In the name of the father, and the son, and the holy spirit, amen.
I came upon this prayer, which I thought was very apt as we come to unfold the scripture, so let’s begin by praying.
Jesus said where two or three are gathered
in my name there I am among them,
then this must be a holy people a holy place,
and to this holy place we invite the communion of saints,
they are already here they have never left,
among that community are all our
loved ones who have gone before,
and on this holy assembly I ask a blessing on our food,
and on ourselves, asking, pleading,
that god be in our head, and in our understanding;
God be in our eyes, and in our looking;
God be in our mouth, and in our speaking;
God be in our heart, and in our thinking;
God be at our end, and at our departing
God be with us morning, noon, evening,
and through the night
God be with us, God be always with us,
and with our absent brothers and sisters.
Amen.
In our Gospel reading we hear of Christ's promise to us that when we agree with others in prayer that he is the unseen party to our requests.
The Greek word "agree", is "sumphoneo", from which is derived the English word, "symphony." I don’t know if any of you have ever sat and listened to a live orchestra play, but one of the things that it very clear from the very beginning is the power that is found in so many different musicians, and their instruments coming together as one, is that they have the ability to bring the composer’s work to life.
Likewise, Christ is teaching us how to work together and harmonise with other Christians in our prayer lives. Through time and patience, we come to find that this gives our prayers great power, and together we begin to achieve the work of our heavenly composer.
Now some may be thinking about Christ’s instruction to us earlier in Matthews’ gospel when he said ‘But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you’, and it’s right that we should continue to have our own private daily prayer devotional times.
however, as I thought about some of Christ’s other teachings on prayer, then it is clear that he meant for prayer to be not just an individual act, but that it should also be a corporate one.
A little earlier in Matthew’s Gospel Jesus said ‘‘Pray then in this way: Our Father in heaven’.
Notice that Jesus didn’t say, My Father, but Our. This small but distinct way of wording the prayer shows us clearly that there is a corporate element to prayers, which goes alongside our times of personal devotion.
He wants us, His people, to be unified in our prayers, because this is one of the core places where the bonds that we share can grow and be strengthen.
Think about how many times we pray together in this service, I could ask you how many times we do, but I won’t and instead ask you if it would surprise you that this morning we will pray no less than 13 separate prayers together?
There is a humbling aspect to asking others to pray with us, but there is also a unifying aspect. God wants us all to be a part of His family, and this is one of the ways that we become the community that God intended for us to be and also enjoy the benefits of.
Praying with others fine tunes our prayers, just like rehearsing together perfects the work of the musicians, but just as with the orchestra, it takes time and patience and what we must avoid is the expectation that prayer is always going to be answered immediately.
Of course there will be times when we see God’s answer to us very quickly, but we also need to remember that there will be times when we have to wait. In the prophet Micah he gives us some good advice ‘But as for me, I will look to the Lord, I will wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me.’
Paul in his letter to the Romans echoes the same sentiment ‘But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.’
So does that mean that if we pray for something then we will always receive it? Sadly, the answer to that is no. We need to be careful and mindful of what we ask for in prayer.
We need to ensure that our motives are right and just. James gives us this warning ‘You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, in order to spend what you get on your pleasures.’
Essentially James is telling us that if we are asking for a worldly thing, such as the wealth, which includes lottery numbers, or material possession, then it’s safe to say that that request will definitely go unanswered!
But what about those requests that we make week after week, those of noble and just cause, which appear to us to fall on deaf ears? It’s a fair question, and one that I wouldn’t want to even attempt to answer myself, because I can’t or wouldn’t even attempt to second guess the mind of God.
However, I believe that the gospel writers show us a glimpse of an answer to this most difficult of questions… …hope.
John says ‘If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.’
Likewise Matthew says ‘’Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.’
These two passages speak of patience and endurance in prayer, if we keep our eyes fixed heavenward, and are faithful in our prayers then when the time is right God will answer us.
But patience doesn’t come easily to many if not all of us, we can lose our focus, feel dejected, or that we are simply being ignored if we can’t see immediate or at least short-term results, then as a consequence our prayer life suffers, perhaps even to the point that we no longer pray and we ultimately lose our focus.
We come to a point where we feel that we are just going through the motions, apathy is allowed to set in, we can no longer be bothered, and we lose that hope which the gospel writer’s speak of.
Prayer expects us to be hopeful, instead of hopeless, and as we move forward with our sisters and brothers in our benefice, we need to ensure that any apathy that we are still holding onto from the past is let go of.
On any normal given Sunday morning, I would have the privilege of breaking bread with over 100 people, and over the past five years or so, it has been clear to see the way that a goodly number of people have embraced the move to become a benefice, and more often than not I see in people’s eyes the love, and the hope that they have for each other, and the three churches, and for the most part old entrenched attitudes of this is my church have faded away.
Yes, we are all different, and bring different things to our distinct churches, but that which has the danger to divide us, is nowhere near as strong as that which now and has always united us. That being,
The love and faith that we all have and hold in our lives for God.
As we continue to move forward I continue to pray that we will fully shed the old and as a benefice become fully united, focused in our prayers and offering encouragement to each other as we continue to learn about the many gifts that we have been given, that will certainly be a day of great joy and celebration.
But to reach this point in the life of our benefice, it means that we have to continue to be adventurous, fully lay down the old, and look toward the future in all things, as one people under God, united in prayer, worship and service, so that we can welcome everyone we meet, and share with them our love of God, and through our devotion and prayer, be the church, the people, God wants us to be in this place.
Amen.
