People's Prayers

Monday, June 13, 2022

Prayers of the People: Swimming is Optional ~ 2nd Sunday after Pentecost '22 Yr C

For Sunday, June 19, 2022; Readings: Isaiah 65:1-9, Psalm 22:18-27, Galatians 3:23-29, Luke 8:26-39

I was ready to be…found by those who did not seek me. I said, “Here I am…to a nation that did not call on my name. I held out my hands to a rebellious people, who walk in a way that is not good, following their own devices. [Isaiah 65:1-2]

Be not far away, O Lord; you are my strength; hasten to help me. [Psalm 22:18]

There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise. [Galatians 3:28-29]

Now there on the hillside a large herd of swine was feeding; and the demons begged Jesus to let them enter these. So he gave them permission. Then the demons came out of the man and entered the swine, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned. [Luke 8:32-33]

Why is there never a herd of scape-pigs around when you need one? Well, of course they really are all over as it's so very easy to jump on the closest group of "THEM" to blame for whatever demon(s) or demonic activities one believes of another individual or group. Also, of course, if Jesus were to cast the demons into the swine today, he would be overwhelmed with a huge backlash from bacon addicts.

When this Gospel appeared as a previous Year C reading for which I wrote in 2016, it was just after the horrible tragedy in the nightclub in Orlando, Florida, which, itself, was just a year after the jolting tragedy in a Church Bible Study Group in Charleston, South Carolina in 2015. Would that we could point to all being much improved in the world, in this country ~ how do we count the times and ways of horror-filled and hate-filled events just since then? Just in the last month? This past weekend? All too soon again? How do we move always forward, standing faithful and strong in the face of such ongoing fear-filled despair?

The Lectionary, the table of appointed readings, offers an optional Old Testament reading from 1st Kings and the Psalm for this Sunday, that differs from what I am using here, though the Epistle and Gospel are the same. The option is Psalm 42 which I commend to your reading. The psalmist is in lament, depressed, mocked, and yet for all his despairing he is still speaking to God, in memory of a time when God felt closer. He also speaks in hope as if feeling and knowing somehow ~ by faith? ~ that the time will come when he will be able to give thanksgiving to God once again. This time, in Psalm 22, although the opening is also a lament, we are beginning with the later part in which the Psalmist, still beset by fear of anguish to come (aren’t we all?), is filled with the hope of God’s nearness and, as a guide to worship, gives us reasons to praise the God who answers prayer and cares for all who turn in God’s direction. We, too, must turn toward God when all is frightening, yet also, when things are good and joyful to give thanks ~ how easy it is to forget in the better times.

Paul reminds us, in his letter to the Galatians, that we are all one in Christ and also that we remain the children of Abraham. At the end of this week’s Gospel from Luke, Jesus tells the man freed of demons: Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you. Quite a contrast to the usual lament of Why have you [God] forgotten me? How, indeed, do we declare how much God has done for us in the midst of what has been done to so many in our midst?

Let us take the time to breathe, clinging to faith, to hope, and respect for one another. Hope and respect are especially necessary this Sunday, June 19^th, which is the prelude for a Federal Holiday, Juneteenth, on Monday, that commemorates the arrival of Union Army General Gordon Granger in Galveston, Texas on June 19, 1865, to formally announce the end of slavery in Texas, 2 ½ years after the Emancipation Proclamation by Abraham Lincoln in 1863.*

Let us be still and listen for God in the silence of our souls, let us open our hearts to smile with the giggles of children, and be alight with the joy of sunrise breaking through a long dark night. Let us continuously re-claim our faith, through prayer and by action ~ however tenuous in the difficult times ~ believing in the power of God to guide us through until we can at last praise the Lord, stand in awe, and give glory. Let us be released from those piggies of doubt, anger, hatred, fear, and greed, and send them off for an eternal swim! (Calm down, bacon lovers, I’m only speaking metaphorically!)

Most of all, let us always remember that we are marked as Christ's own forever in Baptism, either through water or desire. Swimming is optional.

* For more Juneteenth information click link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juneteenth

LET US, GOD’S PEOPLE, PRAY

Leader: ~ Faithful Loving God, teach us, again, to always know Your Presence within us, that we are all Your children through faith in Christ Jesus, and heirs of Abraham according to Your Promise.

Jesus, Son of God

RESPONSE: Our Healer and Redeemer

~ Faithful Loving God, we call upon Your guidance as we stand before the rulers and regimes on this Earth, in our Nation, and in our Community. Hasten to help us in pressing for leaders to turn to honorable and principled governance for the good of all Your people, especially in the causes of Justice, Mercy, and Peace. We pray especially for: add your own petitions

Jesus, Son of God

Our Healer and Redeemer

~ Faithful Loving God, in your loving-kindness make your face to shine upon those among us, those known to us, and those unknown, who suffer through chronic pain, addiction, or distress in spirit or in life, and grant refreshment to all who give them care. We now join our hearts together to pray for those in need… add your own petitions

Jesus, Son of God

Our Healer and Redeemer

~ Faithful Loving God, ease the hearts of all who grieve, as those loved in our living memory are now risen in the joy and glory of eternal life. We pray especially for… add your own petitions

Jesus, Son of God

Our Healer and Redeemer

~ Faithful Loving God, we pause in this moment to offer You our other heartfelt thanksgivings, intercessions, petitions, and memorials… add your own petitions

Jesus, Son of God

Our Healer and Redeemer

~ Faithful Loving God, grant special grace this day to all who are chosen and ordained to lead us in your Church. As they bring us your Word and Sacraments, they teach us how to declare all that you have done for us, in us, and through us. We pray especially for: add your own petitions

Jesus, Son of God

Our Healer and Redeemer

The Celebrant adds: Most High God, Creator of All Humankind, on this auspicious date of Juneteenth, release us from any and all unholy possession that turns us away from You. Keep us mindful of the hope and freedom granted us through Christ, and fill us with the faith and compassion to proclaim Your Name by all that we are and all that we do. We ask through Jesus, our Teacher of Love in Action; and the Holy Spirit, the Spark that ignites our Souls; who together with You are One God forever and ever. Amen.

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Monday, June 6, 2022

Prayers of the People: 3 are 3 and also 1 ~ Trinity Sunday, 1st Sunday after Pentecost '22 Yr C

For Sunday, June 12, 2022; Readings: Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31; Canticle 13, Romans 5:1-5, John 16:12-15

Does not Wisdom call, and does not understanding raise her voice? [Proverbs 8:1]

Glory to you, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; we will praise you and highly exalt you forever. [Canticle 13, from the Apocrypha, Daniel 3:52 ff]

Since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ; and we boast in our hope of sharing the Glory of God....we also boast in our sufferings…that produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given us. [Romans 5:1-5]

When the Spirit of Truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth…and declare to you the things that are to come…All that the Father has is mine. For this reason [the Spirit] will take what is mine and declare it to you. [John 16:13a,c; 15]

One part of the human condition is the occasionally obsessive need to be rational about the irrational, that is to make sense of out of what we don't understand so that we can find something of value or usable in it. Great thinkers and ponderers, researchers and scientific minds alike, seek to grasp the ungraspable and define the indefinable. We often strive to know what is unknowable and explain the unexplainable, or at least contain the concept in some mortal definition box. And there is nothing more irrational, indefinable, or ungraspable than the theologically and intellectually mysterious Christian concept of The Trinity, One God in Three Persons. All manner of councils, creeds, arguments, and conjectures have sought to develop a workable, understandable, useful definition out of a non-scriptural but closely held doctrine of many Christian faith communities to which many simply choose not to believe because it cannot be contained in a comfortable box.

This is the Sunday which sends many practiced and learnéd preachers running for the list of available surrogates to fill in so as to dodge those unanswerable questions. The group of lessons appointed for today are, as usual, not terribly helpful in expounding upon what we, of those particular Trinitarian groups, attempt to understand or, at least, accept without question. That said, the passage from Paul's Letter to the Romans gave us a sort of taste of the workings of our co-equal and co-eternal^*, and consubstantial (of one and the same substance, essence, or nature), whole and entire God. In John's Gospel, Jesus, still in his pre-Pentecost Farewell Discourse in this reading, is explaining to the disciples how they will soon understand all they need to know through the coming of the Holy Spirit. They must have been nearly cross-eyed after all they had experienced in the prior month.

With the millions of pages of commentaries, books, treatises, etc., available on Google, wiki-places, and untold thousands of websites, and the innumerable hours of sermons we've attempted to listen to (or write), 2 millennia later we're still trying to put the pieces and Persons of the Trinity together in a way that helps us to explain to ourselves, let alone others, what it is that we believe. Step back, take a breath, some things are simply not simple. Mystery is just that. Faith is a mystery ~ outside of any and all types of boxes ~ as is the Peace that passes all understanding. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; Creator, Redeemer, Sanctifier; One for All and All are One. AMEN. Alleluia!

*One of my favorite ways to attempt a somewhat workable sense of the Trinity – gender language aside – is through a piece of a 6th century creed from Dublin known as Tírechán’s Creed ~ when speaking of God it says:

He has a Son who is co-eternal with himself;

and similar in all respects to himself;

and neither is the Son younger than the Father,

nor is the Father older than the Son;

and the Holy Spirit breathes in them.

And the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are inseparable.

And there’s this:

LET US, GOD’S PEOPLE, PRAY

Leader: ~ Holy and Blessed Trinity, as Almighty Creator and Lord of All, as Lord of Revelation and Salvation through Christ Jesus, and as Lord and Giver of Truth and Life through the Holy Spirit: You embody the eternal mystery of One God in Three Persons. Fill us with the courage and conviction to open to the love You have poured into our hearts that we may live as Your vessels of faith in action.

O God of Grace and Glory
RESPONSE: To You, O Lord, we pray

~ Holy and Blessed Trinity, let Wisdom raise her voice in calling for the necessary ethical and moral character in all the leaders of this World, this Country, and this Community, giving hope in actions for universal justice, mercy, and peace. We pray especially for: add your own petitions

O God of Grace and Glory

To You, O Lord, we pray

~ Holy and Blessed Trinity, grant endurance and steadfast faith to all in continuous suffering of body, mind, or spirit, and vigor to those who give support. We now join our hearts together to pray for those in need… add your own petitions

O God of Grace and Glory

To You, O Lord, we pray

~ Holy and Blessed Trinity, relieve the anguish of those in mourning, as You delight in the arrival of the souls of the Faithful, returning Home for new life everlasting. We pray especially for: add your own petitions

O God of Grace and Glory

To You, O Lord, we pray

~ Holy and Blessed Trinity, we pause in this moment to offer You our other heartfelt thanksgivings, intercessions, petitions, and memorials, aloud or silently… add your own petitions

O God of Grace and Glory

To You, O Lord, we pray

~ Holy and Blessed Trinity, continually replenish the stores of spiritual discernment for all who inspire our explorations of faith. We give You special thanks and ask for Your continuing Grace and Blessings for all of our Faith Communities as we go forth ever together in faith and in Your service. We pray especially for: add your own petitions

O God of Grace and Glory

To You, O Lord, we pray

The Celebrant adds: Triune God of the Heavens, the Earth, and All Else that is Known and Unknown, You are our Complete and Infinite Source of Faith, Love, and Hope. Urge our earth-bound hearts to seek higher fulfillment as heirs and proclaimers of Your eternal Truth in this life, exalting Your Name in all the world by our thoughts, words, and actions. We ask through Jesus, our Redeemer; and the Holy Spirit, our Sustainer; who, co-eternal and co-equal with You, reign as our One True God, forever and ever. Amen.

Monday, May 30, 2022

Prayers of the People: Blazing Fullness ~ Pentecost! '22 Yr C

For Sunday, June 5, 2022, Readings: Acts 2:1-21, Psalm 104:25-35, 37; Romans 8:14-17, John 14:8-17, (25-27)

When the day of Pentecost had come, the disciples were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house...Divided tongues, as of fire...rested on each...All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability. [Acts 2:1-4]

You send forth your Spirit, and they are created; and so you renew the face of the earth. [Psalm 104:31]

When we cry, "Abba! Father!" it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ... [Romans 8:13b-17b]

Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me...If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of Truth...he abides in you, and he will be with you...Peace I leave with you...Do not let your hearts be troubled... [John 14:11a, 15-17]

From a Greek word meaning “fiftieth” is derived the word "Pentecost." In Judaism, Pentecost is the holiday of Shavuot or The Festival of Weeks, celebrated seven weeks, or the 50th day, after the first seder of Passover. It commemorates God's giving of the Law to Moses on Mt. Sinai. In Christianity it is the 50th day, or 7 weeks, after Easter, 10 days after Christ’s Ascension.

The disciples of Jesus, perhaps still struggling with their understandings of and ongoing roles after the Crucifixion, Resurrection, and Ascension, gathered together most likely for the comfortably familiar Shavuot remembrance and feast. Then, as we are told, suddenly from heaven came a rush of violent wind and just as suddenly tongues of fire appeared above their heads and each one immediately began speaking in a different language. From that moment they were able to spread the word of God in Christ across the world with the Holy Spirit granting each voice in each language the precise interpretation of Christ’s saving words and instructions ~ in context of culture, place, and time, not merely by repetition.

In this fiftieth day from the most recent celebration of Easter, we are again and always called to know that we are filled with the Holy Spirit, called to live into the belief in Christ that we claim or want, and, to keep the Commandments whose giving on Mt. Sinai we may also commemorate on this day as our life principles.

On this Birthday of the Church^*, let us claim our heritage as children of God and use the language of love to be as Jesus has shown us to be. Let the teachings of Jesus not only be our governing rules but also our method and practice of daily living. In our times of suffering and our times of joy and in our times of everyday routines, let us breathe deeply and receive the power of the Holy Spirit to un-trouble our hearts and fill us with the Peace of Christ, the peace that passes all understanding; the peace of our own spirits that reaches out and gives peace to another’s.

Today is the day to stop merely knowing the story. Today is the day to start feeling the blazing fullness of the Spirit – to be amazed and astonished! We have the Spirit within us and God’s grace and the love and Salvation of Christ for just the wanting of it. Let us rejoice and be glad and joy-filled, and alive in it! What else is faith and this life, for?

^*Also known as the Birthday of the Church, Pentecost marks the official beginning of the ministry of the Apostles beyond their local area and into the broader world. The descent of the Holy Spirit in the form of tongues of fire imbued them, and each of us by extension, with extraordinary gifts to bring the message of Jesus by word and example into all facets and phases of our Christian life.

LET US, GOD’S PEOPLE, PRAY

Leader:  ~ Abba, Redeemer, Advocate, awaken us again to the fire of Your Spirit and the Peace of Christ within us. Un-trouble our hearts that we may feel the rush of heavenly breath, rejoice in Your Presence, and bless You with our souls.

                                           Spirit of the Living God
RESPONSE: Fall afresh on us

~ Abba, Redeemer, Advocate, inspire us to speak in the language of Your Truth to the leaders of this Earth, this Country, and this Community, as the voices of those crying in the wilderness of poverty, war, intolerance, injustice, and mass shootings. We pray especially for: add your own petitions

Spirit of the Living God
Fall afresh on us

~ Abba, Redeemer, Advocate, cool the fevers of critical illness, despair, or deprivation of those in desperate need, and energize all who give them care and support. We now join our hearts together to pray for those in need… add your own petitions

Spirit of the Living God
Fall afresh on us

~ Abba, Redeemer, Advocate, infuse Your care and comfort into the hearts of the mournful, as the souls of all who have reached the shores of Heaven, now rise and dance in Your everlasting joy and glory. We pray especially for: add your own petitions

Spirit of the Living God
Fall afresh on us

~ Abba, Redeemer, Advocate, we pause in this moment to offer You our other heartfelt intentions and petitions, aloud or silently… add your own petitions

Spirit of the Living God
Fall afresh on us

~ Abba, Redeemer, Advocate, amplify our Spirit-given abilities, that together with those we choose to lead us in Your Church, we may be steadfast in our journey and the actions of our lives sing as praise to the Lord, our God. We pray especially for: add your own petitions

Spirit of the Living God
Fall afresh on us

The Celebrant adds:  God All-Knowing, guide the Spirit of Pentecost to set our souls ablaze once again, that we may keep Your commandments, do greater works, and live as joint heirs of Your eternal kingdom. We ask through Jesus, our Redeemer Christ, and the Holy Spirit, the Sacred Fire in our souls, who together with You reign as One God, now and for eternity.  Amen.