If anyone were in doubt about what Lent is about, then this morning’s Gospel, short as it is, says everything there is to know about it. In it, we heard how the same Spirit who, a few verses earlier, had descended on Jesus during his baptism in the Jordan, now drove him out into the wilderness, the place where, for the Jewish mind of Jesus’ day, the demons lived. And there, St Mark tells us, he was with the wild beasts, another word for those same demons. And that’s exactly what we are invited to do during Lent: to enter into our own 21st century wilderness, the place where our modern demons live, and be with the wild beasts of our own day. And not only to be with them, but to engage in combat with them; to take them on; to confront them; to do battle with them and, ultimately, with God’s help, tame and control them until their power over us diminishes and we can grow in the freedom we need to go where God rather than they lead us. Each of us, of course, has our own personal demons which we must do battle with. But the wild beasts I invite you to think about today are not our personal ones, but our communal ones, the ones which, like a pack of hungry lions roaming the streets of any town, are causing havoc all over the world today. I am referring, of course, to the current financial crisis which, day after day, fills and dominates our News.
The sheer extent of it is very hard for us to comprehend. Perhaps because of this, we tend to concentrate on things like Sir Fred Goodwin’s pension. Accustomed to the kind of money footballers earn, we can just about deal with the figures involved in his case. But behind individual cases like this lies a crisis of unimaginable proportions. Just a few months ago, the whole financial system was within days of collapsing like a pack of cards. And if it had, or if it still does, our money, not the bank’s money, would have disappeared or may still disappear, like rain-water down a drain. And behind all this lie things which, without falling into an ‘I told you so’ mode, we have talked about here for years. How often have I invited you to reflect on how we worship at the altar of the goddess money and live by her commandments, better known as market-forces? Over and over again we have spoken about the ultimate unsustainability of a consumer-driven society which depends on us buying more and more things we don’t need and often cannot afford. And these are not just political or economic questions, They are moral and deeply spiritual questions too. And this is because, at the root of the whole crisis, lies a very modern philosphy called materialism. It tells us that the only thing that exists is matter. The spiritual does not; the inevitable conclusion being that if there is such a thing as happiness, and if our physical bodies are all we are, this happiness or fulfilment will be physical and material. If we are spiritual beings, of course, then this is simply untrue, except that, like the addicts we have become, we chase after material things, unwilling or unable to face up the fact that we are chasing an illusion and that only a complete change of direction can save us. The idea that after this financial crisis is over things can return to the way they were before is also an illusion. Something has changed forever in the way the world is run and, as it struggles to find a way forward, men and women of spirituality and faith all over the world have a vital role to play.
And the first place we must turn to for guidance is the Gospel. And in today’s Gospel Acclamation we have Jesus’ response to the philosophy of materialism. ‘Man’ he tells us, ‘does not live by bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ And in another place he poses a question which goes to the very heart of the crisis facing the world today. ‘What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and suffers the loss of his own soul?’ a point reinforced by the parable of the farmer who, having had a bumper harvest, knocked down his barn and built a bigger one to store it in. And the teaching of the Gospel is reflected in the rich social teaching of the Church, often called it’s best kept secret. Pope John Paul II, for example, in his encyclical on work, roundly condemns the capitalist worship of market-forces, reminding us that economies exists to serve human beings, not to enslave them. And only this week, the Archbishop of Westminster, in a farewell speech, stated what is self-evident to anyone familiar with either the Gospel or the Church’s social teaching, that the economy, if it is to serve people, must have a moral framework. And Gordon Brown, in an interview this week with the editor of the Tablet, says that people want free markets but not value-free markets. And it’s against this background that we enter these days into the ancient season of Lent, a time of Prayer, Fasting and Alsmgiving. So what’s the connection?
Well, by taking time out from being physically active or productive and spending it in prayer – what many today would see as a waste of time - we challenge and confront head-on the lie that matter is all there is. We don’t live on bread alone. We are not just our bodies, and the evidence for the spiritual dimension in us lies in prayer. And by fasting or doing penance of some kind, we challenge the very greed and selfishness which lies at the root of the current crisis and, by its sheer enormity, has so shocked us in recent months. In a world filled with such greed, in which we have to have everything now, even when it involves unsustainable debt, the simple postponement of pleasure or just doing without through penance, fasting, self-denial or whatever name you want to give it, goes to the very heart of the evil that has brought the world economy to where it is now. And by almsgiving, sharing what we have with those in need, the whole world becomes involved.
Perhaps never before has Lent beeen so relevant to the times through which we are living. As the world struggles to come to terms with what is happening and find a way forward, Lent, with its threefold call to prayer, fasting and almsgiving, contains within itself the basic elements of the solution. All we have to do now is put them into practice, starting with ourselves.
BIDDING PRAYERS
We begin this week by praying for the world at this difficult moment in history. Faced by a financial crisis greater than anything seen in previous generations, business leaders and political leaders everywhere are struggling to know what to do. And so we pray for them, that God will give them the courage they need to face up to unpleasant and unwelcome truths about the world we live in, along with the wisdom they need to do something about them................Lord hear us
But we pray most of all that God will stir the imaginations of those who have the responsibility of making major decisions which will have long-term consequences for us all. Only if, through the power of the Spirit working deep within history, are they able to imagine new situations and envisage new possibilities, will they and we be able to create together something better than what we had before the current crisis began. And so we ask for this grace of imagination and insight.................Lord hear us
For close on two thousand years, Lent has invited us to embrace prayer, fasting and almsgiving. This year, however, they have particular relevance to the crisis the world is facing. Human beings do not live on bread alone. Material things can never satisfy us or meet our deepest needs. Every man, woman and child is our brother and sister and the future health and well-being of humanity itself depends on their being fed. And so we pray for the grace to see this clearly this Lent.................Lord hear us
Each of us, of course, has our own personal demons, the wild beasts inside which terrorize and cause havoc in our lives. One of these is fear, which cripples us and prevents us going where God leads. Another is resentment which traps us in the past. A third could be selfishness which prevents us moving out to others. But whatever our personal demons, we pray for the grace we need to starve them of what gives them life this Lent so that we can become free of them................Lord hear us
In the first reading today, we heard part of the Old Testament myth of Noah and flood. In the story, God is presented as a God who purifies and makes things new. The flood is seen as a cleansing force in creation, washing away the past and creating a new thing. And so we ask this same God to be active in our lives this Lent, washing away what is not consistent with his dream for us and creating a new thing in the life of each one here...........Lord hear us
A huge amount of time and energy among some Christians is wasted trying to defend the indefensible view that stories like the flood are literally true. The story, like all the stories in Genesis, is profoundly true, except that the truth in question is theological rather than historical. And so we pray that, in this new century, men and women of faith will leave behind meaningless disputes over such things and devote more time and energy to the service of humanity..........Lord hear us
.................................
Saturday, 28 February 2009
Friday, 13 February 2009
6th Sunday of the Year B
This week’s readings are a good example of how important it is, when reading the Scriptures, to separate historical events from the faith events which happen in the course of them. Take today’s first reading from the book of Leviticus, a kind of manual for priests in Israel towards the end of the seventh century BC. Practically nothing it says is of any relevance to us today - unless, of course, you have a special interest in late seventh century priestly manuals – but what it tells us forms the background without which it is not possible to appreciate the full impact of this morning’s gospel story.The purely historical events described in the bible belong to the past, to their own time. But scattered among them are events of an entirely different kind. These events transcend time. They are not trapped in one particular moment in history. Instead, they have a universal significance, a meaning that goes far beyond the limits of time and space. They become eternal truths, truths that go the very heart of who God is and who we are. They are, in a word, faith events, and today we have a wonderful example of one.
The whole of chapter thirteen of Leviticus, from which today’s passage is taken, is about leprosy, a disease which filled people in those days with horror and dread. There was no compassion whatsoever for those who suffered from it. As soon as it was diagnosed all the rules we heard about earlier were rigidly imposed. Sufferers became outcasts, living away from other people, partly through the community’s fear of the disease itself and partly because, as time passed, the physical appearance of the individuals concerned became completely repulsive both to themselves and to others, a situation that continued well into more modern times. In the Middle Ages, priests prayed the funeral rite over lepers while they were still alive, and would remain so for several years. And one of the things we learned at the Church History Course last month was that the part of Glasgow we now know as the Gorbals was originally an area outside the city where lepers lived. And its against this background that we have to understand the significance of what Jesus did today.
The whole point, of course, is that Jesus did the unthinkable and touched the leper, an action, the full meaning of which, goes far beyond the act itself. It speaks of a God who is not afraid of what is dirty and messy in life; an incarnate God who, from Bethlehem to Calvary immersed himself in the human condition; a God who, in Jesus, has embraced, without turning away in disgust, all that is ugly about the world; and, most importantly of all, a God who invites us to do the same. Leprosy in the narrow sense may have been brought under control in today’s world. But throughout the Scriptures this truly horrible disease, in all its stomach-turning ugliness, was always seen as a symbol of human sinfulness. And what we, as men and women of faith, are called to do now is look at the leprosy of sin in the world without turning away and touch it without flinching. We, too, are called to immerse ourselves in the human condition, to feel the pain of it, to confront its ugliness and, by the way we live, transform it from within. Except that there are all kinds of things today which make this difficult.
And the first of these is the general process of dumbing down which most serious commentators would agree has been going on in our society for years. In a world where all kinds of terrible things are happening to people, our capacity to read serious newspapers or watch serious programmes on TV about them diminishes all the time as our ability to concentrate for more than ten minutes lessens. Our News Bulletins are filled with trivia and we spend hours watching soaps or cheaply made TV programmes where people will do or say almost anything for the proverbial fifteen minutes of what passes for fame in an empty and shallow society. Just think of the number of serious current affairs programmes we used to have but which have now disappeared, giving way to low-level rubbish, a tactic used to good effect by many governments throughout the world to keep people’s minds off things that are wrong and stop them getting out of their chairs and doing something about them. And just think about how unwilling we are in this country to actually look at the horrors going on around us. Time and time again we are warned that some images in the following report may be disturbing, giving us, if we want, the chance to turn away and not have to look at starving people or see the full effects of violence, perpetrated, sometimes ,in our name, in case it puts us off our tea or we choke in our glass of Rioja. So much for touching the leper or looking ugliness in the face. And how often have we crossed the road, looked the other way or complained about the presence of poor people in the street here in Kilmarnock? So much for the Jesus who reached out to and touched those whom no-one wanted anything to do with.
And there is one other effect of all this that I invite you to think about. In the gospel, St Mark tells us that Jesus felt sorry for the leper. But an alternative translation would have it that Jesus felt angry, not at the man himself, but at the sinfulness the leprosy represented. And in this we have one of the most harmful effects of the dumbing-down process we are speaking about: our growing failure or inability to get angry about what goes on in the world. Many people did get angry at the time of the invasion of Iraq and millions took to the streets in protest. But generally speaking, that has been the exception to the rule in recent years. When last did you feel strongly enough about an issue of injustice even to write a letter on the subject let alone do something about it.
And yet that’s what it means to follow the Jesus who did the unthinkable and touched the leper. It means having the capacity to feel empathy for the plight of others. It means getting angry when terrible things happen, angry enough, hopefully, to take some kind of action. It means taking the trouble to watch serious programmes or read serious newspapers to become more aware of what’s going on in the world instead of dulling our minds with trivia and rubbish. OK, it’s not easy. It requires effort. It’s not comfortable. But when did Jesus ever say that following him would be easy or comfortable?
BIDDING PRAYERS
The world of our time is as full of lepers as it has been at any moment in its history; men and women, our brothers and sisters, whom we push to the margins of society and exclude from normal life. On a world scale, these are the very poor, those who have no power to influence events or lift themselves out of the poverty they were born into. And so we pray for the courage and generosity we need to reach out and touch them in some way...........Lord hear us
There are also lepers living on the margins here in Kilmarnock, and, like those in Jesus’ day, they are often unattractive to the eye. The way they look, the way they dress, the way they conduct themselves, can frighten us the way they frightened people two thousand years ago. And it is true that they can be a danger to us. And yet, if we are to be faithful to the gospel, somehow we must develop ways of touching their lives. And so we ask God to show how................Lord hear us
If, as men and women of faith, called to be signs in the world of the Jesus we saw touch the leper in today’s story, then it is vital that we resist the dumbing-down process currently going on all around us. Whether it be through television, the newspapers, the internet or private study and reading, it is vitally important that we become more aware, not only of what is going on in the world, but why. And so we pray for this very modern grace.........Lord hear us
One of the great signs of the times today is the crisis in the world financial markets. The Spirit of God is at work deep within history and the events we are living through have much to tell us. The danger, however, is that we create scapegoats out of bankers, politicians, foreigners and others, turning them into modern-day lepers, rather than face up to our own greed, our own mistakes and our own responsibilities. And so we ask God to save us from this very human error................Lord hear us
Even on the margins of society there are those who are pushed further to the margins. These, today, are the sex-offenders, the paedophiles, the child murderers and others who, even in our prisons, have to be protected from those around them. And yet many of them are deeply disturbed and mentally ill people. And so we pray for the grace we need to reach out in some way, at least within our hearts, to the most despised and hated people in our society.................Lord hear us
This coming weekend sees the third part of the Church History Course. This month, our topic is the Reformation. And so we pray that God will bless our gathering and guide the person who will be leading us through the weekend. But we pray, too, that our study of this tragic episode in the history of the Church will stir in us a deep determination to play our part in the long and difficult process of healing the damage done all those years ago...................Lord hear us
The whole of chapter thirteen of Leviticus, from which today’s passage is taken, is about leprosy, a disease which filled people in those days with horror and dread. There was no compassion whatsoever for those who suffered from it. As soon as it was diagnosed all the rules we heard about earlier were rigidly imposed. Sufferers became outcasts, living away from other people, partly through the community’s fear of the disease itself and partly because, as time passed, the physical appearance of the individuals concerned became completely repulsive both to themselves and to others, a situation that continued well into more modern times. In the Middle Ages, priests prayed the funeral rite over lepers while they were still alive, and would remain so for several years. And one of the things we learned at the Church History Course last month was that the part of Glasgow we now know as the Gorbals was originally an area outside the city where lepers lived. And its against this background that we have to understand the significance of what Jesus did today.
The whole point, of course, is that Jesus did the unthinkable and touched the leper, an action, the full meaning of which, goes far beyond the act itself. It speaks of a God who is not afraid of what is dirty and messy in life; an incarnate God who, from Bethlehem to Calvary immersed himself in the human condition; a God who, in Jesus, has embraced, without turning away in disgust, all that is ugly about the world; and, most importantly of all, a God who invites us to do the same. Leprosy in the narrow sense may have been brought under control in today’s world. But throughout the Scriptures this truly horrible disease, in all its stomach-turning ugliness, was always seen as a symbol of human sinfulness. And what we, as men and women of faith, are called to do now is look at the leprosy of sin in the world without turning away and touch it without flinching. We, too, are called to immerse ourselves in the human condition, to feel the pain of it, to confront its ugliness and, by the way we live, transform it from within. Except that there are all kinds of things today which make this difficult.
And the first of these is the general process of dumbing down which most serious commentators would agree has been going on in our society for years. In a world where all kinds of terrible things are happening to people, our capacity to read serious newspapers or watch serious programmes on TV about them diminishes all the time as our ability to concentrate for more than ten minutes lessens. Our News Bulletins are filled with trivia and we spend hours watching soaps or cheaply made TV programmes where people will do or say almost anything for the proverbial fifteen minutes of what passes for fame in an empty and shallow society. Just think of the number of serious current affairs programmes we used to have but which have now disappeared, giving way to low-level rubbish, a tactic used to good effect by many governments throughout the world to keep people’s minds off things that are wrong and stop them getting out of their chairs and doing something about them. And just think about how unwilling we are in this country to actually look at the horrors going on around us. Time and time again we are warned that some images in the following report may be disturbing, giving us, if we want, the chance to turn away and not have to look at starving people or see the full effects of violence, perpetrated, sometimes ,in our name, in case it puts us off our tea or we choke in our glass of Rioja. So much for touching the leper or looking ugliness in the face. And how often have we crossed the road, looked the other way or complained about the presence of poor people in the street here in Kilmarnock? So much for the Jesus who reached out to and touched those whom no-one wanted anything to do with.
And there is one other effect of all this that I invite you to think about. In the gospel, St Mark tells us that Jesus felt sorry for the leper. But an alternative translation would have it that Jesus felt angry, not at the man himself, but at the sinfulness the leprosy represented. And in this we have one of the most harmful effects of the dumbing-down process we are speaking about: our growing failure or inability to get angry about what goes on in the world. Many people did get angry at the time of the invasion of Iraq and millions took to the streets in protest. But generally speaking, that has been the exception to the rule in recent years. When last did you feel strongly enough about an issue of injustice even to write a letter on the subject let alone do something about it.
And yet that’s what it means to follow the Jesus who did the unthinkable and touched the leper. It means having the capacity to feel empathy for the plight of others. It means getting angry when terrible things happen, angry enough, hopefully, to take some kind of action. It means taking the trouble to watch serious programmes or read serious newspapers to become more aware of what’s going on in the world instead of dulling our minds with trivia and rubbish. OK, it’s not easy. It requires effort. It’s not comfortable. But when did Jesus ever say that following him would be easy or comfortable?
BIDDING PRAYERS
The world of our time is as full of lepers as it has been at any moment in its history; men and women, our brothers and sisters, whom we push to the margins of society and exclude from normal life. On a world scale, these are the very poor, those who have no power to influence events or lift themselves out of the poverty they were born into. And so we pray for the courage and generosity we need to reach out and touch them in some way...........Lord hear us
There are also lepers living on the margins here in Kilmarnock, and, like those in Jesus’ day, they are often unattractive to the eye. The way they look, the way they dress, the way they conduct themselves, can frighten us the way they frightened people two thousand years ago. And it is true that they can be a danger to us. And yet, if we are to be faithful to the gospel, somehow we must develop ways of touching their lives. And so we ask God to show how................Lord hear us
If, as men and women of faith, called to be signs in the world of the Jesus we saw touch the leper in today’s story, then it is vital that we resist the dumbing-down process currently going on all around us. Whether it be through television, the newspapers, the internet or private study and reading, it is vitally important that we become more aware, not only of what is going on in the world, but why. And so we pray for this very modern grace.........Lord hear us
One of the great signs of the times today is the crisis in the world financial markets. The Spirit of God is at work deep within history and the events we are living through have much to tell us. The danger, however, is that we create scapegoats out of bankers, politicians, foreigners and others, turning them into modern-day lepers, rather than face up to our own greed, our own mistakes and our own responsibilities. And so we ask God to save us from this very human error................Lord hear us
Even on the margins of society there are those who are pushed further to the margins. These, today, are the sex-offenders, the paedophiles, the child murderers and others who, even in our prisons, have to be protected from those around them. And yet many of them are deeply disturbed and mentally ill people. And so we pray for the grace we need to reach out in some way, at least within our hearts, to the most despised and hated people in our society.................Lord hear us
This coming weekend sees the third part of the Church History Course. This month, our topic is the Reformation. And so we pray that God will bless our gathering and guide the person who will be leading us through the weekend. But we pray, too, that our study of this tragic episode in the history of the Church will stir in us a deep determination to play our part in the long and difficult process of healing the damage done all those years ago...................Lord hear us
Saturday, 7 February 2009
5th Sunday of the Year B
One of the things I feel very grateful for at this point in my life is that, after forty years in ministry, I still feel very enthusiastic about what it means to be a priest. I do agree with Job in the first reading when he talks about how his days have passed ‘swifter than a weaver’s shuttle,’ a feeling I know many of you share, but I have no sense, as he has, that man’s life on earth is nothing more than pressed service, his time no better than hired drudgery. I have met people who feel this way, sad, disillusioned or burnt-out individuals who see the world through negative and pessimistic eyes, deeply unhappy with the way their lives have turned out, but it always fills me with sadness. To live and end up like this is a tragedy for any human being, the good news being that today’s Gospel contains, I believe, the secret of how to make sure this does not happen to us. So let’s look at it again.
In it, Jesus, as we heard last week, has just caste out an unclean spirit from a man in the synagogue at Capernaum. The afternoon heat in that part of the world is tiring enough, but dealing with unclean spirits is itself an exhausting business, and so, after leaving the synagogue, Jesus heads straight for the house of Simon and Andrew where food and rest await him. In the evening, however, the people of the town come crowding round the door and, as a result, Jesus spends many hours healing the sick and casting out devils. The next thing St Mark tells us is that in the morning, long before dawn, Jesus got up, left the house and went to a lonely place to pray. At which point, as I have done before when we have read this passage, I would like to add something which helps me make sense of it and explains why it has come to mean so much to me personally and helped me make sure that I don’t myself become cynical, pessimistic or disillusioned.
And in this imaginative addition to St Mark’s story, I picture Jesus, as he lies down to sleep, feeling a bit uneasy about the day that has just passed. Something has not been right about it, and its this awareness and the need to get to the root of it which makes him decide to get up early the next morning to pray. Mark says nothing, of course, about what happened in the prayer, but the story contains an important clue in the form of Jesus’ reaction when Peter comes and tells him that the people from the town are all out looking for him. What had been wrong with the previous day, I suggest, is that, the crowd had been setting the agenda. But, in prayer, Jesus sees that this is not right. He has not come into the world to do the will of the crowd, to conform to the expectations of those around him or keep people happy by doing what they want him to do. He has come to do the will of his Father and its because he has got in touch with this again in his prayer that he says to Peter, ‘Let us go elsewhere, to the neighbouring country towns, so that I can preach there too’ leaving behind in the process, some pretty grumpy people who had other plans for him, because – and here is the key to everything – ‘that is why I came.’ In these five words, ‘that is why I came,’ Jesus sums up the purpose, not only of his own life, but the life of every human being. Each individual person is a unique, unrepeatable image of God and until we discover what our own uniqueness involves, until we discover, in other words, who we really are – in the words of Jesus ‘why we have come’ – and be that person, regardless of what anybody else wants us to be or demands that we be, we will never be truly happy or our lives fulfilled. And while the answer to the question of who we really are - why we have come - will ultimately only be known if, in the context of our own lives, we get up in the morning long before dawn and go of to a lonely place to pray, just as with Jesus as he lay down to sleep the night before, the process starts with a sense somewhere in ourselves that something is not quite right. And the signs of this are all around us today.
What, for example, is the most common ‘disease’ in Britain today, in many ways the plague of our modern age? It is, of course, stress and all that goes with it. But what is stress if not evidence that we are living in a way which is not in tune or in harmony with who we really are. We are trying to be something we are not, live at a speed and in ways we were never designed to live and so our bodies are screaming out against it. Why else do millions of people today live with constant anxiety, a sense of frustration, a feeling of dissatisfaction, a sense that there must be more to life than this, a sense which lies behind the problem of drugs in our society, if it is not that there is more to life than this and the quicker we find out what it is the better? Why are so many people today unhappy in their work and longing for retirement if not that something is rotten in the State of Denmark? Why is it that, despite years of material prosperity unknown to people in past generations, report after report tells us that we are less happy now than our grandparents were in a far less affluent age? Why, for goodness sake, has the whole world economic system collapsed about our ears if not that, for a long time now, something has been profoundly wrong with the consumer society in which we have all become embroiled?
And at the root of all of this – and we could go on all day giving examples of it – is a spiritual problem. Its the problem of why we have come, who we really are, and what, if any, is the point of our existence. In the end, it is about whether there is a God or not. As we hear so much these days about Charles Darwin, are we simply chance products of evolution or are we created to know love and serve God in this life and be happy with him forever in the next. One thing is certain. If there is a God and we live as if there isn’t, then we’re in serious bother.
BIDDING PRAYERS
We begin our prayer this weekend by holding up before God the millions of people who feel the way Job does in today’s first reading. For them, the world is a negative and unhappy place. They see no point to their lives. Lying in bed, they wonder, ‘When will it be day?’ Risen, they think, ‘How slowly evening comes!’ Many suffer from clinical depression, while others are simply overcome by the problems they face. And so we ask God to touch them all today..... Lord hear us
For most of us, things are rarely as dark as they were for Job. And yet, at a much less intense level, people today do feel the same things as he did. We ask ourselves what life is about. Deep within ourselves we know that things are not right. We feel a sense of dis-ease, a sense that they way we are living is not healthy, that we need to change something in ourselves. And so we pray for the grace to see God in this experience, calling us always to new and deeper ways of living.........Lord hear us
If we are to understand what it means to be human and begin to find out why we exist at all and where our lives are ultimately leading, in some way we all have to do what Jesus did, get up long before dawn and go to a lonely place to pray. Ultimately, of course, this lonely place is within us and only those who visit it and become familiar with it can ever lead fully human lives. And so we pray for the insight we need to know where this place is and the courage to go there often..............Lord hear us
In the 1960s, the Patriarch Athenagoras famously remarked that the god the atheists didn’t believe in, he didn’t believe in either. These were prophetic words which mean even more today that they did then. The god millions are losing faith in today does not exist. He is the god of magic, superstition and religion without faith. He is a god who stirs fear in people and the atheists of today are right to reject him. And so we pray that they will come now to know the God who does exist..................Lord hear us
We heard today how, if there is a God and we live as if there isn’t, then we are in serious bother. And the signs of this are everywhere: rampant individualism, consumerism, materialism in all its shapes and forms, the constant pursuit of happiness in places which can never deliver it and so on. And so we pray for the wisdom we need to read these signs of the times, understand them, and respond to them in a faith-filled way which helps the world at this time...............Lord hear us
Perhaps the most obvious sign of the spiritual malaise we suffer from today has been the collapse of the world economy. We have been appalled and amazed by the sheer extent of the greed which has caused it and which has forced people all over the world to reflect seriously on what has been going on. And so we pray that this experience will lead to deep and lasting change and that we will not imagine that we can somehow go back to all that once the storm has passed...................Lord hear us
In it, Jesus, as we heard last week, has just caste out an unclean spirit from a man in the synagogue at Capernaum. The afternoon heat in that part of the world is tiring enough, but dealing with unclean spirits is itself an exhausting business, and so, after leaving the synagogue, Jesus heads straight for the house of Simon and Andrew where food and rest await him. In the evening, however, the people of the town come crowding round the door and, as a result, Jesus spends many hours healing the sick and casting out devils. The next thing St Mark tells us is that in the morning, long before dawn, Jesus got up, left the house and went to a lonely place to pray. At which point, as I have done before when we have read this passage, I would like to add something which helps me make sense of it and explains why it has come to mean so much to me personally and helped me make sure that I don’t myself become cynical, pessimistic or disillusioned.
And in this imaginative addition to St Mark’s story, I picture Jesus, as he lies down to sleep, feeling a bit uneasy about the day that has just passed. Something has not been right about it, and its this awareness and the need to get to the root of it which makes him decide to get up early the next morning to pray. Mark says nothing, of course, about what happened in the prayer, but the story contains an important clue in the form of Jesus’ reaction when Peter comes and tells him that the people from the town are all out looking for him. What had been wrong with the previous day, I suggest, is that, the crowd had been setting the agenda. But, in prayer, Jesus sees that this is not right. He has not come into the world to do the will of the crowd, to conform to the expectations of those around him or keep people happy by doing what they want him to do. He has come to do the will of his Father and its because he has got in touch with this again in his prayer that he says to Peter, ‘Let us go elsewhere, to the neighbouring country towns, so that I can preach there too’ leaving behind in the process, some pretty grumpy people who had other plans for him, because – and here is the key to everything – ‘that is why I came.’ In these five words, ‘that is why I came,’ Jesus sums up the purpose, not only of his own life, but the life of every human being. Each individual person is a unique, unrepeatable image of God and until we discover what our own uniqueness involves, until we discover, in other words, who we really are – in the words of Jesus ‘why we have come’ – and be that person, regardless of what anybody else wants us to be or demands that we be, we will never be truly happy or our lives fulfilled. And while the answer to the question of who we really are - why we have come - will ultimately only be known if, in the context of our own lives, we get up in the morning long before dawn and go of to a lonely place to pray, just as with Jesus as he lay down to sleep the night before, the process starts with a sense somewhere in ourselves that something is not quite right. And the signs of this are all around us today.
What, for example, is the most common ‘disease’ in Britain today, in many ways the plague of our modern age? It is, of course, stress and all that goes with it. But what is stress if not evidence that we are living in a way which is not in tune or in harmony with who we really are. We are trying to be something we are not, live at a speed and in ways we were never designed to live and so our bodies are screaming out against it. Why else do millions of people today live with constant anxiety, a sense of frustration, a feeling of dissatisfaction, a sense that there must be more to life than this, a sense which lies behind the problem of drugs in our society, if it is not that there is more to life than this and the quicker we find out what it is the better? Why are so many people today unhappy in their work and longing for retirement if not that something is rotten in the State of Denmark? Why is it that, despite years of material prosperity unknown to people in past generations, report after report tells us that we are less happy now than our grandparents were in a far less affluent age? Why, for goodness sake, has the whole world economic system collapsed about our ears if not that, for a long time now, something has been profoundly wrong with the consumer society in which we have all become embroiled?
And at the root of all of this – and we could go on all day giving examples of it – is a spiritual problem. Its the problem of why we have come, who we really are, and what, if any, is the point of our existence. In the end, it is about whether there is a God or not. As we hear so much these days about Charles Darwin, are we simply chance products of evolution or are we created to know love and serve God in this life and be happy with him forever in the next. One thing is certain. If there is a God and we live as if there isn’t, then we’re in serious bother.
BIDDING PRAYERS
We begin our prayer this weekend by holding up before God the millions of people who feel the way Job does in today’s first reading. For them, the world is a negative and unhappy place. They see no point to their lives. Lying in bed, they wonder, ‘When will it be day?’ Risen, they think, ‘How slowly evening comes!’ Many suffer from clinical depression, while others are simply overcome by the problems they face. And so we ask God to touch them all today..... Lord hear us
For most of us, things are rarely as dark as they were for Job. And yet, at a much less intense level, people today do feel the same things as he did. We ask ourselves what life is about. Deep within ourselves we know that things are not right. We feel a sense of dis-ease, a sense that they way we are living is not healthy, that we need to change something in ourselves. And so we pray for the grace to see God in this experience, calling us always to new and deeper ways of living.........Lord hear us
If we are to understand what it means to be human and begin to find out why we exist at all and where our lives are ultimately leading, in some way we all have to do what Jesus did, get up long before dawn and go to a lonely place to pray. Ultimately, of course, this lonely place is within us and only those who visit it and become familiar with it can ever lead fully human lives. And so we pray for the insight we need to know where this place is and the courage to go there often..............Lord hear us
In the 1960s, the Patriarch Athenagoras famously remarked that the god the atheists didn’t believe in, he didn’t believe in either. These were prophetic words which mean even more today that they did then. The god millions are losing faith in today does not exist. He is the god of magic, superstition and religion without faith. He is a god who stirs fear in people and the atheists of today are right to reject him. And so we pray that they will come now to know the God who does exist..................Lord hear us
We heard today how, if there is a God and we live as if there isn’t, then we are in serious bother. And the signs of this are everywhere: rampant individualism, consumerism, materialism in all its shapes and forms, the constant pursuit of happiness in places which can never deliver it and so on. And so we pray for the wisdom we need to read these signs of the times, understand them, and respond to them in a faith-filled way which helps the world at this time...............Lord hear us
Perhaps the most obvious sign of the spiritual malaise we suffer from today has been the collapse of the world economy. We have been appalled and amazed by the sheer extent of the greed which has caused it and which has forced people all over the world to reflect seriously on what has been going on. And so we pray that this experience will lead to deep and lasting change and that we will not imagine that we can somehow go back to all that once the storm has passed...................Lord hear us
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