Prayer, day 2252

Almighty God,
who sends your Spirit to shade and shield us,
we praise you for watching over us through the night.
Fill our hands and hearts with your strength today.
Rich in counsel,
abundant in grace,
O Holy Trinity:
draw us into your dance of love
and sing your joy into our souls.

We repent, O Lord, of our failures of heart;
for our neglect of walking in charity and faith with each other;
for our acquiescence in the face of exploitation.
Wrap us within the folds of your mercy, Blessed Savior,
and strengthen our will to love,
that we may walk in kindness and empathy with each other.

We ask you, Beloved Jesus,
to enter our brokenness
and make our own wounds
a source of compassion, welcome, and mercy for others.
Let us dedicate ourselves
to be healers and companions of truth;
restorers of beauty, contentment, and comfort
to all who suffer any distress.

We pray especially this day
for these concerns we lift before You, Lord:
in your mercy,
press the kiss of your blessing upon your beloveds.

Amen.

Prayer, day 2251

Almighty God,
Ruler of the Universe,
we come before You in gratitude for our many blessings,
redeemed by love and mercy.

Holy One, forgive us our sins,
and give us courage
to turn away from evil, fear, hatred, and discord,
to serve your will in all things.

Give us wisdom to turn to You, Lord Christ,
when we falter,
and remember You are with us always,
living and true,
calling to us in love.

Spirit of Truth, dwell within us,
that we may serve the One
who gave his life as ransom for all.

Precious Savior,
hold us in the hollow of your hand,
and bless and keep those for whom we pray.

Amen.

Prayer 2250

Beloved Creator,
by your love all things come into being,
and by your compassion and watchfulness they are sustained:
we give you thanks and honor,
and open our hearts to your guidance.

For You have ennobled us to be your disciples, Lord Christ,
and call us to enact your law in our lives:
to work for justice for the oppressed,
to reject the ways of contempt and of evil,
to love without limit as you love us.

May we be a blessing for the world,
and see your handiwork in every atom, O God.

Spirit of Wisdom,
sing through the chambers of our hearts
and lead us into compassion and truth, we pray.
Savior Divine, place your hand of healing and comfort
upon all who call upon you,
and bless and keep those for whom we pray.

Amen.

Prayer, day 2249

Blessed Savior,
we thank You for bringing us to the shores of this day:
may we ever serve your kingdom.
All Creation sings a waking tune,
and bids us worship the One
who made us for love and service:
come, let us pray and give thanks. 

May we join in with the melody of hope and harmony
that springs up from the earth,
and open ourselves to be forgiven and renewed.
Grant us wisdom and understanding, O God,
that we may hear your gospel message
of love, mercy, and compassion for all living things. 

We repent of the wrongs we have done
or that we have not challenged:
have mercy, and restore our determination to good.
Gentle our hearts and thoughts, Lord Christ,
that we may seek to build each other up
and work to heal the world. 

May the warmth of Love Unending
quicken our wakening hearts, O Holy One,
and a Spirit of Peace dwell within us.

Amen.

Prayer, day 2248: The Annunciation of Our Lord

Almighty God, we sing your glory,
joining the joyful song of creation
as our souls sing out your greatness!
How beautiful upon the treetops
is the rising light of morning:
O God, you bless us beyond measure with beauty
and our hearts kneel before you in praise!

Give us your favor, O Redeemer,
in leading us to consent to your will in our lives,
that we may join our hands in unity
in the pursuit of justice and peace,
pulling down oppression from its throne,
filling the hungry with good things from the bounty we have.

Strengthen us to bear you into the world, Blessed Jesus,
as a mother carries her child
close to her heart.

Holy One, place the protection
of your mighty arm and heart
over us this day,
and guide us in paths of gentleness and compassion.
Stretch out the awning of your mercy, Beloved Savior,
over all who rest in your care.

Amen.

Wholly Beloved, Holy Calling: Sermon for 3 Lent C

One of my favorite cartoons is one that’s been around for years—you’ve probably seen a version of it. It’s an extension of the idea in that inspirational poem, “Footprints.” It shows God talking with a person with tear-stained cheeks, looking back on the person’s life as if their journey through life has left behind a series of impressions in the sand.

God looks back at an early part of the person’s life journey and points: “My beloved child—I am always with you. See those two sets of footprints? That’s where you and I walked side-by-side.” 

“Yes, God,” says the human, “but what about over there, where there’s only one set of footprints?” 

God answers, “My child, there’s only one set of footprints there, because that’s where I carried you.” 

And the human in the cartoon visibly brightens. Nice, right? But some of you may not have seen the third panel of the cartoon. In the third panel, God continues, “And that deep pair of grooves over there? THAT’s where I dragged you, my child, kicking and screaming.”

Today’s reading from our Hebrew scriptures jumps us from Genesis last week to Exodus—and specifically, to God’s call to Moses from the burning bush. We are hearing this reading today because Lent is often the part of the year where we are encouraged to examine the “kicking and screaming” part of our lives with God, where we are reminded that sometimes we’ve fallen, and we can’t get up, like in those Life Alert commercials. However, in our Christian Lenten understanding, we don’t depend on Life Alert but—thank be to God—on God’s grace, on God never ever giving up on us.

Just like in that cartoon, Moses doesn’t respond with cooperation when God calls to him. There’s more than a little of the “kicking and screaming” resistance, but Moses is no dummy. Rather than outright refusal to heed God’s call, Moses engages in a debate with God, first requiring God to establish God’s bona fides. That’s when God gives Moses God’s actual name—which is a sign of relationship. As we hear repeatedly in scripture, to be called by name is to be known.

This bears repeating, because it seems so obvious: being able to know and use someone’s name implies a relationship. This same situation will later be cited in Isaiah 52:6: “Therefore my people will know my name;
 therefore in that day they will know
 that it is I who foretold it.
 Yes, it is I.” Psalm 91, which we read a few weeks ago also states: “Those who love me, I will deliver;
 I will protect those who know my name.” Naming implies intimacy and the ability to call on someone for help.

Although there have been several names used for God, up to this point in the Torah, the answer Moses receives is “Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh” which is translated as “I am who I am” as well as “I will be who I will be”—in other words, God exists outside the realm of time and human experience, and past, present, and future are all the same to God. And yet God is hearing the groans of the Israelites and is responding to them. That can be comforting—God has remained faithful to God’s people, even as they have forgotten all about God, lowering their sights from heaven to the brutal task of survival. God has been, and will be, with God’s people always.

God also refers to Godself as “YHVH” which was translated as “The LORD” in the Torah, since the name of God was so holy that it was not to be uttered, in case it was misused. That’s why sometimes, when you see God written about by Jews to this day, you sometimes see it written “G-d” which omits the vowels (as Hebrew does). In Hebrew, God’s name is so holy that the term Hashem is often used in its place. Hashem means, simply, “The Name.” Names are considered to be that powerful. Thus the LORD is the name of God to be used forever.

Notice that God calls Moses by name from the very first. Then, once God establishes a relationship with Moses by giving Moses God’s very name, the story we hear today ends. I think that’s unfortunate, because what we don’t hear is Moses’s resistance to God’s call shifting from asking God's name to stating that he is not cut out for the job—that he lacks the appropriate gifts. But I want to invite you into that part of the story, too.

In the 4th chapter of Exodus, Moses has tried to evade God’s call with a number of objections, and very reasonable ones, too, centering around the idea of “Nobody is going to believe that God has talked to me,” which I think we can all relate to, as well. God then shows Moses a series of miraculous signs that will come in useful later when Moses is talking with Pharaoh. But then Moses pulls out his trump card: “Hey God,” he says, “you know I am not an eloquent speaker and this gig you are outlining requires a LOT of talking. So please send someone else.” And at this point, God gets exasperated at Moses’s shilly-shallying and ducking and weaving, and overcomes that objection too, by promises that Moses’s brother Aaron will help out with the talking thing.

Responding to God’s call is one of the hardest things for us to do, and yet one thing we know is that God has pursued relationship with creation from the very beginning, and it has been done through God calling over and over again. The great Biblical scholar Walter Brueggeman organized his commentary on Genesis around the idea of four vital calls: God calls creation into being, and creation responds in a variety of ways. Next, God calls Abram, as we heard last week, and Abram and Sarai embrace the call of God and enters into covenant, faithful to God’s promises that Abram's descendants will become a great family. God calls Jacob, but that call causes conflict in Jacob’s family, as the younger son is privileged over the elder. Then in the story of Joseph, we are reminded that the purposes of God’s call are often hidden and elusive at first.(1) Now in Exodus, the descendants of Jacob have grown from being a family to being a community—a nation.(2) Yet they are a nation under oppression, and it can only be that in freedom that Israel can answer God’s call affirmatively and freely, rather than under duress. That’s the part that Moses will play. 

God calls Moses to be God’s prophet and spokesman, God’s human agent in the work of liberation. Moses goes from being shepherd for his father-in-law to being called to be the shepherd for his people in their flight from bondage and oppression. And now we hear the story of God’s call to Moses, and I want to be completely honest with you. It is Moses’s last response that I find the most relatable in this story. Burning bushes I have never seen. But feelings of doubt and unworthiness when being called by God? Oh yes—that one I know, six different ways from Sunday. 

During the years when I resisted the full surrender to God’s call in my life, the biggest reason why was my own feelings of unworthiness to fulfill that call. Even after finally giving in and making the leap to retire from teaching and attend seminary, I was buffeted often by feelings of being in over my head, and strong case of “imposter syndrome.”

Then, as I was preparing to go before the several committees who had to approve my ordination, I was specifically, and frustratingly, warned AWAY from using call language, which then makes it awfully hard to answer the question of why anyone would actually want to take on the ordained life. And the reason why I was told that I should NOT insist that I was called by God to be a priest was that the committee members might feel like their opinion then didn’t matter.

But the call of Moses makes exactly that point in a way, doesn’t it? God calls who God calls, and in a way, what we think about it is NOT the point. Just like Moses, many of us have had a hard time recognizing the voice in our life calling us to discipleship as being God’s voice. And then, once we do, we have a hard time believing that we are up to the task, or that the task is even achievable. If we’re honest, many of us are have also struggled to recognize God’s voice and respond to God’s call. 

But just like in that cartoon,
Sometimes we let God walk beside us.
Sometimes God has to carry us.
Sometimes God drags us back kicking and screaming from sin and foolishness into discipleship.

But one thing we should never doubt is that we are worthy of God’s love and regard, and that we are worthy to try to be not just fans of God but children of God, disciples of God. God doesn’t call the perfect, the saying goes—God helps perfect the called.

What’s the big picture? God will call whomever God pleases, even if that choice seems to make no sense. God’s great prophet Moses had no qualifications to speak for God, and didn’t really want to give himself over to God—a very understandable reaction! God can be so… disruptive!

-- and yet, God has chosen, and won’t be talked out of it.

Moses has never been at home anywhere, so who better to argue for a dispossessed people? He has been an adopted son of a princess, and now he’s a scruffy shepherd. It is exactly those experiences that make him the perfect intermediary in this case. God has also revealed the name of God, which shows that God is committed to the people, and continuously opens the door for us to not just approach God but to depend upon God to care for us.

The story of Moses we hear today is the story of a call, and as faithful people we are called too- called to own our heritage of being made in the image of God—of being children of God. Children of God-- and I say that without my fingers crossed behind my back-- called to embody God’s essential goodness in the world-- to embody the love of God as has been and is being revealed in Christ Jesus. And when we fall short, we are called to own our sins, to repent, to turn and try again.

As our gospel today reminds us, Jesus makes it clear that, when we fail to live up to our call as children of God, we can receive God’s mercy and grace rather than God’s judgment, so that we can respond to the call to repent—to make an adjustment, maybe a big one or maybe just a small one—but often, just a small change is enough.

That’s why Lent is such a beautiful thing. It should never be seen as a time to beat ourselves up, or dwell on our own unworthiness, which then can become a convenient excuse for not trying in the first place. Rather, Lent calls us to acknowledge our sins and resistances to living out our calling, to own them and examine them, and then to turn anew, to hear the call of God for us to turn aside, to remember that the ground on which we stand is holy ground.

Our lives are the holy ground in which we meet God. And if we stop our scurrying around and our constant need for distraction, we just might hear God calling us, as God’s beloveds, to help make God’s presence in the world just a little more visible in what we say and what we do.

Listen! The beauty of Lent is that it reminds us of grace and calls us to slow down and listen. To hear that God is calling. Because make no mistake. God IS calling each and every one of us, and all of us as a community of faith, to embody the same grace that upholds us out into the darkness of the world. Let’s turn, and see that light flaring where we don’t expect it.

Let’s turn aside, listen, and say yes. Yes, because we ARE worthy. Yes, because we are upheld by grace. Yes, because we are empowered by that grace to act in the world in the name of liberation and salvation. Walking side by side with our Savior and Redeemer.

Amen.

Readings:
Exodus 3:1-15
Psalm 63:1-8
1 Corinthians 10:1-13
Luke 13:1-9


Links/References:
1) Walter Brueggemann, Genesis:Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching, pp. 1-5
2) Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks, Exodus: The Book of Redemption (Covenant and Conversation 2), pp. 1-6

Prayer 2247: Third Sunday of Lent C

Almighty One,
we gather before You
in reverence and humility,
our hearts seeking your light.

May we turn aside from our busyness
and see the flame of your presence before us,
on the holy ground of our lives.

May we re-member and embody
your Name of Love
as your witnesses,
and work for the liberation and care of your creation.

For You are the One who called creation into being;
who called Abram to embrace your covenant;
who called Jacob despite his youth;
who called Joseph even though the way seemed dark.

May we hear your loving entreaty to us
and turn again to your Way of Love,
trailing compassion and healing behind us.

Blessed One, strengthen us in mercy and justice,
and grant your comfort to those for whom we pray.

Amen.

Prayer 2246

O God of the sustaining wave,
who fills our spirits with hope
as a sail fills with wind,
send us where You will,
and grant us courage to raise our anchor
and set our course by the light of Christ.

In the rising tide of dawn
 lift us over the shoals of doubt, O Savior,
running each wave with a surging joy,
the rigging singing out your praises,
O Lord of all hopefulness.

As we are guided by your grace and truth,
O Spirit of the Eternal One,
move over the deep waters of our hearts,
that we may be a blessing in the world this day
and grant your peace to those we hold close
in joy or in need, as we pray.

Amen.

Prayer 2245

Creating God,
who is making the heavens and the earth,
create within us a heart for your service
and hallow the prayers we offer before You.

Give us wisdom to seek truth, O Spirit of Hope,
and turn us away from sin and exploitation
to see the face of Jesus all around us.

Help us to eat our fill
of the honeyed loaves of your gospel, O Christ,
and drink deep of the cup of compassion,
that we may overturn the tables of enmity,
and scatter the bread of resentment and hatred
that has been placed before us by hollow tyrants.

Bear with us, O Merciful One,
and place your hand of blessing
over all for whom we pray.

Amen.

Prayer, day 2244

God of Glory, God of Grace,
You envelop us in arms of mercy:
We lift our hearts to you,
filled with thankfulness and praise.

Anoint us
with the power of the Holy Spirit
that we may walk in your light today,
turning aside from sin and selfish pride.

Grant us the wisdom to obey your commandments,
that we may live fully into our new life in Christ.
Lord, draw your protection over those we now name.

Amen.

Prayer, day 2243

(Inspired by Psalm 131)
O God, we come before You, 

humble in heart, 

rejoicing in your manifold mercies. 

Let us not puff ourselves up with pride, 

for we seek to be worthy of your Name. 

Let us still our souls to rest upon You, 

as a small child turns into the arms of her mother, 

resting upon her breast. 

Let us fasten upon this simple Truth: 

that You are our God, 

the root of all we are and all we do. 

Let us center our determination 

upon honoring your Word in our lives, 

for we depend solely upon You 

for wisdom and truth. 

Knit us together in love and kinship, 

united in purpose to serve You 

through each other. 

Refresh the souls of the weary, Lord Christ, 

and give your peace to those we now name.

Amen.

Prayer 2242: God of the Desert Spaces

O God of the Desert Spaces,
we come before You in silence,
to rest beneath the shade of your right hand,
and offer up our hearts before You.

O God of the Sojourners,
we know that even when we wander
You are our Home and our Companion,
welcoming back the seeker and the sinner.
Let us set our feet firmly
within the path of justice and mercy,
and dedicate ourselves anew
to walking in the Way of Love and Healing.

O God of the Waiting,
we lift before You those in transition,
between being lost and found,
between mourning and laughter,
between being ill and made well,
between this life and the life to come.
Gather into your embrace all for whom we pray, O Holy One,
and grant your benediction upon those we now name.

Amen.

Prayer, day 2241- Based on the 23rd Psalm

(Based on Psalm 23)

God is our shepherd and provider,
You claim us as your own.

God leads us into pastures that supply all our needs;
You give us rest and security.

God refreshes and revives our souls anew;
leading us into truth, 
trusting us to follow and glorify God's Name.

You shield us by your strength and vigilance;
when trials approach us, 
we have no fear, 
for You hold us in your hand 
even when the darkness of death looms.

You provide a rich banquet for us even as enemies look on;
You have consecrated us and blessed us abundantly.
Your steadfast promise of love enfolds us,
and goodness and mercy are our sure companions 
as You lead us through our lives.

We rest securely in your arms,
and our home is with You forever.

O Shepherd, hear the call of your people and gather them close, especially those we now name.

Amen.
(443)

Prayer 2240: 2nd Sunday of Lent

Almighty Creator,
we draw before You and praise You
in a thousand places,
drawn to your altar in love and thankfulness.

Lord Jesus, draw us under your wing
as a hen gathers her brood under her wings.
Strengthen us, O Redeemer,
with the warmth of your embrace
even as we are comforted.
Then send us out, renewed,
as your disciples and friends,
to testify to your saving help,
to reflect the love of God in the world.

Let us stand with the persecuted,
repent together as sinners,
build the edifice of justice for the oppressed,
feed the hungry,
and comfort the suffering and anxious,
all for your love's sake
and as you commanded, Lord Christ.

United by your Spirit,
O God Beyond All Borders,
we lay our cares before You,
and we ask your blessing upon these beloveds.

Amen.

Prayer 2239: in response to the Christchurch Mosque Attacks

The angel Jibrail (Islamic). We weep with our Muslim brothers and sisters.

Holy One,
We bend the knee of our hearts before You,
in humility and repentance,
asking your aid in strengthening us in faith.

Grant us the strength to resist evil,
from everyday callousness
to cruelty and exploitation,
Most Merciful One.
Help us to join our hands and hearts
with all who seek your will, O Lord of Life,
that we may stand together, together
putting our shoulders to the wheel,
tending to your truth,
embodying your commandment of love.

Lord Christ, send forth your angels
to bend over the sorrowing and the bereaved,
and pour your comfort over all who suffer.
Bless us, O Merciful God,
and gather within your embrace all for whom we pray.

Amen.

Written at the news of a terror attack on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, which left 50 dead and dozens injured.