After Jesus rode into town like Zechariah's promised Messiah and Temple-reformer, he went up to the Temple Mount and pronounced God's judgement on the "House of Brigands" it had become.
In the Temple
"Give Them Jesus"
I'm thinking about the impossible task of preaching again. I "happened" to read these words about the "holy task of preaching" on this blog when I was just starting out my new life as a preacher. God's brought them mind a number of times over the last few months:
But this is the gift which Christ gives to us preachers. It isn’t ours to control. That is a gift. It’s His Word, His preaching. Only He can accomplish what he will with His own Word. I know this is hard to remember, especially when you are under pressure to “preach” people to give more, come to church more, be more involved, or whatever the pet Law of the congregation is at that time. Your holy task is to give them Jesus and forgive their sins. It’s that simple.
"Give them Jesus."
I pray it really is that simple.
Because the temptations to do Law, to moralize, to entertain, to seek false-relevance, to do self-help, or to climb up on a soap-box behind the pulpit is always there, reading over my shoulder when I'm writing, like some bustling Martha with her many distractions. And yet, as Mary discovered, it's only in sitting and resting at Jesus' feet--listening, learning, being there-- that we find the one thing needful.
May God give his church many "Mary" sermons; may he fill his pulpits with preaching that leads people to the feet of Jesus and invites them to discover there the one thing needful.
CGI Magic
This Christmas we got my son some new video editting software, and lately he's been experiementing with its green-screen technology. Here's a short movie he made in the Indian Jones tradition that's pretty impressive. Little would you know that this "Temple of Doom" was actually just a green bedsheet taped up on our basement wall. One day I want to blog about whether or not CGI has helped or hindered the art of movie-making (Lord of the Rings: helped; Star Wars I-III: hindered woe-fully), but for now, just enjoy:
A Prayer for the Offering (2)
A couple of months ago I signed up for Google Analytics, the popular internet service that tracks your website usage. The other day I was looking at my "stats,"and I noticed that recently many of the first-time visitors stumbling across my blog found their way here after doing a Google search for "a prayer for the offering."
This surprised me somewhat.
Could it be that there's such a paucity of offeratory prayers out there that Google would direct people to my humble corner of the internet when they're looking for words to say when people put God's money in a basket on Sunday morning?
Curious, I googled "prayer for the offering" myself, and sure enough, terra incognita came up number eight. So, in the interest of filling a liturgical hole in the world-wide inter-web, I've collected this mini anthology of some of my more thoughtful offeratory prayers. If you're here today because you asked Google for "a prayer for the offering," here are some of the prayers we've prayed at the Freeway over the last couple of months:
God,
In your book, the Apostle Paul told us:
here’s what I want you to do, God helping you:
Take your everyday, ordinary life—
your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—
and place it before God as an offering.
Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him.
That’s what we want to do today as we give: place our everyday lives before you as an offering you’ll be happy with. Can you help us do that? And can you make these gifts of money here be a sign of that desire in us?
In Jesus name and for his sake we pray.Amen.
God,
You are the Giver of every good and perfect gift:
You gave us your Son Jesus, to find us when we were lost.
You gave us your Spirit, to fill us when we were empty.
You gave us all sorts of spiritual gifts to heal and strengthen and build up what was fallen and weak and broken.
And you gave us the very money that we're now offering back to you.
So as we give now, will you remind us once more that every good and perfect gift comes from you? And will you give once more? Out of the infinite riches of your love for us, will you give us the imagination and skill we’ll need to use this money for your plan in the world. May it be used to bring fellowship where there is enmity, and peace where there is fear, and hope where there is despair.
We pray this for glory of Jesus Christ our Lord.Amen.
God,
We live in a world that continually weighs and measures things by asking "how much." How much did you... earn? win? accomplish? How much did you give?
But your Son Jesus stood by the offering plate in Your house a long time ago, watching as the rich came and gave out of their great abundance.
How much did they give? Well, your book didn't write down the sum,
But then a poor widow came and only gave two pennies. Humble and devoted and trusting, she gave all she had. And Jesus pointed to her and said: "She gave more than all the others combined."
Your book wrote down the two pennies.
And their Your Son taught us that you don't ask "How Much." You weigh and measure things by asking "how." How did you earn? How did you accomplish. How did you give?
God, can you make us like that widow today? As we offer back to you only what you;ve already given to us, can you make us humble, devoted, and trusting? So that our gifts-- whatever the sum-- would be pleasing in your sight?
In Jesus name we pray.Amen.
God,
As we put money in the offering plate today,
Show us how the spiritual and the material,
worship and work,
How in some mysterious way they’re coming together here.
Remind us today as we give,
that you invite us to love you,
mind, heart, soul and strength,
with our hands as well as our hearts,
our substance as well as our spirits.
And then give us eyes to see those places where we earned this money—on the jobsite, in the classroom, at the office, the storefront, the boardroom, the market, the home—wherever it was—to see them as sacred places where your grace is at work, and your Spirit is present, and your love has staked its claimed.
In Jesus name we pray,Amen.
God,
Your Son Jesus taught us that we can’t serve two masters.
We remember how he said it: you can’t serve God and money, because either you’ll love one and hate the other; or you’ll be devoted to one and despise the other.
God, if we’ve been trying to serve two masters like that—you and money—will you show us that today?
Will you show us? So that in your great love for us you can redeem us from that half-hearted, double-minded, willy-nilly kinda of life with you, and lead us into the life that is life indeed: a life of rich, deep, full fellowship with you?
We ask this because we’re about to give an offering of money today, and we don’t want it to be about going through the motions, dropping a few pennies in the jar, patting ourselves on the back for what we did or didn’t give. We want to be serving the right master.
Can you make our offering today an act of whole-hearted devotion to you, an act of cheerful, eager partnership with you and what you’re up to in the world?
In Christ’s name and for his sake we ask it.Amen.
I Bind Unto Myself Today
I blogged this time last year about my affinity for St. Patrick, so I won't belabour any points here, except to wish you all a happy St. Patrick's day, and to mention a second time the "Breastplate of St. Patrick." It's a Latin prayer attributed to St. Patrick that I've found very meaningful over the years.
About seven years ago I set the words to music. This recording is about as old, but it's a "live" recording of me and a couple of my friends from my old church back in Two Hills Alberta doing the song.
The Breastplate of St. Patrick
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