Two Essential Prayers

Dean Alan Jones of Grace Cathedral, San Francisco has noted that there are only two prayers: ‘Help’ and ‘Thank-you’.  Everything else is just a footnote or variation and expansion on the basic theme  - whether it is praise, adoration, confession, supplication or thanksgiving. The following is adapted from Dean Jones’ writing on these two players.

 I believe that the essence of those two prayers ‘Help’ and ‘Thank you’ can in turn be summed up by ‘O God’ depending on how you speak that phrase.  ‘O God!!!’ which could be followed by ‘what was I thinking’ or ‘what were they thinking’ or ‘what were you thinking, God’.  Or ‘O God!!!’ which could be followed by ‘isn’t this wonderful’ or ‘aren’t you wonderful’.    These true prayers probably should always be followed by exclamation marks. 

Whether it is ‘Help’ or ‘Thank you’, to pray is to strive to place ourselves more closely in right relationship with God and with God’s creation.  We need our God-given imagination to apprehend what that right relationship is or can be.  The poet Mary Oliver tells us that the world gives us an invitation to right relationship through our imagination every day: 

 

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

The world offers itself to your imagination,

Calls you like the wild geese,

Harsh and exciting,

Over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

 We can pray morning and evening these two prayers – Help and Thanks

 In the morning, let us pray Help for the day ahead:

Gracious and loving God help us to open our imaginations to all that you are offering us.  Help us to imagine and see the path to our right place in the family of things - in God’s family – in our lives as God’s children, in our parishes and especially in our work today for the part of God’s kingdom.   In silence let us open our hearts and minds and bodies and souls and imaginations to the help that God offers us.  Amen.

In the evening, we offer a Prayer of Thanks for the day that is ending. Let us pause and reflect on where we have been this day.  Let us reflect on where we have had difficulty in opening our imagination to see where that right relationship could be? Let us reflect on where we have opened our imagination to what the right relationship with God is. Let us reflect on where we have seen but not followed the path of right relationship.   Let us reflect on where we have moved to be more in right relationship with God and God’s creation.

 

Let us pray.  Gracious God, we thank you for all that you have given us this day. ‘Thank you’ for all that you will continue to give us this night.  Tomorrow, help us to continue to seek the right relationship that God intends for us as God’s Children and God’s Church. Amen.  

 

Who’s Your God?

 Saint Bonaventure (1221-1274), who was the Minister General of the Franciscan Order, defined God as a "circle whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere." This is a definition of God that resonates with me.  This is, at least in part, because it is a paradox.  After all, how can a circle have a centre everywhere and have no circumference?  And yet, for me, this definition of God seems to sum up God better than any other definition I have encountered. 

This paradox gets at the problem of trying to define God.  How can we define the undefinable.  Any definition we have is, of necessity, incorrect because it limits God which is unlimited.  However, the paradox is that we have to define God to try and understand what we are talking about.  Of course, theologians, clergy and all kinds of people have been defining God ever since the cavemen (and women) gathered round their fires and looked at the night sky and made symbols on the walls of caves.

We can say that God is eternal but people will misunderstand that eternity is not a long time, it is outside of time as we know it.  Again, we can try and define eternity – one on-line source defines it this way, “a state to which time has no application; timelessness.”  However, it is beyond our understanding of time – at least Chronos time which is the time that we experience each day with the sun rising and setting and we move one day further from our birth and one day closer to our days on this earth running their course. In this, we are dealing with Kairos which an on-line source defines as, “the right time” from Ancient Greek, Kairos variously refers to an “opportune presentation” in rhetoric and a “spiritual opportunity” in Christian theology.

With all this I will put before you the question, what is the definition of the God you believe in – if you believe in God or a God.  If you don’t believe in God or a God, what is the God you don’t believe in?  In either case, are there aspects of God that possibly don’t fit into that definition?  Are you open to the possibility of encountering a God which doesn’t meet that definition?

In any case, I hope that whoever or whatever the God is that you encounter on your journey God will bless you as Jacob was blessed when he wrestled with the angel (God’s messenger).

 

 

The Old and the New

 

The new year is often pictured as a baby which has arrived as the old year, pictured as an old man, is getting ready to leave the scene.  Here is an example I found on-line by Sydney Levine[1]:

The implication in this is that something old must pass away i.e. die, to enable something new to be born. 

A week ago, we celebrated the baptism of Jesus Christ.  The concept of Chirstian baptism, modelled by Jesus’ baptism, captures just this idea – when you are baptised, your old life dies and you are reborn as a new person.   Jesus was given a full emersion baptism in the Jordan River by John the Baptist as described in the Gospel of Mark 1: 9-11:

In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’

Dying to the old way of life and making room for something new to be born can occur in dreams.  Someone or something dies.  This is symbolic of something in the dreamer’s life dying to enable something new in the dreamer’s psyche to be born.

I believe that this is a principle in human life.  If something new, a new way of being and living is to be born in you, you must allow something in you, some old way of being and living must die.  This is reflected in the cultural practice of making New Year’s resolutions.  These, of course, are honoured more in the breach and in the observance fairly soon after they are made on January 1^st.  I believe that this is because, deep down we do not seriously want the old way of being to die.  We hang on to our old ways because they are familiar and we won’t actually let the old way die.  This is often not a conscious decision.  This as with many things in our lives is done unconsciously.

---

[1] https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fblogs.sydneysbuzz.com%2Fout-with-the-old-in-with-the-new-43597b072775&psig=AOvVaw0NX_OmvbDNadnmKuwWb-iO&ust=1705418636630000&source=images&cd=vfe&opi=89978449&ved=2ahUKEwi468DR2d-DAxWAK1kFHU7YBxgQr4kDegQIARBy

Breaking the Chains of the Past

Happy New Year!  The new year is a time to both look back and look ahead.  That raises the question of how we can do both these things in ways that can help us live lives that reflect our better selves.  As with most things, looking back and looking ahead can be both positive and negative.  We can look back and see what we have done which is helpful for us and for others.  We can also look ahead and see possibilities that hold the promise of the same.

Looking back at the past year and even further can enable us to learn from our mistakes and failures.  Looking ahead, we can make those New Year’s resolutions about how we hope and even pray we can live differently and better.  If you are able to do these things, more power to you.  However, it seems to me that these are honoured more in the breach than in the observance. 

The challenge that new year can bring brought into focus for me by the sermon preached by Rev. Sherry DeJonge yesterday at my home parish of St. John the Evangelist Anglican, Strathroy.  The sermon drew on the bible passage Luke 9: 62, “Jesus said to him, ‘No one who puts a hand to the plough and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.’”  It struck me that there can be something positive in looking back to see if you are ploughing a straight furrow.  However, I believe that Jesus was making the point that we cannot dwell on the past, we have to look ahead or we won’t get where we want to go, which for Jesus and Christians’, is summed up in the Kingdom of God. 

That brought to mind a definition of sin that I heard many years ago – unfortunately, I don’t remember the source and Google didn’t help in locating it.  As I recall, sin was defined as, ’those things which chain us to the past.’  For me, that sums up the message from Luke.  If we look behind us, we won’t reach the Kingdom - whatever Kingdom you are hoping and praying for.  Those things which chain you to the past can keep you imprisoned and prevent you from living a full life that we are intended to live.  These are the things – the events in our lives that haunt us at 4:00 in the morning – the regrets and what we did and didn’t do; the anger at what was done to us; the lost opportunities and wrong decisions.  These all seem to outweigh the positive things that we have done and accomplishment in our lives and right decisions we made.  Those are the things which are the ghosts that visit me in the early hours.  I am on a first name basis with many of these old frenemies. 

These are the chains which hold us back and enslave us.  I found this quote on-line which expresses it well:

Things in the past can enslave us. Mistakes we have made, experiences we cannot forget, things that have been done to us. Bitterness and disappointment can consume our thinking, robbing us of joy and hope. Images burned into our consciousness, like pornography or sexual perversion, can cause us to relapse into patterns of sin. Anger over the harm others have done to us can overcome us in quiet moments, long after the events have passed. We can find ourselves trapped by the past, unable to find the freedom we desperately need. We become blocked from the life we want to have, the life that Jesus means for us to have: The abundant life in Him. https://www.onesteadfast.com/Blog/ScriptureStudy/Chains-of-the-Past.

Breaking those chains is not something that is easily accomplished.  It takes work to begin to saw through those chains a bit at a time.  This journey being with the first step in acknowledging that we can’t change what is past so these is no use dwelling in it.  However, we have to acknowledge that life is not perfect and neither are we.  We are going to make mistakes and mistakes are going to be made to us.  The key is in forgiveness.  This is the great gift of Jesus – he showed us by word and deed that forgiveness is possible.  If he could ask his heavenly Father to forgive those who were executing him so cruelly, then it is possible, not easy but possible, to forgive others and, yes even forgive ourselves.  That is the mystery of love which was born at Christmas.

Blessing on your journey in 2024.  May you forgive and be forgiven. 

Yes Virginia, It's Still Christmas

                              

This is my reflection on Christmas which I delivered at the church service yesterday: 

Merry Christmas!  I am sure that none of you were surprized that I wished you a Merry Christmas.  We are in the middle of the season of  Christmas in the church year, celebrating the first Sunday after Christmas. However, many people who are unfamiliar with this season of Christmas in the church year would be surprized and perhaps puzzled that we were doing so.  They might look on such a greeting as something given by someone who has been out of touch for the past week – perhaps being a week late in giving such a greeting.

 

We are living in a time in which there are two types of Christmases – well, there are probably many, but I want to talk about the two approaches to celebrating Christmas in our culture.  We have the religious celebration which we are taking part in today.  The other celebration of Christmas is what I call the secular Christmas.  This Christmas has many ways of identifying it which I am sure you are familiar with.  The celebration of the secular Christmas begins in the fall.  It is marked by Christmas carols being played in malls and stores and even in social media.  We have adds featuring that saint of the secular Christmas, Santa Claus, encouraging us to buy, buy, buy the perfect gift for our loved ones.  It is, in effect, a celebration of materialism.  The secular Christmas is about spending money which we can’t really afford to give gifts, gifts, gifts in the spirit of that Christmas.    Santa Claus is, as I say, the saint of this Christmas – but it is a secular saint.  Now, this saint is based on a true saint – St. Nicholas. Saint Nicholas is the patron saint of sailors, merchants, archers, repentant thieves, children, brewers, pawnbrokers, unmarried people, and students in various cities and countries around Europe.

His reputation evolved among the pious, as was common for early Christian saints, and his legendary habit of secret gift-giving gave rise to the modern model of Santa Claus.  However, our modern image of Santa Claus – that jolly, fat man in a red fur lined suite, smoking a pipe is, appropriately, based more on a commercial – a commercial for the coca cola company.  After all, who wouldn’t want a nice cold coke after a hectic day of buying presents for loved ones and friends and even our bosses.  There is some magic connected with Santa Claus.  He is able to appear in many places at once – indeed in countless department stores and other such places where the focus is on buying things.  He appears in these venues after the many parades in his honour in countless cities and towns.  These are the official start of the secular Christmas season and they occur even before the beginning of Advent in the sacred calendar. 

 

Another symbol of the secular Christmas is the Christmas Tree.  Now this symbol is shared with the sacred Christmas.  But you can tell the difference because it often appears early in conjunction with the beginning of the secular Christmas and often you can see them put out for collection of Boxing Day.  Prince Albert, Queen Victoria's consort, is usually credited with having introduced the Christmas tree into England in 1840. However, it was actually 'good Queen Charlotte', the German wife of George III, who set up the first known tree at Queen's Lodge, Windsor, in December 1800. 

 

So, what about the other Christmas – the sacred one?  What are the elements that make up this Christmas and make it different from the secular one?  If you are a purist and want to observe a traditional holy Christmas there are a number of things you should and shouldn’t do. 

 

This Christmas actually begins on Christmas Eve – the evening of December 24^th.  You don’t begin singing Christmas Carols until Christmas Eve to welcome the birth of the Christ Child.  Christmas trees shouldn’t actually be in place and decorated before that.  The Christ Child and not Santa Claus is the centre and focus of this Christmas.  Rather than a frenzy of gift buying, we have the season of Advent in which we prepare for the birth of the Christ Child on Christmas Day – it is the mass of Christ – the birth of Christ. 

 

The sacred Christmas lasts for – can you guess – twelve days.  From Christmas Day until Epiphany with the arrival of the Wise Men.  Epiphany has its own season in the church year.  Many people - even those who celebrate only the secular Christmas, are familiar with the twelve days of Christmas because of the playful carol by that name.   Today is the seventh day of Christmas – so you could be giving your true love – any guesses?  You can give them seven swans a swimming.  (sing the song back to the first day). 

 

Now, a gift of seven swans and many of the other gifts in that song are completely impractical.  I certainly don’t know what I would do with seven swans if my true love Lorna gave them to me.  I might appreciate five gold rings but what could I do with ten lords a leaping or eight maids a milking – I don’t own even one cow.  

 

 As with the song, trying to strictly follow a sacred Christmas is impractical and unrealistic and I am not suggesting that you try to do it.  As much as I appreciate the celebration of the sacred Christmas, I certainly embrace some things of the secular one.  I enjoy singing carols and enjoyed the service of Lessons and Carols we had here two weeks ago. 

I am glad to exchange gifts with Lorna on Christmas morning and many of the other things that we Christians share with the secular Christmas.  I believe that we should enjoy all of Christmas – both Christmases - but in doing so we should not lose sight of the true meaning of Christmas – the birth of the Christ Child – Jesus Christ was born – on Christmas Day - which historically was not December 25^th -but Christians have always been incorporating non-Christian times and symbols in our celebration.  Let us continue to do that but not forget the reason for the season – to use a cliché.  Love came down at Christmas and we Christians are called to share that love – the Love of Jesus Christ with the world.  Amen  

Happy New Year and to all a good year.