Evening Prayers Wednesday, 19 August 2020

Between Nothingness and Eternity 

by Sri Chinmoy 

Barren of events,
Rich in pretensions
My earthly life.

Obscurity
My real name.

Wholly unto myself
I exist.

I wrap no soul
In my embrace.

No mentor worthy
Of my calibre
Have I.

I am all alone
Between failure
And frustration.

I am the red thread
Between
Nothingness
And Eternity.

Good evening and welcome to Evening Prayers

That this evening may be holy, good and peaceful,
let us pray with one heart and mind.

Silence is kept. 

As our evening prayer rises before you, O God,
so may your mercy come down upon us
to cleanse our hearts
and set us free to sing your praise
now and for ever.

When our faith is weak
you strengthen us,
when we lose our way
you rescue us,
when we fall into sin
you forgive us.

Gracious Father,
please remind us
as we forget,
that your love is
unconditional,

always moulding us
into what we could be,
always blessing us
that we might glorify you.
For love,
grace
and forgiveness,
we thank you.

Amen  

Presence

As I sit here, the beating of my heart,
the ebb and flow of my breathing, the movements of my mind
are all signs of God’s ongoing creation of me.
I pause for a moment, and become aware
of this presence of God within me.

Freedom

It is so easy to get caught up
with the trappings of wealth in this life.
Grant, O Lord, that I may be free
from greed and selfishness.
Remind me that the best things in life are free.
Love, laughter, caring and sharing.

Consciousness

Lord, you gave me the night to rest in sleep.
In my waking hours may I not forget your goodness to me.
Guide me to share your blessings with others.

THE WORD OF GOD

Psalm 116:5-7 

Gracious is the Lord, and righteous; our God is merciful.
The Lord protects the simple; when I was brought low, he saved me.
Return, O my soul, to your rest, for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you.

Isaiah 56:1-2  

Thus says the Lord: Maintain justice, and do what is right,
for soon my salvation will come, and my deliverance be revealed.
Happy is the mortal who does this, the one who holds it fast,
who keeps the sabbath, not profaning it, and refrains from doing any evil.

John 6:32-35  

The next day the crowd that had stayed on the other side of the lake
saw that there had been only one boat there.
They also saw that Jesus had not got into the boat with his disciples,
but that his disciples had gone away alone.
Then some boats from Tiberias came near the place where they
had eaten the bread after the Lord had given thanks.
So when the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there,
they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum looking for Jesus.
When they found him on the other side of the lake, they said to him,
‘Rabbi, when did you come here?’

WORDS OF WISDOM

Jesus was introducing what, in today’s parlance, might be called a disruptive technology. Where sustaining technologies stimulate incremental improvements, like, say, going from a rotary phone to a touch-tone or keypad phone, or even from a landline to a wireless phone, a disruptive technology displaces established assumptions, as in, say, combining a phone, a camera, a computer, a music library and player, a GPS device, and a mobile Internet portal. The old status quo is disrupted, the game changes, and old technologies become irrelevant.

[In] John’s Gospel, Jesus continues to use the imagery of disruption (John 3–4). First, he tells a man that in spite of all his learning, in spite of all his status, he needs to go back and start over, to be born again—perhaps the most apt image for disruption ever. Then he tells a woman that the location of worship doesn’t matter at all—which in their day meant that temples were irrelevant. What matters, Jesus says, is the attitude (or spirit) and authenticity (or truth) of the worshipper. Jesus was calling for a radical disruption in his religion, a great spiritual migration, and a similar disruption and migration are needed no less today in the religion that names itself after him. . . .

A later New Testament writer repeated and expanded upon the disruption and migration Jesus was calling for (1 Peter 2:5). The way of life centered in the Temple must be disrupted because God wanted to dwell not in buildings of bricks or stones cemented together by mortar, but rather in human beings—living stones, he called them—cemented together by mutual love, honor, and respect. . . .

This disruptive revolution, this liberation, this great spiritual migration begins with each of us presenting ourselves, with all of our doubts and imperfections, all of our failures, fears, and flaws, to the Spirit, our legs as pillars, our bodies as temples. . . . You. Me. Everyone. No exceptions.

“The moving ever shall stay,” [twelfth-century Hindu mystic and poet] Basava said. [1] Those words contradict so much of our inherited religious sensibility. “Stay the same. Don’t move. Hold on. Survival depends on resistance to change,” we were told again and again. “Foment change. Keep moving. Evolve. Survival depends on mobility,” the Spirit persistently says. . . .

If you want to see the future of Christianity as a great spiritual migration, don’t look at a church building. Go look in the mirror and look at your neighbor. God’s message of love is sent into the world in human envelopes. If you want to see a great spiritual migration begin, then let it start right in your body. Let your life be a foothold of liberation.

Brian McLaren

PRAYERS & INTERCESSIONS

We pray for the world…

Lord, in your mercy
hear our prayer.

We pray for the universal church of Christ…

Lord, in your mercy
hear our prayer.

We pray for one another and all those known to us…

Lord, in your mercy
hear our prayer.

The Lord’s Prayer

As our Saviour taught us, so we pray

Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as in heaven.

Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins
as we forgive those who sin against us.

Lead us not into temptation
but deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom, the power,
and the glory are yours
now and for ever.
Amen. 

Calm me, O Lord, as You stilled the storm.
Still me, O Lord, keep me from harm.
Let all the tumult within me cease.
Enfold me, Lord, in Your peace.

I will lie down this night with God,
and God will lie down with me;
I will lie down this night with Christ,
and Christ will lie down with me;

I will lie down this night with the Spirit,
and the Spirit will lie down with me;
God and Christ and the Spirit,
be lying down with me.

AMEN  

The Blessing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQ818qHiHL0

Revd. Ernesto Lozada-Uzuriaga