Gospel

Lord, I believe, help my unbelief!

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Christ heals a Demoniac, Jean-Guillaume Carlier via Wikimedia Commons
 
​Lord, I want to love you, yet I’m not sure.

    I want to trust you, yet I’m afraid of being taken in.
    I know I need you, yet I’m ashamed of the need.
    I want to pray, yet I’m afraid of being a hypocrite.
    I need my independence, yet I fear to be alone.
    I want to belong, yet I must be myself.
    Take me, Lord, yet leave me alone.
    Lord, I do believe; help my unbelief.
O Lord, if you are there, you do understand, don’t you?
Give me what I need but leave me free to choose.
Help me work it out my own way, but don’t let me despair.
    Come unto me, O Lord – I want you there.
    Lighten my darkness – but don’t dazzle me.
    Help me to see what I need to do and give me strength to do it.
O Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief.
 
Brother Bernard SSF, 1928-2007, English Franciscan
The Oxford Book of Prayer


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Mark 9:20-24 
 
And they brought the boy to him.
And when the spirit saw him, immediately it convulsed the boy,
    and he fell on the ground and rolled about, foaming at the mouth.
And Jesus asked his father,
    “How long has this been happening to him?”
And he said, “From childhood.
    And it has often cast him into fire and into water, to destroy him.
    But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.”
And Jesus said to him,
    “‘If you can’! All things are possible for one who believes.”
Immediately the father of the child cried out and said,
    “I believe; help my unbelief!”

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Questions

When have you prayed, needing God to do something big,
  but were unsure if your request was within God’s will and purpose?
Have you ever approached God with a real need but were unsure of how to pray?  

if you want me to believe in you

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The Hem of His Garment, via Pinterest

 
My God, I do not love you,
I do not even desire it.
I am weary of you.
Perhaps I do not even believe in you.
But look on me in passing.
Hide yourself for a moment in my soul,
  put it in order by a breath
  without my knowing it,
  without saying a word of it to me.
If you want me to believe in you,
  give me faith.
If you want me to love you,
  give me love.
I do not have any and I can do nothing for it.
I give you what I have:
  my weakness,
  my sorrow.
  And that tenderness which torments me
  and that you see so well…
  And that despair…
  And that crazy shame…
  My pain, nothing but my pain…
  And my hope!
It is everything.

Marie Noël, 1883 – 1967, French Catholic poet
The Westminster Collection of Christian Prayers

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Mark 5:25-34

And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. 
She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors 
    and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse.  
When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd 
    and touched his cloak, because she thought, 
        “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.” 
Immediately her bleeding stopped 
    and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.
At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. 
He turned around in the crowd and asked, 
    “Who touched my clothes?”
“You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered, 
    “and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?’ ”
But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. 
Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, 
    came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, 
    told him the whole truth.
He said to her, 
    “Daughter, your faith has healed you.  
     Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”
 
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Question

When have you been desperate for God to intervene in your life or the life of someone close to you?

so light that we walk on water

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Walking on Water, Ivan Aivazovsky via wikimedia commons
 
Lord Christ,
Help us to have the courage and humility to name our burdens
and lay them down
so that we are light to walk across the water
to where you beckon us. . . .

The memory of hurts and insults,
driving us to lash out,
to strike back
We name it
and we lay it down. . . .

Our antagonism against those
whose actions, differences, presence,
threaten our comfort or security
We name it
and we lay it down. . . .

We do not need these burdens,
but we have grown used to carrying them,
have forgotten what it is like to be light.

Beckon us to lightness of being,
for you show us it is not unbearable.
Only so we can close the distance.
Only so we can walk upon the water.
Blessed are you, Lord Christ, who makes heavy burdens light.

Kathy Galloway, Iona Community, Church of Scotland minister
The Complete Book of Christian Prayer

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Matthew 11:28-30 
 
Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden,
   and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me,
   for I am gentle and lowly in heart,
   and you will find rest for your souls.  
For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

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Questions

When you’ve fully forgiven someone and let go of the offence, how did it feel?
How do you understand that the burden offered by Jesus is actually light?

forgiveness that recreates

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“Reconciliation” by Vasconcellos, Coventry Cathedral
​
 
Jesus’ prayer was, ‘Father, forgive them,
they know not what they do.’
A prayer born in death, writhing with pain.
A prayer risking faith, facing the sorrow.
A prayer living in hope, seeing the future.
 
My prayer was, ‘God, how can I forgive them?
They do know what they did.’
A prayer saying, ‘ It still hurts.’
A prayer wanting vengeance.
A prayer seeking direction.
 
My prayer became, ‘God, help me forgive them;
they know what they did.’
A prayer saying, ‘They were wrong.
A prayer wanting reconciliation.
A prayer seeing courage.
 
My prayer became, ‘God, forgive them;
they know what they did.’
A prayer that wrestled with injustice.
A prayer that acknowledges weakness.
A prayer that found hope in God’s love.
 
My prayer remains, ‘God, forgive them;
they know what they did.’
Because forgiveness recreates life from death.
Because forgiveness cleanses the healing wound.
Because forgiveness builds the bridge of freedom.
 
Jared P. Pingleton, Christian psychologist, author, and speaker

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Matthew 18:18-19
 
Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven,
    and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask,
    it will be done for them by my Father in heaven.

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Questions:

What is one relationship that would benefit from forgiveness and renewal?
How can you “loose on earth” the hurts you’ve experienced 
    so that heaven might be brought to earth?

Annoint the wounds

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The Good Samaritan, ​Teofilo Patini via Wikimedia Commons
 
Anoint the wounds
of my spirit
with the balm
of forgiveness.
Pour the oil
of your calm
upon the waters
of my heart

Take the squeal
of frustration
from the wheels of my passion
that the power
of your tenderness
may smooth
the way I love

That the tedium
of giving
in the risk of surrender
and the reaching
out naked
to a world
that must wound

may be kindled fresh daily
in a blaze of compassion
– that the grain may fall gladly
to burst in the ground
– and the harvest abound.

Father Ralph Wright, 1938- , Benedictine Monk St Louis Abbey
Sharing the Darkness

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Luke 10:33-34

But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was;
    and when he saw him, he took pity on him.
He went to him and bandaged his wounds,
    pouring on oil and wine.
Then he put the man on his own donkey,
    brought him to an inn and took care of him.

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Questions

When have you been wounded caring for another person’s needs? 
Can you trust God to minister to your wounds in these times?

True Enlightenment

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The Apparition of the Messiah, Alexander Andreyevich Ivanov, via Wikimedia Commons

 
Why can’t I retreat into a mountain
and enjoy the rest of my life, sipping wine,
looking at the moon and making haiku
like the one “enlightened”?

However hard and long I may raise
my insignificant voice of anger,
I know I cannot stop this stream;
but I cannot give up.

Those who attained perfect enlightenment
yell at me from this world and the other,
“Hey! You have been a Christian for a
long time.  How come you are not awakened yet!”

I do not want to attain enlightenment in the Buddhist sense.
My enlightenment is to follow Christ and go into the world.
I do not want to separate myself from the world.
And in the face of mounting injustice and misery,
I would like to live with those suffering people,
because Christ lives with them.

I often get lost, get angry, worry and make cries of protest,
but Christ is with me and soothes me.

Yorifumi Yaguchi, 1932- , Japanese Mennonite poet and pastor
Readings from Mennonite Writings New & Old

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Luke 6:20-22 

Then Jesus turned to his disciples and said,

“God blesses you who are poor,
for the Kingdom of God is yours.
God blesses you who are hungry now,
for you will be satisfied.
God blesses you who weep now,
for in due time you will laugh.

What blessings await you when people hate you 
    and exclude you and mock you and curse you as evil
    because you follow the Son of Man.”

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Questions

Who is someone in your neighborhood that could use your help? 
What is the need you can meet?

Nothing, I am nothing

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​image via Pinterest
 
Lord, you wanted it, here I am on the ground.
I don’t even dare to rise, I don’t even dare look at you.
Nothing, I am nothing, I know it now.
Your light is terrible, Lord, and I’d like to escape it.
Since I have accepted you, you have bared my dwelling.
Every day, mercilessly, your light uncovers it,
And I see what I had never seen before.

I see the forest of my sins behind the tree that hid them.
I see innumerable roots, impossible to grasp,
I see that everything in me is an obstacle to you,
  as the smallest particle of matter blocks the sunlight
  and brings on the night.
I see the devil attacking the key-points of the fortress
  that I thought impregnable,
  and I find myself tottering and ready to fall.
I see my helplessness,
  I who thought that I could make myself of value to you.
I see that everything in me is mixed,
  and that not one of my actions is pure.
I see the infinite depth of each fault
  in the face of your infinite love.
I feel incapable of reaching a single soul,
  through the noise of my words and the wind on my gestures.
I see the Spirit blow where I haven’t toiled,
  and the grain take root where I haven’t sown.

Nothing, I am nothing, I accomplish nothing,
  I know it now.
Your light is hard, merciless, Lord.
No corner of my life and soul remain in the shadow.
Turn as I may, your light is everywhere,
And I stand naked and full of fear.

Formerly, I admitted that I was a sinner,
  that I was unworthy,
And I believed it, Lord, but didn’t know it.
In your presence I looked for some faults
  but produced only labored and feeble confessions.
Lord, it’s my whole being that kneels now
  It’s the sin that I am that asks forgiveness.

Lord, thank you for your light – I would never have known.
But, Lord, enough.  I assure you I’ve understood.
I am nothing
And you are all.

Michel Quoist, 1918 – 1997, French Catholic priest
Prayers of Life

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John 15:5 

I am the vine; you are the branches.
Whoever abides in me and I in him,
    he it is that bears much fruit,
    for apart from me you can do nothing

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Question

Have you ever seen yourself as being important 
    to what God wants to accomplish?

responding to temptation

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The Temptation by J. Kirk Richards, 1999 via Pinterest
 
You, Lord Jesus, knew great power,
to heal, to transform,
to proclaim the reign of God.
So you met with great temptations.
The wrong way, glittering and possible, was open;
you could rule if you chose,
in majesty and wonder,
more victorious than Alexander,
more imperial than Caesar.
     But you said No,
     simply, decisively, for ever, for us.

We pray for the Church, tempted like its Head.
When the Church seeks political power,
     Jesus, stay with us.
When the Church longs to become wealthy,
     Jesus, speak to us.
When the Church strives to impress with splendor,
     Jesus, give us simplicity.
When the Church wanders from the way of sacrifice,
     Jesus, hold us.
When the Church listens to the call for cheap grace,
     Jesus, keep us always in your way.

Holy Spirit of God, enable us to respond to temptation
with the strength of your Word within us,
so that we may hold firm to our calling
and take your better way in faithfulness.

Bernard Thorogood, 1927-2020, English minister United Reformed Church
The Complete Book of Christian Prayer
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Matthew 4:8-10

Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain 
and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. 
“All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”

Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: 
‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’
 
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Question:

In what ways do you see your Church being tempted to compromise? 

I need to be led by you

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The Temptation in the Wilderness, ​Briton Rivière, via Wikimedia Commons
 
Teach me to go to this country
    beyond words and beyond names.
Teach me to pray on this side of the frontier,
    here where these woods are.
I need to be led by you.
I need my heart to be moved by you.
I need my soul to be made clean by your prayer.
I need my will to be made strong by you.
I need the world to be saved and changed by you.
I need you for all those
    who suffer, who are in prison, in danger, in sorrow.
I need you for all the crazy people.
I need your healing hand to work always in my life.
I need you to make me, as you made your Son,
    a healer, a comforter, a savior.
I need you to name the dead.
I need you to help the dying cross their particular rivers.
I need you for myself whether I live or die.
It is necessary. Amen.

Thomas Merton, 1915 – 1968, American Catholic writer and Trappist monk
A Book of Hours

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Matthew 4:1-2

Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness
to be tempted by the devil.
After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.
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Question:

In which relationships do you need God to lead you?

Variation on the Jesus Prayer

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image via Pinterest​
 
Jesus.
Lord Jesus.
Lord Jesus Christ.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.
Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy.
Lord Jesus, have mercy.
Jesus, have mercy.

variation on the Jesus Prayer,
originated from the Desert Fathers, 5th century Egypt

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Luke 18:13 

But the tax collector stood at a distance.
He would not even look up to heaven,
but beat his breast and said,
‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’

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The word Mercy is from the Hebrew word Hesed
which describes a sense of love and loyalty
that inspires merciful and compassionate behavior toward another.

Question:

What are some ways that you have experienced
God’s mercy or hesed in your life?