You are Invited... God's Big Hearted Banquet of Grace (Luke 14:15-24). On The Cross Road: Jesus Journey To Jerusalem in Luke's Gospel (ch 10-19) and what it has to say to us as followers of Jesus.

‘You are invited’

I’m not sure I’ll ever receive an invitation to a garden party at Buckingham palace. Has anyone here received an invitation from the queen? I don’t know about you but if I did  I’d worry about what I should wear… I’d wonder if I needed a new pair of Jeans and whether my almost threadbare Op shop shirt would do just one more time… and if I could get away with wearing comfy shoes and my Homer Simpson tie? And I’m sure wiser heads would prevail, Kris would make sure we had the appropriate clothes, and Beth would make sure it had just that touch of class and flare. We’d get passports and book plane tickets and work out how to pay for it later. AS I’m sure all of you would. It’s not going to happen. I’m not that special or important in the scheme of things.

I’m sure that if it ever came I’d accept it and even though I’d be nervous as anything that at the last minute I wouldn’t come up with an excuse not to go.  You don’t snub the queen like that. I’m sorry I just bought a house… in Auckland…remember it’s a just a story… and I need to go and check it out. I’ve just got a flash new car and I want to take it for a spin… I’ve got some family commitments… there is a BBQ at uncle Bob’s, there is an ALL Black’s test match on the tele that day, so I’m sorry I just won’t be able to come.

You are invited…

Jesus tells a parable about an important host who throws a great banquet. And it’s an amazing story because the important invited guests snub the host, just as the feast is ready for them they all cry off and make excuses. So the host sends his servants to gather in all the poor and lame and crippled or as my friend Malcom Gordon puts it ‘the left overs and the left outs’. But even after that there is still room for more so he sends his servant off to the highways and hedgerows  to gather people in… strangers, foreigners folk from all over. They are invited to come and sit and have table fellowship with him.

You’ve been invited… to walk with Jesus on the Cross road

We are working through Jesus journey to Jerusalem in Luke’s gospel , a journey that takes up the central half of Luke’s Gospel narrative, it’s a section of the gospel that focuses on Jesus teaching.  It’s a journey we will be on till Easter as it is a journey that leads Jesus and us to the cross. Today passage is a wonderful parable that Jesus tells about the big hearted love of God… that we are invited to God’s banquet of grace.

Jesus is invited…

As we saw last week Jesus had been invited to a Sabbath meal at a prominent Pharisees house. On the way he had healed a man suffering from Dropsy, which made his abdomen swell up. It was another example of Jesus care and compassion for the poor and marginalised… the Pharisee and his guests had stood by silently. Jesus noticed that when they got to the table that they played a social status game of musical chairs… seeking the best position at the table. So he told them a parable which focused on God lifting the humble and those who exalt themselves will find themselves humbled. He then spoke to the host and encouraged him not to simply invite people who would enhance his social standing and be able to repay him, but to invite the poor, the blind and the lame, Jesus finishes with a beatitude saying that we should look for God’s reward and blessing, not other peoples. 

Like much of Jesus teaching in Luke the passage we have today is sparked by an anonymous interruption… one of the dinner guests calls out his own beatitude… “Blessed is the one who will eat at the feast of the Kingdom of God’. The religious people of Jesus day expected that the messiah’s reign would start with a great banquet and that all the religious leaders would definitely be there.

Jesus parable challenges that way of thinking… A very important person says Jesus hosts a banquet. We know the person is important because of the words used. It’s a great banquet with many guests. To understand the parable you have to realise the social context. Those who are invited are there because of who they are they are the important the in-crowd the religious and social elite. Being invited was a two part process. An invitation would be sent out which you would RSVP to, so the host knew how many animals to kill for food and how much wine to purchase. You may remember the possible social embarrassment for the host of the wedding in canna in John 3 when the wine ran out, that prompted Jesus to perform the miracle of turning water into wine.  Then when the meal was ready a  servant would come and summons you for the meal. It’s at this late date that people give excuse and do not come to the banquet. The excuses given are supposed to be trivial, they do have some basis in Jewish law as in the book of Deuteronomy they can be seen to be reasons for people to be excused from Military service, but that just adds to the irony here. They are definitely a snub to the host, refusing t e identified with him. AS we will see later in the story of Zacchaeus social status does not necessarily mean people will want to associate with you.

There is a deeper meaning to this. This parable acts as the closing section to a long series of Jesus conflict encounters with the Pharisees and religious leaders. From the beatitude that sparked it we know it was concerning the religious leaders belief that they would be guests when the messiah came. But Jesus here likens them to these invited guests, they are God’s people, they have been invited, the invitation to be ready for this great banquet for the coming of the messiah had been issued through Moses and the prophets and now when that messiah was in their midst, they refuse to come, they write him off or stand aloof. There excuses sound like tey are caught up the things of this world, land, wealth and family rather than genuinely looking and waiting for the Kingdom of God.

Stepping back into the story, Jesus says the host tells his servant to go and call all the left outs and the left overs, the poor, the lame the blind to come and sit at his table. It’s as if in this parable Jesus now turns to those of us were not invited to this Sabbath meal, that the kingdom of God, is for us. That God’s kingdom is for those who know their need for God’s grace and know they cannot repay him. But that is not enough the house is not full even after they have come. So the host tells his servant to go outside the town, to the highway and byways. T he travellers and strangers and aliens: Not only are the poor and outcast of Israel invited but here Jesus alludes to the fact that those outside, the gentiles, the other will be invited as well.  God’s grace and God’s invitation to come to the table to come to him for nourishment and life is not limited to the religious elite, but for all people. It is not based on the status of the guest, being the right person, but on the goodness of the host.

You are invited, In Christ’s life death and resurrection you are invited to come and to know Jesus to find sustenance for life in relationship to our gracious host Jesus. It’s abanquet of God’s big hearted grace.

The story ends on a note of judgement, a challenge to those listening to Jesus and to us. The religious leaders would not partake in the banquet, they would get to sit down for a good feed in the kingdom of God, because they did not recognise Jesus as the God’s agent, as  the who God has sent. It wasn’t that they were no longer invited but other things got in the way, other things were more important.

I want to finish by giving you three different invitations.

Firstly ‘you are invited’

God’s great banquet of grace is for you. No matter who you are or where you’ve been… it is a generous wonderful offer to come and to know and be feed and nourished by Jesus Christ. To come and to live in the kingdom of God.  Will you come?

secondly ‘You are invited’.

There is an alternative reading to this parable. Because the host in Jesus story actually lives out the social advise that Jesus had given to the host of the party he was at. Not to simply invite those who could repay him, those like him, those like us, or people that will reciprocate our hospitality, but rather to invite the poor, the lame and the blind, in fact as we mentioned before he goes beyond that to put no limits on who is invited, even  those outside the confines of our culture, our religion strangers on the road… So it’s an invitation to us to be people who will live out of a Kingdom of God vision and offer hospitality and compassion and welcome and acceptance to the left outs and the left overs. To live in a way that tips our existing social order on its head. It challenges us about having in-crowds in church; it invites us to explore a biblical understanding of caring for those who do not have, how we treat and immigrants and refugees.  We have been invited to God’s big hearted banquet of grace so we live that out in how we treat other people.

Thirdly “you are invited”

There is an invitation here as people who serve the host to go and do the inviting: To call people to this banquet of the richest of fare in Jesus Christ.  Jesus parable give a very realistic picture of what that will mean, the servant simply has to invite some and they will come, it seems as if they are waiting and wanting to come, those further away on the highways and hedgerows it says that the servant had to convince them to come. It is not always easy, for those who lived in the hosts town they would have known of his generosity and goodness those on the road wouldn’t have a clue they maybe suspicious, they maybe aware that they are outsiders, and unaware of this banquet of God’s grace… and yes there are those who will simply say no, give excuse, be caught up in  their own stuff, wealth, status and even family ties that they will use as an excuse.  But God’s big hearted grace is still inviting them to come… You are part of that grace, you are part of that invitation.

So you are invited… so Come all who are thirsty, parched and left dry and desolate, come to the living water Come even if you don’t have any money come and buy and eat without cost. Come and receive the richest of what life has to offer in God’s big hearted banquet of Grace.

Invitations, Seating Arrangements and the Kingdom of God (Luke 14:1-14, Proverbs 25:6-7)...On the Cross Road: Jesus Jounrey to Jerusalem in Luke's Gospel (Luke ch10-19) and what it has to say to us as Christ's followers.

Invitations and seating arrangements!  If you are organizing a wedding or another formal social gathering these things are probably on your ‘to do list’ and just maybe they have been on your ‘what to do!’ List or ‘your much a do’ list. Who do you invite and who gets left out? Planning where people sit may be a matter of navigating the minefield of family squabbles and feuds, friends of yours that don’t get along with each other, and what to do with old eccentric Uncle Bob and grumpy Auntie May. Of course you need to give certain people sufficient recognition not just squeeze them in down the back between the emergency exit and the door to the toilets.  And maybe in that situation Jesus teaching in the passage we had read out to us might not be that helpful and practical. It’s as probably as welcome as it was to his first hearers. But when we see its more than just some sound and profound social advise, that it is a parable it opens it up to be liberating and encouraging and hope filled and yet still challenging as it turns social convention on its head. Jesus uses ‘Invitations and seating arrangements’ to a dinner party to teach about the kingdom of God.

And we are walking with Jesus on his journey to Jerusalem in Luke’s gospel…A journey that takes up the central third of the gospel narrative… it’s a journey narrative that focuses on Jesus teaching. We’ve had a break for the past two months as we’ve focused on Genesis 1 the season of creation and nuts n bolts of prayer in aseason of prayer, and we’ll have another one over Christmas and New Year, but we will stay on this journey with Jesus until Easter next year because this journey and this narrative lead Jesus and us to the cross.

We had left the narrative with Jesus being warned that he should go somewhere else as Herod was trying to kill him, and Jesus reaffirming that it was God’s plan that he go to Jerusalem, and yes he would die there. We re-enter the narrative on a Sabbath with Jesus being invited to the house of a prominent Pharisee for a meal. It’s good for us to remind ourselves about Jesus Sabbath observance. It was his custom even on this journey to go to public worship at a synagogue. IN Luke 13:10 we are told it was his habit also to teach at these occasions which may explain why he receives an invitation to this rather exclusive meal with the Pharisees and the experts of the law.  It’s good for us to be reminded that public worship and hospitality were important to Jesus because it’s easy for them to become lost or relegated in our priority lists in the face on growing demands on and options for our time. Opening homes for hospitality was a hallmark of the early church sadly it struggles amidst our tight and full calendars and our suburban lifestyle with its focus on individuality and privacy. 

One of the reoccurring themes is Luke’s gospel is the conflict between Jesus and the religious leaders. Here we see that Jesus wasn’t so much welcomed with open arms but the Pharisees and experts of the law may have been forced by social edict to invite this visiting preacher, but they were using the situation to keep an eye on Jesus just in case he did something that allowed them to dismiss or condemn him.

Of course Jesus gives them something right away that challenges their worldview. In the midst of being on the way to a meal with the right people in the Pharisees eyes Jesus encounters the wrong kind of people.  We are not told how it happens but there in front of him was a man who was suffering from Dropsy, a disease which meant he was retaining fluid. It was viewed by the religious people as being a sign of God’s judgment, needless to say this man was not on the guest list, but he was on the God list. Jesus sees his need, asks the Pharisees if it is legal to heal him on the Sabbath and when they don’t reply, he heals him and sends him on his way. Here is the grace and love and power of God shown in Jesus. A grace that goes beyond what NT wright calls our narrow mindedness of who is worthy or not worthy of such love.

Jesus asks the Pharisees if anyone had a child or even an animal that had fallen into a well on the Sabbath day, will you not immediately pull it out?’ there may well be a connection between drowning in a well and the impact on the body of fluid retention. If this question and whole scenario sounds familiar to you it is. Because in Luke’s gospel we have a repetition of these minor miracles on the Sabbath where Jesus again and again uses this Old Testament illustration of exceptions to the no work on the Sabbath rule to talk of God’s compassion and the spirit and true intent of God’s law rather than the rigid and cold letter of the law approach the Pharisees had. It shows us that Jesus was giving the religious leaders every opportunity to see what God was doing through Him. God’s grace not only to the sick and poor but giving them opportunity after opportunity. Sadly this time it is only meet with silence. Sometimes the more religious we are the more we have been enculturated in to the Christian faith the harder it is for Jesus to show us the breadth and depth of his love and grace. We can be deaf and blind to what Christ is doing or wanting to do in the world around us. But Jesus Keeps speaking, God’s grace keeps showing itself to us. How will we respond?

When they finally get to the party Jesus observes a social game kind of like musical chairs happening. At a dinner party like this the table would be set up in a horse shoe shape and the more status a person had would mean that they would be closer to the centre where the host sat. It seems that like today, key guests like to turn up fashionably late and this could cause the host to have to rearrange the seating and ask guests to take a lesser place at the table. This in the Ancient near east and like in other honour/ shame cultures would mean a great loss of face, a social embarrassment. When I read this passage I couldn’t help but think of a time when I was the youth coordinator for the old Auckland Presbytery way back in the 1990’s. I was invited along to a youth service at a PIC church (that a pacific Island Church), after the service there was the normal cuppa tea, it was a banquet really. The youth leaders from each of the different Island groups were being honoured and given a seat at the top table along with the Minister. Kris and I felt happy just being with everyone else.  We were rather hard to miss as we were the only Palangi folk at this gathering, but the Minister recognized me as being the youth coordinator, so he came and got me and took me up to the top table. Now I understood that it was a way of acknowledging the presbytery’s support for the youth work and youth service in that Church. But it was rather hard when the Niuen Youth leader was asked to give up his spot for me. He had put in all the work during the year and had put the effort into the youth service and was now being asked to step aside.

Jesus uses that kind of looking to get the best seats and to show their status as a chance to teach. It may seem that he just gave them a good bit of social advice and wisdom, like our reading from proverbs, but Luke tells us it was a parable, that on the outside it was a simple story but we should expect that it has a hidden meaning. He challenges them about their pride and calls them to rather embrace humility.  It becomes more than a social seating thing as Jesus connects it into our relationship with God. It is we are prepared to humble ourselves that God will exalt us, and lift us up. We often use a verse from 1 john 1:10 in our prayers of confession and thanksgiving to acknowledge that God forgives sin. It says if we confess our sins God is faithful and just and forgives us our sin and cleanses us from all unrighteousness. Before that John has said if we say we are without sin we have called God a liar and the truth is not in us. Humility is knowing ourselves and our need for God. The man with Dropsy had humbly come to Jesus for help…here the religious leaders are more concerned with their own status.  Paul will later point to Jesus as the primary example of this Humility when he says that in our relationships with one another we should have the mind of Christ… as it says in the message version...

“He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that—a crucifixion.

 Because of that obedience, God lifted him high and honored him far beyond anyone or anything, ever, so that all created beings in heaven and on earth—even those long ago dead and buried—will bow in worship before this Jesus Christ, and call out in praise that he is the Master of all, to the glorious honour of God the Father.”


So in the kingdom of God there we see the least are valued the poor are considered blessed, service is rewarded not show and status.

Then Jesus turns to the Host and equally challenges him about his guest list. In the ancient near east social order was all about reciprocity, that I would invite you to something or do something for you and there would be the social expectation that you would repay that. It was a way of getting and developing patronage and acquiring social status. It might be like having A-listers attend your event or your party, and the kudos you get when it makes the social pages.  The recognition a brand gets when that special person wears your gear… so much so that certain people are paid outrageous amounts to wear certain clothes. But Jesus flips that on the head and challenges his host to invite the poor and the blind and the lame. Those who cannot repay. Again here is an image of the kingdom of God where all are welcome and invited and also for us to show the generosity and grace that God has shown us in the way we give hospitality.

We are going to share communion in a minute and it is a good example of the things that Jesus is talking about. The offer is for all to come to the table, it’s an invitation Given not by the church or he preceding minister but by Jesus to come and to experience his costly grace and love and forgiveness and presence and peace freely given. We are all invited none come because of who we are we all come because of what Christ has done for his, his servant nature, his death and resurrection and as a meal it invites us to be willing to share what we have received with each other and with everyone because of the generous nature of God’s grace.


In our tradition we are seated to receive this meal. It shows that we are guests and we share this table fellowship with Christ. In our tradition the elders and minister come to the front, not because it is a top table, a lace of honour but because we are here to serve you. Leadership in the Christian faith is servanthood a reflection of Christ himself, who came not to be served but to serve. We are here so we can serve you and it is appropriate that servants eat last. 

But it’s more that just how we do communion as NT wright concludes his commentary by saying…” The small mindedness which pushes itself forward and leaves others behind is confronted with the large hearted love of God. All Christians are called to the same healthy dependence on God’s love and the same generosity in sharing it with all those in need.” 

Speak Lord, Your Servant is Listening: relfections on hearing God speak to us in our payer lives (1 Samuel 3, John 10:25-30). Prayer nuts'n'bolts.(part 5)

In ‘the sacred dairy of Adrian Plass Christian speaker aged 45 ¾’, Adrian Plass illustrates some of the difficulties of trying to discern how God is speaking to us and what he is saying. After a disastrous speaking engagement, Plass says ‘he had some words with God in church on Sunday, and ‘asked for something to lift his spirits about the whole speaking business.’ On the way out of church he looked up and saw a cloud which looked very much like South America and wondered if this was a sign that God was calling him there. He pointed it out to a friend who said it was like Italy and God was definitely calling Plass to Italy. His son thought it looked like ‘India’ his wife who loves the West Country thought it was just like the Lizard peninsula in Cornwell, a man who didn’t like Plass that much said he thought it was Greenland which confirmed something he’d thought about Plass all along, while Plass’ quirky neighbour thought it was a carrot and that God was calling Plass to work with those who labour among root vegetables. Plass concludes

“I thought it wasn’t the sign I was looking for, not unless God is expecting me to convert most of the planet and people who labour among root vegetables. I mean, God created the world, didn’t he? So he must be able to draw one little bit of it accurately if he wants to.”

Later Plass was encouraged by receiving an invitation to go to Australia to speak. Who would have figured that God could use the postal service or Australians?

Maybe people who expect God to speak to us actually do have their heads suck in the clouds. It’s one of the big questions about prayer, if prayer is conversation with God, is it one way communication? How does God speak back? And How can we tune our hearts and minds to hearing what God is saying? On the Other hand it is one of the great privileges and joys of the Christian life to know that God does speak to his people.

The passage from John’s gospel we read today is part of a wider passage where Jesus uses the image of a good shepherd to talk of his relationship with us. One part in particular sticks out ‘My Sheep know my voice, I know them, they follow me’. It gives us a picture of a relationship with God where we know His voice and we respond, and what an amazing affirmation that Christ knows us! Prayer is at the centre of that relationship that is why it is one of the eight areas that the Parish council have identified as key if our vision to be an authentic, vibrant, sustainable community, growing as followers of Jesus, and inspiring others to join us that journey is to be an ongoing reality. So we are going to finish our season of prayer today by looking at some nuts’n’bolts about hearing God speak. Again some of them are very practical and others are very theological.

In my life I have experienced God speaking in so many different ways. When I needed to make a decision about staying in Auckland as the Youth coordinator or going to Rotorua, I went into the Waitakere’s to pray and God lead me to a passage about ‘a prophet being without honour in their own country’, not a delusion of grandeur but a clear direction that it was time to move away from the familiar into a new area. When I pray for people in a ministry situation I will often hear, as Adrian Plass puts it, “ a small voice at the back of my head that I equate with God” bring a scripture to mind or a simple word for that person or direction to Pray. God speaks through what I read, through other People. One night when I was about twenty two a man grabbed my arm on the way out of church, and said he believed God was telling me to go to Bible College, which after working it through with the leadership of the church I did. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a picture in the clouds, but God hasused wood pigeon’s to speak to me. I see them as a sign of the Holy Spirit, as they are the closest you get to native doves here, and it’s amazing how oftenthey turn up and God uses them to speak to me… I could go on and talk of circumstance, surprise encounters…I’m sure you have got your own tales as well.  But they are all subjective and open to interpretation and they are not just the everyday communication with God that comes in a constant growing prayer life.

When we started our season of prayer we defined prayer as our response to God’s speaking to us. God is a personal god and reveals Gods-self and his purpose and will to us. He has done that through his interaction with Israel and in Christ becoming one of us. Our prayer is in response to that. The chief way we have in which God has spoken and continues to speak is through the bible, the scriptures of the Old and New Testament. What we call God’s word. Not just dry words on dusty dog eared pages but living word that God’s spirit is able to use to speak into our lives and world. In fact we should filter and test every other way we feel God speak to us through the scriptures. When we find ourselves in a difficult situation or in need of advice the Holy Spirit will bring the scriptures to our minds. AS we immerse ourselves in them they help shape our thinking and actions and reactions. God’s will and ways and character are not a secret, in fact you could say that God is an open book.

 The story of Samuel’s call to be a prophet is helpful to explore how we listen to God’s word. The passage starts by saying that visions and words from the lord were rare when Samuel was young. For God’s people this is not supposed to be the normal situation. It was part of God’s judgment on the house of Eli. The people of Israel would expect their priest to be the one who got those words but it didn’t happen Eli and his sons had their own agenda. Can I say we can spend out whole life in Church and not have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. It is one of the things that the church in the west has wrestled with nominal Christianity, or cultural Christianity. The challenge for us is… that we can be quite happy going about our own life doing our own thing, so we don’t take the time to listen and hear. God’s word is not scare for us today we have open access to the scriptures.

The second thing is that Samuel really wasn’t expecting God to speak to him. He thought it was Eli calling him. Samuel is geared to listening and responding to Eli. Eli we are told is old and overweight and nearly blind, maybe it was a regular nightly occurrence that Eli would call for Samuel to help him. It is only when Eli tells Samuel that it maybe God speaking and to listen and respond with “Lord speak, your servant is listening” that Samuel hears God speak more than just his name. It is easy for us to get caught up in our routines and doing things and not to actually stop and be open to God speaking. May even in today’s world to turn off the devices and pull out our headphones. The line is busy because we are busy, not God. You can even get caught up in doing good things and religious things, and not make room for God and relationship. It actually takes time to be still and listen; it takes time to adopt that humble and expectant attitude that Samuel does.

Eli in this story represents the religious knowledge and wisdom of his day, and he is the one who actually helps Samuel to know it is God speaking and to know how to respond. WE need that same guidance and help. Hearing God’s voice is a community activity. WE have a wealth of resources and wisdom in people and in the saints who have gone before us that can help us to develop our prayer lives and to learn to connect with God. I’m going to finish this sermon by sharing one with you for you to try this week. I read what I call a spiritual health book once a year… one that focuses on my prayer and devotional life to get that guidance. This year it is Tim Keller’s book ‘Prayer: awe and intimacy with God.’ I’m using the ‘bible in one year app for my devotions this year and it is good to have the voice of Nicky Gumble to help open the word up with his reflections. Nicky’s wife Pippa also makes some very non theological everyday practical comments that equally help God’s word speak into my life.

WE see as the chapter goes on beyond our reading that Samuel becomes more and more adapt at hearing what God has to say. It’s process of learning of learning to listen. The other Key to Samuel developing a relationship with God where he hears god clearly, is that he actually obeys what he hears… In the gospel Jesus says his followers are those who hear his word and act on it. In the passage from John he says his sheep hear his voice and they follow.

That’s cool for Samuel but are you saying we should all simply wait to hear God call us in the night. How does it relate to my prayer life today?

Scripture needs to be a big part of our life. Not just reading it which I encourage people to do daily but allowing it be the starting point and conversation partner in our prayer life. Because it allows God then to speak to us. Eastern meditation is the process of emptying oneself and becoming one with the other whatever that other is. But Christian meditation or contemplation according to Tim Keller is ‘not mere bible study. It is taking the word of scripture and pondering them in such a way that your thoughts and feeling converge on God’. In fact the word meditation comes from the same root as mastication, or chewing. Cow’s have four stomachs and they will digest grass and later bring it back up to chew over again, we call it chewing their cud, to get all the richness and goodness out of it. That is the idea of contemplation on or praying through scripture.

It’s great that we have Eli’s to help us in this matter. One such person is the great reformer Martin Luther…we have a letter that Martin Luther wrote to his barber in response to being asked by him ‘For some simple ideas on ‘how he should pray?’. In it Martin Luther explained his process for pondering and prayer through scripture. Luther said that the first thing is that prayer must become a habit. I’ve just started going to the gym and swimming again, and can I say it’s not an enjoyable experience. It’s hard work, I ache I don’t really feel any benefit from it, this week I’ve had to learn to be less charismatic in my worship life… because it hurts to raise my arms. But I know as I go on that I will receive more and more benefit from it and it will get easier. Prayer like all things in life is not easy it’s hard and we need to work at it to develop past the difficult stage to a level of relationship which is sustaining and edifying. It’s like communication in marriage we need to spend time doing it and make time to do it and work at it.

Luther says he will contemplate a passage in scripture and then will turn it into a prayer via four different books. He says it becomes a (click) school book, he approaches it to see what it has to say about God, the human condition life and ‘what the Lord demands of me earnestly’. Then it turns into (click) his song book, it draws him to give thanks to God, he begins to pray those two classical parts of prayer adoration and thanksgiving. Then he says it becomes (click) his Penitential book, it leads him to confession and seeing where he needs to make changes in his life. Finally it becomes a (click) prayer book and he finds his prayers for himself and his world directed by God’s word. It is a good simple process which allows God to start the conversation, speak to us through his word, and guide our response in prayer. We used this technique at the parish council meeting on Wednesday and it was really amazing I think we had one of the best prayer times we’d had at the parish council in a long time. It’s a technique that helps the scriptures and prayer to become a two way conversation. Luther was quick to point out that in the midst of this if the Holy Spirit begins to preach a sermon to us we should be quite desisting and listen.

Luther also says that we should allow the word of God to lead our prayer’s by using the Lord’s prayer.   Not simply verbatim but paraphrasing and personalising it each day so that its petitions express our world and heart to God. He says I do not bind myself to words or phrases but say my prayer in one fashion today and in another tomorrow, depending on my mood and feelings”. Again we allow God to set the pattern for our prayer and lead us and speak to us in prayer.

I want to finish by giving you a gift: A seven day prayer journal to help you pray through the scriptures using Luther’s guidelines.  I’m asking you to take time in the next week to meditate on specific passages, as we are looking at prayer they are Paul’s prayers for the churches in his epistles. May we let those prayers guide our prayers? Then I want to invite you to write a prayer from that using Luther’s four books and also to write a prayer or say a prayer that is lead and guided by the Lord’s Prayer.

I hope that among the various spiritual practises we’ve done this month that you’ve found things that are of real practical help. The parish council and I hope and pray that you might find your faith growing and developing a real vibrancy.  It’s been our hope that during this month your prayer life will have deepened and grown: That you may draw near to God and have him draw near to you.

For those who would like a pdf version of the prayer journal mentioned in this sermon here is a link to it... Luthers guidelines for praying the scriptures.

A friend who prays is a friend indeed (praying for someone in need). Prayer nuts'n'bolts part 4 (Luke 18:1-11, James 5:13-20)

A group of young people on a summer’s mission trip to the party Island of Ibiza asked the local Anglican priest what the prayer needs of the Island were. Ibiza was in the middle of a really bad drought, so the priest asked them to pray for rain… like in our bible reading from James today… they prayed for rain and they were very surprised when minutes after they had stopped praying  Ibiza was hit by a very unseasonal thunder storm. In fact they later discovered that it hadn’t rained so hard on the Island in July since 1976. Coincidence? Answer to prayer? Anyway the English press got hold of it and it became a big media story. “God Squad claim first miracle on Ibiza” The leader of that group Pete Greig… says it’s one of the glory stories that Christians like to tell.

However Pete Grieg is honest enough about prayer to have written the book ‘God on mute’ about a real life struggle with his faith as he was woken one night by his wife who said “Something is wrong, I can’t feel my legs” which was the start of a five year battle with a brain tumour and an ongoing struggle with a severe form of epilepsy.  And it seems that God was silent and Prayer ineffective.

When we pray we find ourselves between these two extremes. There are times when I am surprised by just how awesomely God answers prayers and others when I have found myself with a friend or parishioner in desperate need crying out to God and it seems that the doors of heaven are shut. 

In scripture we are invited in all situations to pray. Jesus tells his disciples in the passage we had read in Luke’s gospel to always pray and to never give up. The passage we had read from James seems a practical outworking of that. If we are in trouble we should pray, if we are happy we should well pray, sing psalms, if we are sick we should pray, and gives some specific instructions about a way of gathering the Christian leadership and community together to do that. If we have done wrong well we should pray we should confess our sins and get it sorted. ’ Have you noticed how people wander around with their cell phones out these days focused on the screen in constant communication with other people over the mobile networks  and Internet. We are invited to have that same connectivity with God. But not in a way that shuts out the world, that puts us in danger of stepping out in front of that bus, or at the expense of the real life face to face relationships but that brings the world and those relationships into contact with a God who cares, who hears and who acts. RVG Tasker says ‘the habit of prayer should be, and indeed is one of the most obvious features which differentiate a Christian from other people.” Our heavenly father extends to us a standing invitation to draw near to God, which no experience of joy or sorrow and no conditions of prosperity or adversity have any power to cancel.”

In light of that great invitation I want to go through some nuts’n’bolts of praying for someone else, praying for people in times of need. Some of those nuts’n’bolts will be very practical and some of them will be very theological. This part of our churches season of prayer, as a parish council we have identified prayer as one of eight key areas we need to work on to help our church be an authentic, vibrant sustainable community, growing as followers of Jesus and inspiring others to join us on the journey.  So let’s work through a series of questions about praying for people.

The first one is Prayer actually effective? Does it make a difference or does it just make me feel better that I’ve been able to do something with my concern.?

Scriptures answer is that Pray is effective it changes things. In the passage we had read from Luke today Jesus says that the effectiveness of Prayer is based on the very character of God. He tells an interesting parable of an unjust judge, who tries to ignore the case of a poor insignificant widow. The encouragement for us is that God is not like that, he good and loving and just and is quick to see his people get justice. 

James provides us with a very practical example of the effectiveness of prayer. Elijah had prayed and it had not rained for seven years and then he prayed again for rain, and a storm front rolled in over the Mediterranean Sea.

What happens if I you don’t receive an answer right away? Does it mean that God has not heard my prayer?

The classic answer to that is that God always answers Prayer. We have to deal with the fact that it maybe ‘no’ or ‘not now’ or not in the way in which we had thought it should be. Our reading in Luke comes at the end of a block of Jesus teaching about the last days, the consummation of the kingdom of God, and Jesus parable in it finishes with Jesus asking when the son of man comes will he find faith on earth. It is only in this long term eternal perspective will we see how God has answered all our prayer. The call to us, the invitation for us is to live in the meantime trusting in and drawing near to God, to pray and never give up. Roy Christian says that he believes that God answers every prayer for healing, for some it is by healing, others it is that they get a new sense of God’s presence and peace in the midst of suffering and other times that prayer is answered in death. For a person to go and be with Christ, in a place of no more suffering, no more pain and decay, because as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, in Christ’s resurrection death has been swallowed up in victory. Peter Grieg’s wife Sami has the last word in his book God on Mute’ and she writes of where she has come to in her own prayer life… she says “I don’t always understand God’s ways in my life, but I’m absolutely certain that he can be trusted.”

God will answer my prayer only if I’m good enough? Or if I have enough faith and I doubt that I do?

In James we hear the prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective, and we might think it’s refereeing to those rear and wonderful super spiritual saints…right…wrong… The gospel of Jesus Christ is that we have all been made righteous through the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. We are made right with God. In the same passage we also hear that we should confess our sins to one another, we re all flawed and broken. If we waited to feel good enough for God to respond to our prayers, I don’t think I’d ever get round to praying, would you… But Christ died for us, he took away the stain of our sin and invited us in… as loved family.

I have a friend whose daughter is terminally ill, we often prayer for her in our services. I wrote to my friend asking if there was any way I could help…”his reply was “not really, except if you know a doctor who has a cure for this kind of cancer that would be great”… I didn’t have the faith to write back and say ‘we’ll I know the great physician and I’ll ask him”, but I prayer for my friend’s daughter every day. I don’t know if my faith is big enough in that situation. In Luke the parable that Jesus tells has two names ‘ the parable of the unjust judge’ and the parable of the persistent widow’. The answer to this question comes in those two. Our faith when it comes to pray is in what we know of the character of God. It’s not the amount of our faith it is the one in whom we have put that faith. Secondly the widow in the story is poor and powerless, she is amongst the least in her community, yet she is persistent and her case get heard. WE may feel in that same position, powerless, helpless… but if we draw near to God and are consistent and persistent that is the main thing.

Now in James, we see that he encourages people who are very sick to call the elders together  to pray. Does this mean that there is something special about elders? NO…the elders represent the whole community praying. In the end if someone brings and issue or a problem to you, in the sovereignty of God you just may be the very person whose prayers and help and compassion are needed in that situation.

Do I need to say the right words? Are their formula's to how we should pray?

Paul Ashman is the vicar at St Matthias and at the life course on Thursday he spoke on ‘how does God speak to us through prayer’. One of the things that spoke to me from what he said is that when we pray, God wants to hear from us, God wants to hear from you. Yes there are great liturgical prayers and psalm which help us pray, but in the end its about God simply wanting a relationship with each of us. Where we are real and honest. The other great thing is that when we pray we don’t pray alone, God has sent his Holy Spirit to dwell in all who believe and the holy Spirit it tells us in Romans 8:26 helps us in our weakness to pray. Our bumbling words may just be beautiful in God’s ear. Our articulate cries and sighs of compassion and care  may just resonant with the heart of God.

But just a couple of tips, it’s always good to know who we are praying to. We are not simply calling off into the universe we know who God is, so we pray to God. We know that we can come to God because of Jesus Christ, in fact Jesus invites us to pray in his name. It does not mean we have to slavishly say ‘in Jesus name amen at the end or it won’t find the right address. But it is good to remember that it is because of Christ’s life death and resurrection that we are able to come to God in prayer, that we know what God is like, that we can ask as children of a good and gracious Father.

What if I pray the wrong thing? How do I know what God’s will is in any given situation?

That is a tricky one. The answer to that is really that God’s will is not some hidden secret agenda, Christians do not believe in fate, we are a gracious people not fatalistic. The answer is we do know what God’s will is. In the first section of 1 Timothy Chapter  2 Paul urges all kinds of prayers to be given for all people. For kings and rulers because God desires is that we live in a peaceful and just society. Then he says to pray for everyone because God’s desire is that all may come and know Jesus Christ as Lord and saviour. God wants everyone to come to a saving knowledge of him, to know his grace and grow to Christian maturity. In all situations as we looked at last week that is what we should be praying for people. Secondly we know that Jesus prayed for people to be healed that sickness and death are a result of a fallen and broken creation so it is right that we pray for the one who has conquered sin and death, to deal and elevate its consequences.

When I pray for someone in a ministry situation I also think it’s important to listen. To listen to what the person has to say, as it gives you directions as to what to pray for, but also to listen to the Holy Spirit to give direction in what to pray. For me that might come as a word in my mind, that small still voice, or a bible passage will come to mind. I was praying for some pastors on Thursday wrestling with the death of a friend and having to take the funeral and the laments of the Psalms came up, where people poured out their sorrow to God, but which are also such strong declarations of faith in God. So I used that as a basis for praying for them. That they would be able to grieve and pour out their pain and sorrow to God but also to hold on to that deep faith in God and be able to share that as they ministered to others at the funerals.

let me finish by saying… Prayer is like most other things in life you get better if you practise. So we are going to stop now and I am going to invite you to break into little groups of about three or four, and share with each other one thing, one person, one situation that you would like the other people to pray for or join you in praying for. Then I’m going to invite you in that group to pray for each other. In fact why not simply pray for the person to your left in that group. And will you commit yourself to praying for that person and that situation for the week to come.