Sunday, February 24, 2019

Prayer as We Gather:  Lord, open our eyes.  Replace our dull sense of the apparent with clearer sight, so we might begin to see you in those everyday people and ordinary occasions we often dismiss as mundane.  As we come to our senses and come down from our fences, help us recognize your mysterious presence in all those messy encounters the prince of darkness intends for evil but you intend for good.  Surprise us this holy hour with your mirthful grace and restore within us a humor-laced faithfulness.  Amen.*(Mitchell Simpson, inspired by Genesis 45 and the poetry of Glen Frey/Don Henley)

Morning Prayer:  Thank you, Lord, for setting us free from all those tired old earth-bound queries into the afterlife, musings over how the dead will be raised and what kind of bodies they’ll have. We welcome apostle Paul’s salty rejoinder to such gratuitous pondering:  “Look, fool! Our physical bodies will be raised as spiritual bodies.  We’ll look like heavenly persons, just as we’ve looked like earthly persons in this life.”  O God, you who never ask us to park our brains at the door as we gather for worship, keep us honest.  Herd us as the divine sheep-dog we so need you to be, nipping at our wandering souls when we’re spiritually distracted, prone to substitute a lazy cynicism for the obedient servant-hood modeled by the Galilean carpenter who showed us that flesh and blood cannot inherit God’s kingdom, saying … *(Mitchell Simpson, inspired by 1 Corinthians 15) 

Prayer of Confession:  Forgive, Lord, our faithless duplicity born of feigned confusion over just exactly what it was Jesus was trying to tell us with his mumbling directives: “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, pray for those who mistreat you, show compassion, forgive, don’t judge or condemn, give to everyone who asks, treat people in the same way you want them to treat you.”  Gosh, Lord, what do you think he intended to get across to us?  If only he weren’t so vague, we’d be more than happy to obey.  Amen.*(Mitchell Simpson, inspired by Luke 6)

Assurance of Pardon:  Hear the good news:  Jesus wasn’t mumbling. Instead he spoke so clearly his words were too painful to heed.  But if we truly listen, if we follow his bidding through to its natural conclusion, a promise of un-measurable bounty awaits us:  “If you love your enemies, do good, lend expecting nothing in return, you will have a great reward. You will be acting the way children of the Most High act,  for God is kind to ungrateful and wicked people.”   There it is:  Ungrateful though we are, God never stops being kind, never stops loving us.  Thanks be to God, we can do the same!*(Mitchell Simpson, inspired by Luke 6)

 Thought for a Sabbath Day: “The seeming value or dignity of an object doesn’t matter; it is the dignity  of  your relationship to the thing that matters. For a true contemplative, a gratuitously falling leaf will awaken awe and wonder just as much as a golden tabernacle in a cathedral.”

 - Richard Rohr,  Franciscan Friar