lord.
Amen!.
CONFESSION AND ASSURANCE
It is written:
“ Righteous are you. holy
God, and right are all your decisions.
What you call right stands forever, and
your law of love endures.”
Regrettably, not all our human decisions are right,
and our love is a patchy thing. Let us make our confession. Let us pray.
Loving God, here we are again, creatures who turn to
you for help. Some of us are content, some discontented;\
some confident and some anxious; some
are light hearted and some low spirited; some find faith easy and some find
faith difficult.
Into your
waiting, open arms we come, please welcome us and save us from our sin and
ignorance.
You are aware of the circumstances from which we
come. From secure homes or from temporary accommodation; from an
environment of nuturing love or from isolated
aloneness; from daily work that satisfies or from work that compromises us;
from exciting days or from long boring hours.
In your warm
embrace we come, please welcome us and save us from our sin and ignorance.
You know the true condition of our spirits. Some are free and happy,
some in bondage and shame;
some have few regrets, some have
many; some are repentant, some in
denial; some are thirsty for better
things, some are apathetic.
In your warm,
unconditional love we come, please welcome us and save us from our sin and
ignorance.
Awesome Friend, all us have
two things in common: we know that we have fallen short of the goal you have
set us, and we know that you are a God of forgiveness and regeneration. Please deal with each person as you see best. By your free grace in Christ Jesus, let us know the
peace of being put right with you and one another. For your love’s sake.
Amen!
ASSURANCE
My sisters and brothers in Christ Jesus, God gets no
pleasure from seeing people who are ridden with guilt. He sent his Son not to
carp and criticise, but to rescue and heal. In his name, please receive the
mercy of God that is renewed every morning. Forgiveness is yours for the taking.
Thanks be to God.
PRAYER FOR CHILDREN
Small
is Beautiful
Please remind us, God,
that being small does not
matter.
You notice little children as much as football heroes
and care about kids as much as
prime ministers.
You even tell grown up to become more like us,
if they really want to know
the happiness of heaven.
Thank you for sticking up for us.
Amen!
PSALM 119: 137-144
You, God, always get it right,
you give the best possible outcomes.
Goodness will prove its own worth,
it is totally reliable.
I become all steamed up
when jerks don’t listen to you.
I have tried your promise and it works;
this “battler” really loves you!
The world may think me a nobody,
but I don’t forget your guidelines.
Your mercy-justice is forever right,
your law of love holds true.
If troubles and pain come, so what?
your teaching remains my delight!
Your way will stand true for ever,
understanding it means life to me.
© B.D. Prewer 1997
COLLECT
God of saints and martyrs, today look graciously
upon your people who have been called out of darkness into light. Grant unto us
not what we deserve but that which you have wondrously given in Christ Jesus,
the friend of sinners. By his saving love, number us among those we serve you
devotedly, covering up our shortcomings with the extensive work of your Holy
Spirit. Then may others be blessed because we have passed by, and your name be honoured and loved as the God of prodigious grace. For your love’s sake.
Amen!
A ZACCHAEUS LIMERICK
A man is
ancient Jericho
was up a tree yet
very low,
till a Stranger in town
turned him upside down
and re-positioned his
ego.
SERMON 1: BECOME YOURSELF?
Luke 19: 9
Today
salvation has come to this house, since he {Zacchaeus]
is also a son of Abraham.
People may mean well when they advise us to “be yourself!” But who am I? What is my real self?
There are many definitions loitering around our
society. Here are a few I have noted.
“Human beings are a collection of atoms temporally
arranged in a complex plumbing system”
(Hail to thee, blithe collection of atoms!)
“Humanity is mobile pink scum which for a short time
coats the surface of one little planet in one solar system, in one galaxy, in
one of many possible universes.”
(Greetings
pink scum!)
“Man is what he eats.”
(Hail to thee , muesli,
bacon, eggs, fruit, apple strudel and chocolate!)
“People are chance fragments of consciousness in an
unconscious cosmos.”
(Greetings, chance fragments
of consciousness!)
I wonder how these definitions grab you at 7.00 am
on Monday morning when you peer at yourself in the bathroom mirror? Or at 7.30 pm Friday
evening when you sink gratefully into your recliner chair, or maybe steel
yourself into going out to yet another committee meeting?
Who are you, what are you? Become what you are by
all means, but first know who you are.
THE LIMITS OF INVESTIGATION
Our present world is sold on the technique of
investigation. It assumes that knowledge is gained by careful observation and
investigation of things. This method has indeed many trophies to exhibit,
advances that we now take for granted in our daily lives. It is true that by
painstaking investigation we can understand many things, and sometimes harness
them for our benefit.
Therefore it is not at all surprising that our
technological age should assume that through investigation we can also find an
answer to the question: ‘What are human beings’.
For well over a hundred years an increasing horde of
people have tried to investigate human nature.
There was psychology with its
probing of the mind of individuals, then anthropology
and sociology which probed the nature
of society, both historic and present. Along came neurology which dissects the human brain for clues, or with
electrodes tries to measure every minute electrical impulses
that the brain transmits. More recently
it’s genetics that fascinates the
investigators. The nature of human
beings is sought in the remarkable genetic material which largely governs our
existence.
Much of this has been very exciting stuff. I admit
having my eye glued to reports of new findings as much as most of you
have. But I must ask: Have we come any
closer to understanding what we really are?
It seems to me that through investigation we are never going to arrive at some
omega point where we shout: “Eureka! I have found what I am!”
THE VALUE OF REVELATION
There is another form of acquiring knowledge which
is not in fashion at the moment. It is called revelation.
Revelation is the knowledge we gain about another
person when that person chooses to reveal it.
It is personal knowledge.
Revelation is a gift from one being to another
being. It only happens when a person
opens up in words and deeds. We can
remain closed books if we wish it. Revelation cannot be forced, cannot be
prized open. Many frustrated parents have discovered this fact when trying to
get a teenager to reveal their real thoughts and feelings. Revelation is person
to person knowledge. It can be granted or withheld.
FAITH: A RESPONSE TO REVELATION
Christianity is a religion of revelation. It says
there is a Primal Being, that Supra-Personal Entity which we call God. This
loving Entity has brought us into being. And this God has chosen to reveal
something of their own nature to humanity, and to reveal to humanity some of
the foundational truths about ourselves. Revelation not
investigation.
Faith is a response to revelation
.
We believe that God in his wisdom chose a small
nation to be a stewards of revelation. We know them as
the Jews, and we treasure the stories of people like Rachel and Jacob, Joseph
the Egyptian prime minister, Miriam sister of Moses,, Aaron, Joshua, Ruth from
Moab and her great, great grandson David the shepherd king, Jonah the reluctant
prophet, Daniel and those three wonder boys Shadrack,
Meshack, and Abednego, Elizabeth the mother of John
the Baptist and Mary and Joseph who made the most famous journey ever taken to
Bethlehem.
Jesus is central to revelation. With Jesus we are at
the point where we believe God has revealed as much as can ever be revealed; as
much as can ever be revealed in one human life about God; and as much as can
ever be revealed about what it means to be fully human.
Revelation in the Old Testament gave us “made in the
likeness of God”, Another way the Jews referred to the
dignity of a person was by calling them a “child of Abraham.” Abraham was immortalised as the
supreme example of a man of faith. To call a Jews a true child of Abraham was
to give the highest honour.
After the revelation of Jesus, in the Roman world
the phrase “child of Abraham” did not carry much meaning. Christians started
referring to people as “children of God’, ‘joint-heirs with Christ Jesus,’ or
‘the saints’ (all believers were the saints, the ‘holy ones,’ because they
belonged to God).
ZACCHAEUS AND JESUS
Which brings me back to Zacchaeus. ( Some of you wondered if
I was ever going to get back to the Gospel for today, didn’t you? )
When Zacchaeus came into a
relationship with Jesus, something remarkable happened. Jesus set him free from
the stunted, distorted self-image that had corrupted his life. Jesus set Zacchaeus free to be his true self as one made in the
likeness of God; a creature made for loving; for giving; for sharing.
Jesus could have easily have seen in Zacchaeus what others did:
a greedy, ruthless, despicable traitor who collected taxes for the
occupying power of Roman. But Jesus saw
more.
There was a child of Abraham locked away in Zacchaeus and Jesus wanted to release it. We will never know the details of what went
on between Jesus and the tax collector went Jesus invited himself to the man’s
home. But we do know the result. Zacchaeus started to recover his lost beauty and to bear
fruits to prove it:
Half my possessions
I give to the poor. And those whom I have cheated will receive a fourfold
repayment.
To which Jesus replied:
“This day has
salvation come to this house. For Zacchaeus too is a
child of Abraham.
Knowledge had happened. Revelation had taken place. It is common today for people to tell us that
“knowledge is power”. Well, this
personal kind of knowledge that Zacaheaus embraced
was the ultimate power. It is a power
which Christ seems to still have: to reveal God to us and to show us our own
true nature.
WHAT DO YOU SEE?
Back to you. What is it you see in the
bathroom window on Monday morning? A “Complex plumbing system?” “Pink scum?” “Your last 500 meals?”
“A chance fragment of consciousness in an unconscious universe?”
Or do you see that which God has revealed and
redeemed in Christ Jesus: Child of Abraham, or better still a Child of God,
sister or brother of Christ.
There is truly something divine about you; something
infinitely precious and glorious. That is a part of the revelation of which we
are stewards. The other part of the revelation is that God, the Awesome First
Personal Entity, far more glorious than all the billions of suns in the
universe, is tirelessly seeking your self rehabilitation. To God, you are so
priceless that no trouble is too much for your reclamation.!
Here in this congregation there may well be someone
who is thinking: “Preacher. You’ve got it wrong in my case. There is nothing
precious about me. If you only knew my
ugly thoughts and feelings; if you knew about my broken promises and sullied
ideals; if you knew my lack of prayer and lack of faith; if you knew about my
simmering resentments and lusts; if you only knew the real me, preacher, you
would not stand up there saying I am very precious.”
I don’t agree.
I don’t need to know. God knows, that is all that matters. The real you
is not the sins and follies of your life. God knows and loves and treasures
you. My faith in your preciousness is
not based on observation or investigation; it is based on revelation. That is, your true identity flows from your
God; from that immense, beautiful, throbbing Spirit who is within and behind
all creation, and whom Jesus revealed in his life and death and resurrection.
There may come a time when you might want to seek me
out and tell me a sad story about your failings. As a pastor I will listen and
recognise the pain in
your heart. I will attempt to assist you. But I will draw the line at one thing: I will
never accept that you are just a ‘waste of space’..
You may have failed your Lord a million times but that does not alter God’s
belief in you and his love for you.
Be yourself! Affirm what you are in God’s eyes. Lift
up your heads. Reach forwards towards that day when Christ shall complete his
work of grace in you and you shall have actually become the glorious being you are in
God’s eyes!
This day has salvation come to this house; for here
also is a child of Abraham.
SERMON 2: DO
NOT LOSE HEART
Habakkuk 1:
1-4 & 2: 1-4.
“O God, how
long will I cry for help but you will not hear?
Or cry to you
about all the violence yet you will not save?”
Is God deaf to the cries of his afflicted people?
In the face of injustices,
and widespread suffering of the
innocent, where is God?
Habakkuk dares to put into words what is the bitter
experience of many.
From Texas to Sri Lanka, from Colombia to Zimbabwe,
from New Guinea to North Korea, from Edinburgh to Wagga Wagga,
people cry out to God for aid, yet they appear to be ignored by the mute
heavens.
“O God, how
long will I cry for help but you will not hear?”
By that miracle of providence which formed the
Bible, this cry of human desolation is enshrined in Holy Scripture. It is a
valid question: Where is God? In the face of such apparent absence of God, it
is easy to become discouraged. Even strong believers like the prophet Habakkuk
find it difficult not to lose heart.
A HYMN BY FABER: POETIC HONESTY
This reminds me of a hymn by Frederick Faber.
It commenced with these words:
Workman of God! O lose not heart,
But learn what God is
like.”
Some of this hymn used to be included in
denominational hymn books,
but it was omitted from “The
Australian Hymn Book” and is rarely heard today.
Yet even when it was sung, some of the verses were
already deleted.
These were verses which clearly expressed the
discouragement which some Christians may feel. Among commonly avoided verses
were these:
O, it is hard to work for God,
To rise and take his
part
Upon this battlefield of
earth,
And sometimes not lose
heart.
Ill masters good;
good seems to change
To ill with greatest
ease;
And worst of all, the
good with good
Is at cross purposes.
What a pity such lines were excluded!
For it expresses most succinctly how many believers
do really feel at times. Things are like that. Our Christian journey is not all
light and laughter, justice and peace. It is indeed very hard to work for God
and sometimes not lose heart.
Another verse was also regrettably excised from some
hymnals:
God hides himself so wondrously,
As if there were no God;
He is least seen when
all the powers
Of ill are most abroad.
Now that is honesty! Honesty of
Biblical quality. Thank you Frederick Faber!
HABAKKUK; HIS DOUBTING SIDE
Such honest faith goes back a long way.
We find it in some of the wonderful Psalms, and
today we hear the human cry again in Habakkuk.
“O God, how long will
I cry for help but you will not hear?
Or cry to you about all the violence yet you will not save?”
Only fragments of this prophet’s words have
survived.
These fragments are preserved in the Bible. We are
not sure when he actually lived. Some time in the period between 615 B.C. and
331 BC, this noble Jew wrestled with the question: “If God is just and can be
trusted, why do we pray without apparent answer? Why is there so much violence
without divine intervention? Why does God permit corruption in the legal
system, whereby the powerful and wicked have the advantage over the weak and
the good folk?”
Why do you make me see wrongs and view so
much trouble?
I have to look on while strife,
violence and ruin take place.
The law is so slack that justice cannot
stand.
The wicked entrap the good by
perverting the law.
No wonder the prophet feels frustrated.
Bewildered by God’s lack of
action.
It is not just in contemporary times that such doubts and questions arise. The
people of the Bible were not pious nitwits! They clearly witnessed an apparent
discrepancy between
the idea of a loving and just God and what was allowed to happen
on earth. They experienced doubts like most of us do.
It is far better to be honest like Habbakkuk.
Better to bring things out in the open, than to
pretend we have no doubts or questions. It is good to freely express such dark
thoughts and feelings to God.
HABAKKUK: THE BELIEVING SIDE
This would not be such a problem if we did not
already believe.
Habakkuk was a believer.
This is his other side. His doubts were counter
weighed with his sturdy faith. Sturdy faith just tipped the balances towards
ongoing trust and love. He continued to believe in the intrinsic goodness of
goodness, and in the truth of God, in spite of all the evil things that were
happening.
Habakkuk climbed up into a tower to pray.
Up there he felt God was speaking to him and
assuring him that the vision which believers had of a better world of peace and
justice was a true vision. What God had promised would one day be fulfilled.
Evil would not get away with it. Wickedness and chaos will be overcome. Light
and love will win.
And God
answered me: Write this vision; inscribe it clearly on tablets so that those
who run may read it.
The vision it
waiting for the right time; it is no lie, it is moving
towards its fulfilment. Although it may seem slow to you, wait for it. It will
certainly come, it will not be held back.
Look, those
who are not upright are just puffed up with wind. But by faith the righteous
shall truly live. Habakkuk 2:2-4
God reassures the prophet. Faith is renewed as a
gift from God.
Faith is not the result of rational argument.
Habakkuk does not regain his confidence by adding up
the list of good things in the world around him, and then adding up the bad
things, and seeing which total is the greater. From his fellowship with God, in
prayer, the conviction that God is good and faithful was renewed.
Renewed confidence was a gift of faith, as it always
is.
Faith is a gift which God offers us. Like any gift
it can be accepted or rejected. Habakkuk accepted the precious gift and lived
by it. When we accept the gift of faith we can become creative, caring people
in spite of all the negativity around us. Should we reject the gift, in spite
of our best efforts we will soon become one with the cynical, selfish herd
which makes a ruin of God’s world.
Faith demands choice.
Choose to believe that light is better than
darkness, sharing is better than hoarding, truth is better than deceit, mercy
is better than revenge, love is better than indifference, God is stronger than
chaos. Choose to have faith in a God who is all-loving, and your choice will
verify itself on the road of life.
A SUMMARY
It is hard to work for God and sometimes not lose
heart.
Ill masters good;
good seems to change
To ill with greatest
ease;
And worst of all, the
good with good
Is at cross purposes.
God hides himself so wondrously,
As if there were no God;
He is least seen when
all the powers
Of ill are most abroad.
God does seems hidden.
Evil seems stronger than goodness. Hate seem more enduring than love. Yet the gift of faith enables us to take the
plunge on the side of God, and to be the ultimate winner.
Habakkuk held to the hope, clung to the vision.
Let me remind you of how beautifully the little Book
of Habakkuk concludes:
Though the fig tree does not blossom,
nor fruit
be on the grape vines,
though the olive
crop fails
and the
fields yield no corn,
though the
flock be cut off from the safe fold,
and there
be no herd in the stalls,
yet I will
rejoice in the Lord,
I will celebrate the God of my
salvation!
God, the Living Lord, is my strength.
God makes me feet as nimble as the deer,
and I tread
upon my high places.
Magnificent!
Now that is the kind of faith that can move
mountains and change this world!
In Christ’s name, get with it!
WE BELIEVE
Faith demands choice.
By the grace of Christ, we can choose.
We choose to believe
that light is better than
darkness,
sharing is better than hoarding,
truth is better than deceit,
mercy is better than revenge,
love is better than
indifference,
God is stronger than chaos.
We choose to have faith in the God who is love
and choice will verify itself
on the long and narrow road of
life.
By grace, we choose to choose faith.
Thanks be to God!
THANKSGIVING
How good it is to know we are loved by a divine
Provider and Saviour.
Let us pray.
Wonderful, ever wonderful, are you, awesome Friend
of the earth!
We thank you for your creating and redeeming
Presence, among all, and in all, and through all things seen and unseen.
We thank you that you are also far above all,
beneath all and beyond all, not dictated to by any other power in time or
space.
We give thanks that you call out to us with a loving
word, asking us to reach beyond the shallow and the transient towards the
remarkable glory of all that is yet to be.
Wonderful, ever wonderful, are you, awesome Friend
of the earth!
Hallelujah!
Hallelujah!
Amen!
INTERCESSIONS
With heart and soul, mind and strength, together
with our arms legs and our varied abilities, we come before God with our
prayers of intercession.
Let us pray.
It is too easy, God, for us to say a few prayers for
people in need, and then forget about them as we go blithely on our way.
By the heat of your Holy Spirit, forge together our
prayers and our deeds,
so that what we do will be a prayer and what we pray will become
our deed today.
With that prayer on our lips and in our hearts, we
pray for the wonderful, yet often sorry world in which we live.
We pray for the end of rampant greed, injustice,
terrorism and war. Bless all your brave peacemakers and keep us within their ranks.
We pray for the cessation of bitterness and violence (be it verbal
or physical violence) within the work places, school-grounds, streets and homes
of our nation. Bless all those who are your ministers of
mercy and good will, and number us among their agents.
We pray for the removal of poverty, hunger,
homelessness, and untreated disease from the face of this planet. Bless all
your “good Samaritans” wherever they serve you, and enlist us within their
noble company.
We pray for an armistice between the minority of
Moslems who are jihad fanatics, and fundamentalist Jewish and Christian
zealots. Bless all your agents of reconciliation and employ to the full the
gift of goodwill you have given each of us.
We pray for the constant reformation of your church.
May every branch and each sectarian twig, remember the one True Vine to which
we all belong, and without whom we are good for nothing.
Starting with us, please bless your servant people
with the prime gift of love, that we may better cherish one another and heal
the wounds that bleed away to waste the very vitality of your church.
True and merciful God, our Friend and our Saviour,
again we humbly yet strongly beg you: by the fire of your Spirit weld our
prayers to our deeds, and our deeds to our prayers. To the
glory of your communal name, one God, blessed Trinity.
Amen!
SENDING OUT
Go gently my friends,
feel the good earth beneath your
feet,
rejoice in the rising of the sun,
and hear the call of the
peaceful dove. *
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God,
and the fellowship of the Holy
Spirit ,
will be with you all.
Amen!
* In the regions of tropical and subtropical Australia,
there is a
diminutive dove named the ‘Peaceful
Dove.’
It has a gentle call which my wise wife
insists
is telling us; “Just
walk the walk.” BDP.
THAT ARE CURRENTLY AVAILABLE
BY ORDERING ONLINE
OR FROM YOUR LOCAL CHRISTIAN BOOKSHOP
