What we do in Church on a Sunday isn't just for
us it's for everyone and everything.
I mean our reaching up to God in prayer with his church has an impact on us, on the church and on the whole world.
This morning we’re reinstating Rogation Sunday, at the request of the liturgy and worship advisory group, so we’ll be going across the churchyard saying prayers for the earth and blessing a field.
Rogation Sunday means asking Sunday. In past centuries asking God's protection over the crops in May was seen as an urgent need in an agricultural community. In restoring that tradition we’re extending it into prayer for the world of work and good stewardship of the world's resources including human labour whether in office, factory or field.
'Whatsoever you shall ask for in my name, that will I do' Jesus said in John 14 verse 13.
This Sunday is a challenge to our self sufficiency, a reminder of a hurting world needing care and prayer and an eye opener into how every eucharist lifts the world to God.
A little thought on each.
First that to ask God challenges self-sufficiency. To believe in God does that in any case and prayer is just an affirmation of that faith. I mean faith that our life and everyone's life and everything in creation exists through him and for him.
In our daily prayers don't we say 'Lord bless everyone in the world and, as you have occasion, bless me and mine that our lives may be better directed to your praise and service'?
Asking God makes him real in our thoughts, purifies those thoughts and through the gift of his loving presence fills our hearts with love for all around us. We become part of the answer to our prayers.
How many times have you prayed to God for someone and been left with a practical action to accomplish. I was praying for my oldest son and his family on Tuesday and afterwards felt I needed to go on Facebook and invite them down from London for the day - and this fitted their thoughts. God knew, but he needed my active love.
Doing what we shall do this morning is writing prayer large as the challenge it is to our self sufficiency. It is secondly a reminder of a hurting world in need of prayer and care. Saying those litanies may sound like reading God a shopping list but it’s more our taking responsibility with him for the way the world is.
Prayer, asking God for things, changes things. It does so through expressing and rekindling our love for the world and its sorrows and joys. It does so also by the direct intervention of God.
'Whatsoever you shall ask for in my name, that will I do'. Note that Jesus says 'in my name' so asking to win the lottery may have a qualification! To win it so church can have an amenities annex with toilets may be more in his name than to win it so we can have a helicopter to hop to France.
I mean our reaching up to God in prayer with his church has an impact on us, on the church and on the whole world.
This morning we’re reinstating Rogation Sunday, at the request of the liturgy and worship advisory group, so we’ll be going across the churchyard saying prayers for the earth and blessing a field.
Rogation Sunday means asking Sunday. In past centuries asking God's protection over the crops in May was seen as an urgent need in an agricultural community. In restoring that tradition we’re extending it into prayer for the world of work and good stewardship of the world's resources including human labour whether in office, factory or field.
'Whatsoever you shall ask for in my name, that will I do' Jesus said in John 14 verse 13.
This Sunday is a challenge to our self sufficiency, a reminder of a hurting world needing care and prayer and an eye opener into how every eucharist lifts the world to God.
A little thought on each.
First that to ask God challenges self-sufficiency. To believe in God does that in any case and prayer is just an affirmation of that faith. I mean faith that our life and everyone's life and everything in creation exists through him and for him.
In our daily prayers don't we say 'Lord bless everyone in the world and, as you have occasion, bless me and mine that our lives may be better directed to your praise and service'?
Asking God makes him real in our thoughts, purifies those thoughts and through the gift of his loving presence fills our hearts with love for all around us. We become part of the answer to our prayers.
How many times have you prayed to God for someone and been left with a practical action to accomplish. I was praying for my oldest son and his family on Tuesday and afterwards felt I needed to go on Facebook and invite them down from London for the day - and this fitted their thoughts. God knew, but he needed my active love.
Doing what we shall do this morning is writing prayer large as the challenge it is to our self sufficiency. It is secondly a reminder of a hurting world in need of prayer and care. Saying those litanies may sound like reading God a shopping list but it’s more our taking responsibility with him for the way the world is.
Prayer, asking God for things, changes things. It does so through expressing and rekindling our love for the world and its sorrows and joys. It does so also by the direct intervention of God.
'Whatsoever you shall ask for in my name, that will I do'. Note that Jesus says 'in my name' so asking to win the lottery may have a qualification! To win it so church can have an amenities annex with toilets may be more in his name than to win it so we can have a helicopter to hop to France.
To pray in the name of Jesus is to pray for what he would want in any situation and the
prayers we offer on Rogation Sunday cover a tremendous range on that account.
And no, they don't include a church
loo but it's pretty obvious we'd get more people praying here and praying
here longer if we had one.
Today's Rogation procession takes us out of our own concerns and challenges our self sufficiency as it gives us a reminder of the needs of the hurting world around us.
Today's Rogation procession takes us out of our own concerns and challenges our self sufficiency as it gives us a reminder of the needs of the hurting world around us.
Thirdly and lastly it’s an eye opener into how every eucharist lifts the world to God.
It does so through Our Lord's choice of bread and
wine to be instruments of his love since each material incorporates the fruit
of the earth and the work of human hands.
The collection we make at Sunday eucharist allied to our standing orders to St Giles is presented alongside the bread and wine. It actually pays for the elements. Bread, wine, money are symbols of our life, of everyone's life as well as that of the whole creation. Life that comes from God to be taken, blessed, broken and shared by God who not only gives us life but gives us his life on the Cross and in the elements that are to us his body and blood.
There's something pretty awesome about Rogation Sunday. We pray for the fields and this makes a difference to them and to us. We’re reminded that the fields and the church go together for, as John Wesley taught, ‘God does nothing save in answer to prayer’. Without prayer God's hands are bound - so a prosperous community must also be in some sense a prayerful community.
The action at this altar on any Sunday is Rogation, is ‘an asking’. It's an asking for the Holy Spirit to bless the fruit of the earth and the labour of human hands, through their offering in the sacrifice of the eucharist and through our Communion with them when blessed that gives us new vision and fresh love to serve the world we’re both in and of.
'Whatsoever you shall ask for in my name, that will I do'.
So be it!
No comments:
Post a Comment