Gospel

to find our constant inspiration in you

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
image / picryl
 
Servant Jesus,
    what love you showed to your disciples
        and what humility in your service.
    You are the Life of life, Son of God,
        yet you stooped down
        to take off the grimy sandals
        and to wash their dusty feet.
    With loving care you dried them with the towel
        make them fresh and cool.
    Since you, our Lord and Savior,
        did such lowly service for us,
        ought we not humbly to serve others also?
Lord God,
    it is not easy to walk in your way
        when we seek peace among the nations.
    We find there are many who hate peace
        and prefer to seek the victory in war.
    Even amongst our neighbors and friends
        are those who want to prepare for war.
    I am for peace;
        but when I speak, they are for war.
    In my distress I call to you, O Lord;
    give me the courage and the faith
        to speak for peace.
Spirit of God,
    you call your people to patient endurance
        that we might not fail in time of testing,
        that we might not grow weary in well-doing.
        that we should not abandon our first love.
    Help us to find our constant inspiration in you
        that the lamp may be kept burning
            as we witness by your grace.
 
John Johansen-Berg, 1935- , English Minister
 
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When he had washed their feet and put on his outer garments and resumed his place, he said to them, “Do you understand what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you.  Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him.  If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.

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Do you weep over my city?

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
Donegall Street, Belfast / Albert Bridge / Wikimedia Commons
 
This is my city, Lord:
I’ve flown over it,
driven around it,
walked through it,
and I love it.
Its concrete chasms, its quiet parks,
its massive buildings and its tiny houses,
its suburbs rich and poor.
But most of all, Lord, its people…
My city, Lord. Your city.
Remember, Lord, there was one city
over which you stood and wept.
Do you weep over this city?
With its hunger, its greed, its cruelty?
Its foolishness and heartbreak?
Lord, I believe you do.
 
prayer used over Belfast, Northern Ireland
from A Procession of Prayers, edited by John Carden
 
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And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, 
“Would that you, even you, had known on this day 
    the things that make for peace! 
But now they are hidden from your eyes.”

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We seem to give back the dead to you . . .

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
image / jplenio / pixabay
 
We seem to give back the dead to you, Lord, 
    who gave them to us.
But as you did not lose them in giving, 
    so do we not lose them by their return.
Not as the world gives do you give, O lover of souls.
What you give you do not take away,
    for what is yours is ours if we are yours.
And life is eternal and love is immortal,
    and death is only a horizon, and a horizon is nothing,
    save the limit of our sight.
Lift us up, strong Son of God,
    that we may see further;
    cleanse our eyes that we may see more clearly;
    draw us closer to yourself, that we may know ourselves
    to be nearer to our loved ones who are with you.
And while you prepare a place for us,
    prepare us also for that happy place,
    that where you are we may be also,
    for ever, and ever. Amen.
 
Rossiter W. Raymond, 1840-1918, American mining engineer, scholar and writer
 
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Do not let your hearts be troubled. 
You believe in God; believe also in me. 
My Father’s house has many rooms; 
    if that were not so, 
    would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? 
 And if I go and prepare a place for you, 
    I will come back and take you to be with me 
    that you also may be where I am. 

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only you can teach me to pray

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
image / Conniemod, CC BY-SA 3.0 / Wikimedia Commons
 
Listen, O Lord, to my prayers.  
Listen to my desire to be with you, to dwell in your house, 
    and to let my whole being be filled with your presence.
But none of this is possible without you.
When you are not the one who fills me, 
    I am soon filled with endless thoughts and concerns
    that divide me and tear me away from you.
Even thoughts about you, good spiritual thoughts,
    can be little more than distractions,
    when you are not their author.
O Lord, thinking about you, 
    being fascinated with theological ideas and discussions,
    being excited about histories of Christian spirituality
    and stimulated by thoughts and ideas about prayer and meditation,
    all of this can be as much an expression of greed
        as the unruly desire for food, possessions, or power.
Every day I see again that only you can teach me to pray,
    only you can set my heart at rest,
    only you can let me dwell in your presence.
No book, no idea, no concept or theory will ever bring me close to you
    unless you yourself are the one who lets these instruments 
    become the way to you.
But, Lord, let me at least remain open to your initiative;
    let me wait patiently and attentively for that hour
    when you will come and break through 
        all the walls I have erected.
Teach me, O Lord, to pray. Amen.
 
Henri J.M. Nouwen, 1932 – 1996, Dutch-born Catholic priest and author
 
_________________________________
 
 
And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, 
he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed.
 

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Shine brightly, star of God

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
image / Stern von Betlehem / wikimedia commons
 
Shine brightly,
star of God,
and guide our wandering world
to where a prince of Peace is born.
 
Where children wish upon a star
or wise men scan the universe in hope
let your bright beams
surround their dreams
and guide their hesitating feet
to where a miracle is born.
 
Enable each of us
to make a New Year’s journey
leaving behind the prejudices and fears
of yester-year,
embracing a fresh openness
by which we welcome all world pilgrims
whose journeys end in worship and humility.
 
Be a sign today
of mercy and of love
like a rainbow in spring
or the bright summer sun,
and show us how our lives
can include the forgotten and forlorn,
    the grieving and the hurt.
 
And we will offer
to our God
now seen and touched in straw-filled bed 
the best gifts in the world:
our joy, our grief, our life.
 
David Jenkins, minister in the United Reformed Church UK
 
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When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy.

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the birth

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
image
 
When waves of pain contort Mary’s body
her face is cramped and pale
Her eyes scuttle apart like crabs
The waves pull, recede again
 
and attack more violently
She clings to the wagon wheel,
grits her teeth, and her screams
terrify the beasts in the stable
 
Joseph, pacing nervously,
stumbles and falls
At last, seated, he strokes her back,
grasps her hand; his strength flows into her
 
Then a tremendous power moves within Mary
Like the sun emerging from a mountain ravine
the infant’s head appears slowly, deliberately
Joseph grips it in both hands
 
Now the baby’s cry flies out, rends the night
Joseph’s doubts dissolve
On the straw bed
Mary peacefully shuts her eyes
 
Yorifumi Yaguchi, born 1935, Japanese Mennonite poet and pastor
 
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And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

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prepare us to receive your gift

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
Adoration of the Shepherds / Gerard van Honthorst / Wikimedia
 
Lord, may you now let us this year once more approach the light, celebration, and joy of Christmas Day that brings us face to face with the greatest thing there is: your love, with which you so loved the world that you gave your only Son, so that all of us may believe in him and therefore not be lost, but may have eternal life.
 
What could we possibly bring and give to you? So much darkness in our human relationships and in our own hearts! So many confused thoughts, so much coldness and defiance, so much carelessness and hatred! So much over which you cannot rejoice, that separates us from one another and certainly cannot help us! So much that runs directly against the message of Christmas!
 
What should you possibly do with such gifts? And what are you to do with such people as we all are? But all of this is precisely what you want to receive from us and take from us at Christmas – the whole pile of rubbish and ourselves, just as we are – in order to give us in return Jesus, our Savior, and in him a new heaven and a new earth, new hearts and a new desire, new clarity and a new hope for us and for all people.
 
Be among us once again, on this final Sunday before the celebration, as we together prepare to receive him as your gift!  Make it so that we may rightly speak, hear, and pray, in proper, thankful amazement about everything that you have in mind for all of us, that you have already decided regarding all of us, and that you have already done for all of us! Amen
 
Karl Barth, 1886 – 1968, Swiss Reformed theologian
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For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.  For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

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Your disposition toward me is goodness

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
image /peasap / flickr / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
 
Lord, remind me that Your disposition toward me is goodness.
    Keep me from the dark suspicion that You are not good.
You act with generosity and benevolence.
    Keep me from believing that You are not for me.
You are gracious and compassionate.
    Keep me from the assumption that I am beyond Your grace.
You are faithful and steadfast.
    Keep me from the opinion that Your disposition toward me could change.
You are rich in love and never petty in Your anger.
    Keep me from doubting the richness of Your love for me.
 
Kurt Bjorklund, 1968- , American Minister and author of
 
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You parents—if your children ask for a loaf of bread, do you give them a stone instead?
Or if they ask for a fish, do you give them a snake? Of course not! 
So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, 
    how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask him.

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leaving everything to follow You

/ Eric Mathews / 1 Comment
Jerusalem Alley by Joshuasy from Pixabay 
 
Agreeing to lose everything for you, O Christ,
in order to take hold of you,
as you have already taken hold of us,
means abandoning ourselves to the living God.
Centring our life on you, Jesus Christ,
means daring to choose:
leaving ourselves behind so as no longer to walk
on two roads at the same time:
saying no to all that keeps us from following you,
and yes to all that brings us closer to you,
and through you, to those whom you entrust to us.
 
Brother Roger, 1915 – 2005, Swiss monastic, founded the Taizé Community
 
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You can enter God’s Kingdom only through the narrow gate. 
The highway to hell is broad, and its gate is wide for the many who choose that way. 
But the gateway to life is very narrow and the road is difficult, and only a few ever find it.

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