Ash Wednesday Prayers

 

Jesus and the Woman Caught in Adultery 

 

Intercessions for Ash Wednesday
(For a service where no litany of penance was used)
Prayers of the People 

Congregation of the Good Shepherd, Beijing
Ash Wednesday Prayers and Imposition of Ashes
February 17, 2010 7 p.m.

Almighty God, your heart is gracious and merciful.  Slow to anger, rich in kindness, you have promised forgiveness and healing to all who confess their fault and rely on your love.  We pray you give us courage to trust in you, and seek ever to do what is pleasing in your sight. 
In your mercy, Lord hear our prayer

You have created us out of the dust of the earth: bless our understanding to see in these ashes imposed on us today a sign of our mortality.  May they reflect our true sorrow for our misdoings, our fear of your disappointment in us, a hearty resolve to amend our ways and make things right, as well as we can, with our fellow creatures. 
In your mercy, Lord hear our prayer

We confess to you and to one another that we have sinned by our own fault in thought, word, and deed; by the wrongs that we have done, and by the good that we have left undone.   We have not loved you with our whole heart, and mind, and strength. We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We have not forgiven others, as we have been forgiven.  Forgive us, Lord.
In your mercy, Lord hear our prayer.

We have been deaf to your call to serve, as Christ served us. We have not been true to the mind of Christ. We have grieved your Holy Spirit.   Forgive us, Lord.
In your mercy, Lord hear our prayer.

We confess to you, Lord, all our past unfaithfulness: the pride, hypocrisy, and impatience of our lives, our self-indulgent appetites and ways, our exploitation of other people, our negligence in prayer and worship, and our failure to commend the faith that is in us.  Forgive us.
In your mercy, Lord hear our prayer.

Accept our repentance, Lord, for the wrongs we have done:  our blindness to human need and suffering, our indifference to injustice and cruelty, all false judgments, uncharitable thoughts toward our neighbors, our prejudice and contempt toward those who differ from us, our waste and pollution of your creation, and our lack of concern for those who come after us.  For all these our misdoings, accept our repentance.  
In your mercy, Lord hear our prayer.

Restore us, good Lord, and let your anger depart from us; favorably hear us, for your mercy is great. Accomplish in us the work of your salvation, that we may show forth your glory in the world.  By the cross and passion of your Son our Lord, bring us with all your saints to the joy of his resurrection.
In your mercy, Lord hear our prayer.

Almighty God, you do not desire  the death of sinners, but rather that we  may turn from our wickedness and live.  Heal us, purify us, strengthen us, and make us closer and closer to what you intend.
In your mercy, Lord hear our prayer.

We ask your blessing on all who suffer:  the oppressed, the mocked, the scorned, the excluded, and those who suffer from others’ prejudice or privilege.  Bless all prisoners, Lord, to maintain hope and avoid despair.  Constrain us to improve their lot:  may those held wrongly be freed and those held justly find amendment of life.  Bless their keepers, Lord, that they not become brutal or calloused.  
In your mercy, Lord hear our prayer.

We pray for healing and strengthening for the sick, the afflicted, the grieving and the disturbed, whether in body or mind. Bless those suffering from compulsions and addictions and strengthen them in their work on recovery.  We pray especially for those people whom we now name aloud or in our hearts. (pause)
In your mercy, Lord hear our prayer.

Give grace, O heavenly Father, to all ministers of your gospel that they may, in their example and teaching, truly set forth your living Word, be signs of your love and grace, and wisely care for the stewardships you have given them.   
In your mercy, Lord hear our prayer.

Rule the hearts of those who bear the authority of government in this and every land.  Grant them love for justice, yearning for the common good, passion for peace, shame at flattery or partiality, and wisdom to judge matters rightly.   
In your mercy, Lord hear our prayer.

Give us all a reverence for the earth as your own creation,
that we may use its resources rightly in the service of others
to your honor and glory, and leave as a heritage to those who come after us a place of health, wonder, and beauty. 
In your mercy, Lord hear our prayer.

We commend to your mercy all who have died, that your loving purpose for them may be fulfilled; and we pray that we all may share with your saints the joy of your heavenly banquet.   
In your mercy, Lord hear our prayer.

Help us, Father, to be just and fair in our dealings with all, most of all with those closest to us.  Help us honor our commitments in marriage, family, friendship, and shared undertakings, and meet our responsibilities to others.  Free us, Lord, from an inordinate love of material goods, and deliver us from fear of financial uncertainty.  Help us to share what we have, do good, and show in our lives our thanks to you. 
In your mercy, Lord hear our prayer.

Father, give us eyes to see your image in all those whom you have made, to see your Son’s face in all who help us and all who need our help.  Give us ears to hear the cries for help around us.  Give us eyes to see where we have distorted your image in us, Father, and form in us the will to turn back again and seek amendment in our lives.
In your mercy, Lord hear our prayer.

Make our Lenten fast holy, Father.  In these forty days and nights, help us to better see our failings and our strengths, hear your call more clearly, and love you more dearly. 

Take away our hearts of stone, Father, and give us hearts of flesh.  Make us your children indeed, reconciled and reconciling, and rejoicing in your whole creation.  
In your mercy, Lord hear our prayer.
All this we ask for your tender mercy’s sake.   Amen 

+++ 

 

The Pharisee and the Tax Collector

PENITENTIAL PRAYERS FOR LENT

Lord Jesus, Son of God, you struggled in the desert for forty days and nights yet overthrew the tempter’s power.  So incline my heart that I may desire to walk in your ways,  and form my will that I may seek to serve others and avoid the occasions for sin.    Grant me grace to bring forth in deed fruits worthy of one who trusts in you.  Have mercy on me, a sinner.
(-AAH)

Almighty and eternal God, who drew out a fountain of living water in the desert for your people, as they well knew, draw from the hardness of our hearts tears of compunction, that we may be able to lament our sins, and may merit to receive you in your mercy.
Latin, late 14th century; The Oxford Book of Prayers (OBOP) no. 344

O God our Father, help us to nail to the cross of thy dear Son the whole body of our death, the wrong desires of the heart, the sinful devisings of the mind, the corrupt apprehensions of the eyes, the cruel words of the tongue, the ill employment of hands and feet; that the old man being crucified and done away, the new man may live and grow into the glorious likeness of the same thy Son Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end.
Eric Milner-White, 1884-1964; OBOP no.  346

God in Heaven, you have helped my life to grow like a tree. Now  something has happened. Satan, like a bird, has carried in one twig of his own choosing after another. Before I knew it he had built a dwelling place and was living in it. Tonight, my Father, I am throwing out both the bird and the nest.
Prayer of a Nigerian Christian;  OBOP  no.  347

O thou great Chief, light a candle in my heart, that I may see what is therein, and sweep the rubbish from thy dwelling place.
An African Schoolgirl’s Prayer; OBOP no.  351

Lord, for thy tender mercy’s sake,
Lay not our sins to our charge,
But forgive what is past,
And give us grace to amend our sinful lives,
To decline from sin, and incline to virtue
That we may walk with a perfect heart
Before Thee now and evermore.  Amen
--William Farrant or John Bull

Transfiguration Sunday (Last Sunday of Epiphany, Year C)

Metamorphosis
Last Sunday after Epiphany before Lent (year C)
14th February 2010 8:00 a.m. Morning Prayer with Eucharist 
Beijing, China
Readings: Exodus 34: 29-35; 2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2; Luke 9:28-43; Psalm 99

God, take away our hearts of stone and give us hearts of flesh. Amen.

The Old Testament reading today is about Moses going to the Holy Mountain and returning with the brightness of God still on him.  In today’s Epistle, Paul comments on the Exodus passage and applies it to his pastoral charges in Corinth.  The Gospel is Luke’s version of the transfiguration, when Jesus was transformed before his close disciples’ eyes to something they were later—after the resurrection—to realize was nearer his true glory.  In the Church’s calendar, today is the last Sunday before Lent, called Transfiguration Sunday on account of the Gospel Reading.  Usually the transfiguration of Jesus is preached today.  I want to talk to you, however, on the transformation of us.  It is what St. Paul in today's Epistle describes. 

2 Cor 3:12-4:2
Since we have such a hope, we are very bold, not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face so that the Israelites might not gaze at the outcome of what was being brought to an end. But their minds were hardened. For to this day, when they read the old covenant, that same veil remains unlifted, because only through Christ is it taken away. Yes, to this day whenever Moses is read a veil lies over their hearts. But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.  Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart. But we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God’s word, but by the open statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God.

Sometimes people use the Corinthians passage in an anti-Semitic and sectarian way—in it, Paul compares the revelation of God to Moses unfavorably to the revelation of God in Jesus:  Moses had to veil his face before the glory, Jews in the Synagogue veil their faces (cover their heads) when they read Torah and this is an emblem of their misunderstanding of what Torah means, but Christians don’t have to veil their faces and they have an undistorted understanding of God’s will.

But this supercessionist reading of 2 Corinthians is wrong.  The letter was written well before Judaism and Christianity had gone their separate ways, at a time when most people who accepted Jesus as Messiah still identified themselves as Jews and made some effort to keep the Law of Moses.  The issue Paul is addressing in this passage is one of halakic interpretation—whether the demands of the Law are the key to making oneself right with God, and if so, how rigorously one applies them.  Paul argues as a Jew among other Jews.  He argues not just a liberal halakic view—one that says that the demands of the Law are not all that important—but a radical one.  He says that the demands of Law are wholly relativized and made secondary to what God accomplished in Jesus.  He bases his argument on the hope that the Christ event gives those who trust Jesus. 

Again, writing as a Jew he uses a very Jewish tool of scriptural interpretation-  the Midrashic technique of linking scriptural texts and taking specific details of the text as points of departure for imaginative and interpretive development.  The evocative image of the glory of God resting on Moses—a symbol in the Exodus story of Moses’ authority—is Paul’s point of departure. In the Exodus story, the light emanating from Moses’ head as he descends from Sinai frightens people.  Moses covers his head to calm their fears and the brightness fades enough so that Moses can uncover his head.  Paul applies the story to his own discussion with his contemporaries about how rigorously Jews should follow the Law and whether it should apply to Gentiles converted to the Judaism of the time that believed that Jesus was God’s anointed one.

He says he and other believers in Christ are bolder than Moses because of the hope that Jesus gives them--  where Moses in the story covered his face in God’s presence, they can look into the face of the revelation of God directly.  He contrasts his opponents’ Synagogue liturgical practices—covering the head while the Torah is read—with his own group’s liberal practice of worshipping with head uncovered (at least for the men).  He contrasts the import that he sees in the scriptures with what he calls the “veiled understanding” of his opponents when they read the same scriptures. 

He makes his point using rhetorical devices that in many ways are very foreign to us today.  But his point is that faith in Christ makes you free and brings deepened understanding. 

Paul tops his argument by using a very un-Jewish image.  He takes the pagan myth of metamorphosis, or shape changing, to describe the effect that all of this has on Christians. The myth is not found in the Hebrew scriptures (except maybe when the snake in Eden gets his legs taken away).  It is, however,  well known in the paganism in which most of his Gentile converts would have grown up:  Zeus shifting shapes into swans, or bulls, or young men; the Olympian Gods changing human beings in the myths into constellations, flowers, trees, or  even just echoes.

Paul uses the image probably with a bit of ironic humor--he is, after all, talking about how to handle gentiles and pagans who come into the community.  He himself transforms the image by describing a metamorphosis unlike the sudden, in-all-directions shape-shifting of the Olympian myths.  He describes a gradual but marked metamorphosis that goes toward a single point—the same glory as that surrounding Jesus, to the resurrected Lord's own image.  He writes, “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.” 

Detail from the Mt. Tabor Church of the Transfiguration

What Pauls calls the glory around Jesus is what today’s Gospel reading is about:  This steady, unchanging standard of brightness is what is revealed momentarily in the story.  Jesus' transfiguration is not a metamorphosis or transformation.  It is a brief glimpse of the true hidden state of affairs.  It seems that Peter mistakes the revelation of Jesus’ true glory as perhaps a fading transitory shifting of appearances—that is why he demands the building of Succoth—temporary shelters for the Feast of the Tabernacles or Booths symbolizing the transitory nature of human experience—to celebrate the marvel.  But the narrator comments, “he didn’t know what he was saying.”  The cloud and the voice identifying who and what Jesus is correct the misunderstanding. 

The glory of Jesus is indeed the glory of God himself.  It is a standard and a destination for us believers, though it would probably be wrong to say that we should make it our goal.  We can no more by an act of our own will take on the true image and glory of Jesus than we can shift our shapes into those of animals or flowers.   It is His glory itself upon which we gaze that transforms us.

How is it that we can "gaze upon the glory" of our Lord?

It is important to reflect on our Lord and Savior often and regularly.  That is why daily prayer and scripture reading is an essential part of any Christian’s effective spiritual discipline.  Regular Church attendance helps, but in gazing upon the Lord's glory, we must be the Church, not simply attend Church.  It is not just a passive act of admiration.  Following Jesus in doing corporeal acts of mercy, in serving our fellows, in standing with the outcast, the downtrodden, and the sick--these give us an experience of who Jesus is and what he does.  Such experience provides what Thomistic theologians call a connatural knowledge of God-- recognizing and knowing our Lord not because of formulations and verbal claims, but because parts of our heart and mind are shared with the heart and mind of our Lord. 

Given the stresses of day to day life and our all-too-familiar failings, it is easy to lose heart.  It is easy to think that the proverb "you can’t teach an old dog new tricks" is true and believe that people cannot change.  But the miracle and mystery of our faith is this—we can change because God can change us.  It is part of our faith--in the Apostles’ Creed we affirm that we believe in “the Holy Spirit, the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.”    Belief in any of these things makes no sense at all if you don’t believe that God is at work transforming us, and that as a result, we shall be changed. 

The faith that we are being changed from one glory to another in the direction of the image of Jesus is reflected in the classic line from African-American preaching quoted often by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. "Lord, I know I ain't what I outta be.  And I know I ain't what I'm gonna be.  But thank God Almighty, I ain't what I was!"

Such change is sometimes hard, so hard that at times we do not know whether we will be able to bear it.  At other times it is seems easy as taking off a heavy winter coat in the summer heat.   But no matter how hard or easy, it goes on.  And it is not a shape-shifting that turns us into something alien, something that is "not us."  When Paul says this turns us into "the image of Christ" he is not saying it removes our individuality.  What he describes is a transformation into our true selves, the individual people God intended when He created each of us, with all that makes us who we are, but absent the distortions, the twistings, the brokenness that we so often mistake for what makes us who we are. 

One of the greatest foundation stones of personal faith is the experience of seeing transformed brothers and sisters around us, and seeing ourselves over the years as God works with us and changes us.  It doesn’t mean we are perfect, only that God is making progress in finishing his creation in us.  

Charles Wesley in one of his hymns summed it up this way--

Finish then, thy new creation,
Pure and spotless let us be;
Let us see they great salvation perfectly restored in Thee:
Changed from glory into glory,
'Till in heaven we take our place.
'Till we cast our crowns before thee,
Lost in wonder, love, and praise.  

It is not just in heaven when all of God's creation is done that this happens.  As we are transformed here and now, quickly or slowly, it makes us look around us in amazement of these tokens of God's love and then gaze all the more, "lost in wonder, love, and praise," on the author and pioneer of it all. 

As we look upon Christ's glory, may God so work with us all and change us. 

In the name of God, Amen. 

His Faithfulness endures from Age to Age

The Martyrs of China 

His Faithfulness Endures from Age to Age 
Psalm 100:5

Keynote Remarks on the Occasion of the
Gala Celebration of the 10th Anniversary
of the Beijing International Academy
Westin Hotel Chaoyang, Beijing
6 February 2010

God, take away our hearts of stone, and give us hearts of flesh.  Amen

Part of my spiritual discipline as an Anglican priest is to say Morning and Evening Prayer each day.  Almost every morning, as part of the daily prayer office, I chant Psalm 100, the Jubilate: 

Be joyful in the LORD all you lands!
Serve the LORD with gladness, and come before his presence with a song!
Know this—the LORD himself is God.
He himself has made us, and we are his. 
We are his people and the sheep of his pasture. 
Enter his gates with thanksgiving; go into his courts with praise.
Give thanks to him, and call upon his name.
(and here is the text I’ve been asked to comment on this evening)
For the LORD is good, his mercy is everlasting,
And his faithfulness endures from age to age. 

The Psalm in Hebrew is not making a logical argument.  It simply overflows with joy and says “Rejoice! God is good and reliable.”  On happy occasions like tonight, where we celebrate good things like this school’s first ten years, our heart is at one with the Psalmist’s.  When you see God’s blessings up close and your heart is full of thankfulness, there is little room for judgment, for criticism, or for stinginess.   A thankful heart has little room for doubt. 

But in life, we run into situations where we are forced to wonder where this good and reliable God is.  Unfortunately, each of us, sooner or later, is bound to run headlong into the problem confronting Job—where our trust in God seems betrayed by what appears to be irrational and unjust evil and suffering.  We are tempted to turn our backs on what we know from our previous experience of God’s goodness and trustworthiness.  “How can God be trusted when he let that baby die so horribly?”  "What about all those poor people who died in that earthquake?"  “How can God be good if he lets such a thing happen?”  Some people find in this a reason to  just say that there isn’t a God after all.  Sometimes it seems easier for us believers to blame the victims of horror for what they suffer than to have these doubts and fears about God. 

Jesus was asked questions like this several times in his life.  “Why was this man born blind—did his parents sin or was it him?”  “Neither,” he replies, “it wasn’t punishment, but so I would have the chance to heal him” (John 9:2-3).  “Did you hear that the Romans massacred a bunch of guys in the Temple?  Their own blood was mixed with that of the animals they were sacrificing!  What did they do that was so bad that God punished them this way?”  “Nothing,” he replies. “What about those people who died in the Tower of Siloam when it collapsed a few years back?  They were no worse than anyone else.  The lesson we should take here,” says Jesus, “is not that they were particularly bad, but that we all need to be better” (Luke 13:1-5).

Jesus knew well that sometimes bad things happen to good people and that in this world the evil often prosper.  His death of the cross is the ultimate example of the righteous suffering unjustly.   But he trusted in God and the goodness of God nonetheless.   That’s why in Gethsemane, he asks if it is possible to have the cup pass from him.  But immediately he adds, “Your will, not mine, be done.”

How can we keep our trust in a Good and Reliable God when things go terribly wrong?  A key is cultivating a thankful heart.  It is only when we know God personally, and recognize his personality through our own personal experience with him, that we can continue to trust and love him when we are faced with horror and deep injustice.

The women with a flow of blood is healed by touching Jesus' hem

Knowing that the face of God is the face of Jesus helps.  His healing the sick and the insane, his raising Lazarus from the dead, tells us that the ultimate purpose of God does not include disease, suffering, and death.  God raising Jesus from the dead is the ultimate proof of God’s reliability and goodness, and a sure token that his ultimate purposes of love and good will be achieved. 

The disciples faced a moment of fearing God’s trust and care when their boat was almost sunk in a storm.  “Master, don’t you care that we are perishing?” they cry when they find Jesus sleeping in the storm.  Jesus calms the storm and then asks, “Why are you terrified? Where’s your trust in God? Where’s your faith?”

When I heard this story as a young boy, I thought that Jesus here was condemning the disciples. "O ye of little faith. If only you had faith, Peter, you could not only walk on water but also calm the sea itself." "If you have faith the size of a tiny mustard seed, you could not only move mountains, but calm the oceans too."  All this conspired to make me want to say, "I'm unworthy, unworthy."

But that is not what these stories say. Remember that this is the Jesus who spent his days with drunkards and prostitutes, and when criticized for this replied, "Sick people need a doctor, not healthy ones."   His point here is this-- if our situation forces us to yearn for help, then we should realize that it is God that we need.   For, in the words of the Jubilate, God is good and God is trustworthy.   Relying on God leaves little room for doubt.  Maintaining a thankful heart leaves little room for fear.  Regardless of how things turn out, we know that God "is doing for us more that we can ask or imagine."  I think this is why in this story Jesus calms the storm before he asks about faith. 

God is good and faithful.  God is wholly reliable.  There is no situation—no matter how awful—where God cannot help in some way.  I myself have seen prayers answered in wonderful and miraculous ways, sometimes quickly, sometimes gradually:  a deadly illness cured, the progress of another one halted, mental illness in a loved one managed.  

This is why I know that God is Good, that God is Reliable.  As so many others this evening have expressed, God's grace is seen in the creation and growth of this school, the only educational institution in Beijing that specifically states it is based on Christian faith and ethics in its educational philosophy.

But I know too that sometimes the righteous and the innocent suffer while the wicked prosper.  In the face of this mystery, I have to deepen my trust, not betray it.   

That’s one of the reasons I pray every day and recite the Jubilate.  It’s one of the reasons why when I pray I try to give at least as many thanksgivings as I do petitions. Cultivating a thankful heart is the surest way of banishing doubt and fear. So let's party this evening and be thankful. 

Jesus cares, and can help us. We need to cultivate a thankful heart.  We need to trust him.

In the name of God, Amen.