Theologian Frederick Buechner once
speculated that, when we repeat a word over and over, that word will lose its
meaning and instead become a jumble of sounds.
He writes, “Take any English word, even the most commonplace, and try
repeating it twenty times in a row—umbrella, let us say, umbrella, umbrella,
umbrella—and by the time we have finished, umbrella will not be a word any
more. It will be a noise only, an absurdity, stripped of all meaning.”
Buechner goes on to say that “when we
take even the greatest and most meaningful words that the Christian faith has
and repeat them over and over again for some two thousand years, much the same
thing happens.” I suspect that Buechner
was thinking, among other words, of those words that are so deeply and
profoundly embedded in our Christian worship ritual – words such as those which
make up the Lord’s Prayer.
We repeat the words like a mantra or a
lucky charm Sunday in and Sunday out and maybe even some of the days in
between. And the words that were so new
and illuminating when Jesus first spoke them in response to his disciples’ plea
– teach us to pray – threaten to become for us
millennia later little more than rote syllables strung together. Umbrella, umbrella, umbrella.
Should we really be surprised then by
the little boy who confidently claimed to his mother one day that God was a
man? It was an incontrovertible
fact.
“And how do you know that?” his mother
queried.
“Because his name is Harold,” the small
boy proclaimed. “You know, it says so in
the Lord’s Prayer. ‘Our father who art
in heaven, Harold be his name.”
Because the Lord’s Prayer can so easily
become like saying umbrella, umbrella, umbrella twenty-five times, today here
in worship we will reflect upon these beautiful and timeless words through new
ears. We will ponder each phrase of the
prayer so many of us learned by heart so many years ago. We will use different words – and we will use
songs – in the hope that a particular word or phrase will cause life and
substance to swirl about the ancient prayer in a new way for you, causing them
to become vibrant and perhaps more meaningful than before.
When you do not know what else to say
to God and you want to say something because part of praying is simply the
discipline of doing it, say the Lord’s Prayer. When you want to try out those
words that Jesus spoke - ‘Ask and you’ll
get;
Seek and you’ll find;
Knock and the door will open.” – but you are not
sure what you are asking for or seeking or what door you want opened, say the
Lord’s Prayer. When it seems like you
are still awake in the darkest midnight of your life, and you just want the
comfort of Someone Else to share your joy or live with you in your pain, say
the Lord’s Prayer.
You see, in the end, prayer is not
about enumerating a wish list to God.
Prayer is about strengthening a relationship with the Holy One, a
relationship that has always been there.
As Frederick Buechner wrote, “Keep speaking into the darkness until you
are answered. And believe that Someone
is there. Believe that someone is
listening. And if the prayer seems to go
unanswered? Who knows? Just keep praying. Keep on beating
the path to God's door, because the one thing you can be sure of is that down
the path when you beat with even your most half-cocked and halting prayer the
God you call upon will finally come, and even if he does not bring you the
answer you want, he will bring you himself. And maybe at the secret heart of
all our prayers that is what we are really praying for."
HYMN OF RESPONSE "What a Friend We Have in Jesus"
“Our father who art in heaven, hallowed by thy name”
O Breathing Life, Our creator God
whom the heavens disclose, Ancient of Days, Holy Mother of all worlds and
living souls, Beloved, our Father and Mother, in whom is heaven, O Birther!
Father-Mother of the Cosmos, Abba, Our Mother Who Art in the kitchen cooking us
up, Papa, lover of our soul, Mystery
beyond our knowing, close to us as our breathing, who walks with us but
also empowers us to walk, alpha and omega, I am who I am,,,…may your name be
held holy, may your Name shine everywhere!
Your arms, that once flung galaxies of stars like grains of sand, are
open wide, may your sacred name be praised….Holy and blessed is your true name.
HYMN OF
RESPONSE “How Great Thou Art” verse 1
“Thy Kingdom Come, They Will be Done on Earth as it is in Heaven”
May healing come – in our time. May your vision of justice and mercy to be made real in our world even now. May peace come – all in our time. Imagine your possibilities now, O Holy One.
Embody your desire in every light and form…. May your realm extend, a
commonwealth of mercy, peace, and justice. May your love be done on earth, in time, as it is in eternity. Help us love beyond our ideals and sprout acts
of compassion for all creatures. Animate the earth within us. Make the world a good place. Do what is best
here on earth. Make it like heaven. Let your will be done soon until we can
finally say, heaven is possible here on earth.
Let heaven and earth become one.
HYMN OF RESPONSE
– “Called as Partners in Christ’s Service”
verses 1 and 2
“Give Us This Day Our Daily
Bread”
Feed us. Feed the world. Keep us alive with three square meals. Enfold us in your bounty. Grow through us this moment's bread and
wisdom, bread and insight. Give all of us each day the bread we need and
hope to all who hunger for your life. Give
the world the bread it needs. Give it to
those who have none. Give us everything we need – and give it to us every
day. Give us this day bread we could
feed the world with and snatch us bald-headed if we try to swallow it all. May the daily bread we partake in be the
communion of struggle and hope and be the bread that is shared by all. We pray for your vision of enough: enough
sustenance, enough warmth, enough healing for all of your children.
HYMN OF
RESPONSE “Let Us Break Bread
Together” verse 1
“And Forgive us our Debts and we Forgive our Debtors”
Cut us some slack even as we cut
other’s slack. Untie the knots of failure binding us as we release the strands
we hold of others' faults. Pardon us the times we've broken faith.
Forgive our lack of loyalty and love and move us quickly to forgiveness when
wrongs are done to us. Let us not
seek revenge, but reconciliation. Let us
not delight in victory, but in justice.
Untangle the knots within so that we can mend our hearts' simple ties to
each other. Let forgiveness flow like a
river between us, from each one to each one. That salve you've got in a pot on
the back of the stove only heals when everybody has some. Loose the cords of mistakes binding us as we
release the strands we hold of other's guilt.
CALL TO OFFERING – “Forgive us
our debts as we forgive our debtors.
Love us in spite of ourselves – and teach us to do the same to
others.” Let us share in our morning
offering.
THE OFFERING
PENTECOST PRAISE SONG
PRAYER OF DEDICATION
“Lead Us Not into Temptation but Deliver Us from Evil”
Lead us not into the moral
vacuum. Keep us away from the byways and
trails that lead us to nowhere. The
flashing lights, the neon signs, the glitz and glitter, the dead end alleyways. Deliver us from hopelessness, from
intolerance, from war, from poverty. Do not abandon us in the time of hard
testing, and save us from evil’s every incarnation. In times of
temptation and test, strengthen us. From
trials too great to endure, spare us. From the grip of all that is evil, free
us. Don't let surface things delude us,
but free us from what holds us back from our true purpose. Lead us into the fullness of life, but
deliver us from evil. Liberate all that is good, and free us
from what holds us back. May we let go of that which is death dealing
even as we embrace your vision for life.
Do not let cynicism rule us. Lead
us to holy innocence. Keep us safe…..
MORNING PRAYER
…and keep safe all those who are
in need – those whom we pray will be healed – perhaps in body, perhaps in
spirit – esp. those within our church family – Joan, Ron, Muriel. But also those whose names need to be said
silently or out loud by us using our individual voices…
Keep us safe, O God, and lead us
to your kingdom and to your arms of love.
Amen
CONGREGATIONAL SUNG RESPONSE
“For Thine is the Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory, Forever. Amen”
You are the source, you
alone. Only with you are all these
things possible. From you arises every
Vision. you alone are God of grace and glory, and Rock of our Redemption. You reign in the glory of the power
that is love, now and forever. For
the Wisdom, the power and the glory, the Presence and the Goodness are Yours..
You're in charge! You
can do anything you want! You're ablaze
in beauty! You are king. You are a great God. Now and forever. Until the end of time. Until the 12th of never – and
that’s a long, long time. Yes!
Yes! Yes! Let
it be so, God, let it be so. I affirm this with my whole being. This we believe. Amen.
CLOSING
HYMN “Holy Is Your Name”
by Rev. Nancy Foran, Raymond VIllage Community Church
The reflections were inspired by and adapted from http://re-worship.blogspot. com
by Rev. Nancy Foran, Raymond VIllage Community Church
The reflections were inspired by and adapted from http://re-worship.blogspot. com
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