{"id":301,"date":"2019-07-28T18:04:02","date_gmt":"2019-07-28T18:04:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/?p=301"},"modified":"2019-07-28T18:04:08","modified_gmt":"2019-07-28T18:04:08","slug":"seventh-sunday-after-pentecost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/2019\/07\/28\/seventh-sunday-after-pentecost\/","title":{"rendered":"Seventh Sunday after Pentecost"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Genesis 18:20-32, Luke 11:1-13<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grace to you and peace\nfrom God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\nseems that prayer is again the focus of our readings for this week. In our\nPsalm we have the appeal of King David for the Lord\u2019s continual protection and\nDavid\u2019s words of praise for the Lord God who had kept him safe, in\nColossians Paul reminds us to continue living our lives in Jesus, rooted and\nbuilt up in him and in Genesis we have a story that describes Abraham\u2019s appeals\nfor the town and people of Sodom. Abraham\u2019s purpose for making his appeals was likely\ntwofold: his nephew (Lot) and Lot\u2019s family were living in Sodom; he did not\nwant them hurt: but there was also a humanitarian aspect to Abraham\u2019s appeals;\nhe was hoping to save the \u201cgood\u201d people in Sodom and for the sake of the \u201cgood\u201d\nalso the \u201cevil\u201d people. Abraham, was putting his faith and trust in a generous\nand merciful God and hoping that God\u2019s mercy would spill out onto the people of\nSodom; in this reading he was asking for God\u2019s reassurance of this. Mercy is a\nstrange thing; first off it is usually undeserved; we, for example, believe\nthat we as Christians receive forgiveness for our sins (and so God\u2019s mercy),\nnot because we deserve it, but because Jesus deserves it, because Jesus died on\na cross for us and God the Father accepts Jesus sacrifice for us. Abraham knew\nthat most of the people of Sodom did not deserve God\u2019s forgiveness and mercy,\nbut he asked or prayed for mercy none the less.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At\na meeting of Synod-wide church leaders, on one occasion, a church leader prayed\nfor a world leader, who was not generally regarded as humane and after we\nfinished our prayers, the church leader apologized for the prayer and explained\nthe reasoning for the prayer. Neither was necessary, we all knew that it is\nimportant to pray for those leaders who do not follow God\u2019s will, and we all\nknew that the prayer was not in any way expressing some kind of appreciation\nfor that leader: we know that we as Christians, should pray for those with whom\nwe disagree, for their wellbeing and pray that they will choose a path consistent\nwith Jesus\u2019 will and so demonstrate the love of Jesus, at the very least, offer\nsome mercy to those who suffer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\nshould, each of us, be as bold in our prayers as was Abraham and that church\nleader, even though, as it turned out in Sodom, that there were not even ten who\nwere worth being saved and the world leader did not change to offer mercy, but in\nthe case of Sodom, God as a God of justice, allowed the few that were good, Lot\nand his family to leave Sodom safely. Who knows, God may yet work mercy into that\nworld leader; as for Lot and his family the question of whether God was moved\nby Abraham\u2019s appeals for mercy and justice, or whether God in his mercy simply refusing\nto destroy the innocent, is still out there as am unanswered question? We don\u2019t\nknow, but obvious to us today, is God\u2019s willingness to be merciful, as well as just.\nI think that we can feel assured that our prayers for mercy are heard by God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But\nan appeal for mercy is just one kind of prayer that we may offer; Jesus himself\ntaught his Disciples a prayer to cover all of our needs. Here in today\u2019s Gospel\nreading the Disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to pray, to give them a\nprayer that would be acceptable to God. And so, they were taught by Jesus a\nprayer; a prayer we today know as the Lord\u2019s Prayer. Martin Luther, says of the\nLord\u2019s Prayer in the Large Catechism: \u201cHumankind is in such a situation that no\none can believe. Besides, the devil, along with the world and our flesh,\nresists our efforts with all his power. Consequently, nothing is so necessary\nas to call upon God incessantly and drum into God\u2019s ears our prayer that God\nmay give, preserve, and increase in us faith and obedience to the Ten Commandments\nand remove all that stands in our way and hinders us from fulfilling them. That\nwe may know how to pray, our Lord Christ himself has taught us both the way and\nthe words\u2026.\u201d In the Lord\u2019s Prayer we pray \nfor food and all that we need in order to live, we praise God, and call\nfor God to imprint his Kingdom upon our world and so peace, a desire for help\nin obeying God\u2019s will, a request for forgiveness along with a promise (of a\nsort) to forgive others, we appeal for protection against our own questionable\npractices and against outside evil and the prayer concludes, at least for us today,\nwith the addition of a (sort of) song of praise (a doxology that was originally\nsung by King David, and is found in 1 Chronicles 29:11). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nLord\u2019s Prayer allows us to commit ourselves to the Lord while admitting our\ncomplete dependence upon God, God for God\u2019s love, Jesus\u2019 for forgiveness and mercy\nand the Holy Spirit for guidance and care. Prayer is of great importance for us\nas Christians. It allows us to be in a two-way relationship with our Lord and our\nGod. We get to speak our minds; we get to express to God how we feel and then\nwe get to learn and experience having a relationship with the Almighty. But there\nis something else here. The Lord\u2019s Prayer provides us with an opportunity for prayer\ndiscipline. Many of us pray with words that come from our hearts and minds,\nsome of us pray as we go all throughout the day, sharing with God our thoughts\nand feelings, needs, wants, fears and hopes. But there are some among us who do\nnot feel comfortable with words and while they surely express to God what they\nfeel and think without even trying, it is the Lord\u2019s Prayer that gives us what\nthey need to pray with words. The Lord\u2019s prayer gives us the words to express\nall that is in our minds and hearts and so makes it possible for us to speak to\nthe Lord. These words do not need to be questioned. None of us need to feel\nuncomfortable praying them. In fact, we should make it a discipline of praying\nthe Lord\u2019s Prayer, once, twice, three times a day or more. It says all that we\nneed to say to God! If you do not understand all its words and meaning get a Small\nCatechism and read the explanation. And consider this, just as talking to a friend\ngets easier with each conversation and the relationship grows with such conversations,\npraying the Lord\u2019s Prayer and praying any prayer to God helps us to grow our\nrelationship with the Lord and with Jesus. And, that can\u2019t be bad!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Genesis 18:20-32, Luke 11:1-13 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ It seems that prayer is again the focus of our readings for this week. In our Psalm we have the appeal of King David for the Lord\u2019s continual protection and David\u2019s words Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons-and-services"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=301"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":302,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301\/revisions\/302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}