Morning Prayer Wednesday, 12 August 2020

Good morning, Cornerstone friends.

Are you ready for the new day?
It could be another hot one, but we may get some much needed rain later.

Blessed be the Lord,
  for he has heard the voice of my prayer.
The Lord is my strength and my shield;
  my heart has trusted in him and I am helped;
Therefore my heart dances for joy
  and in my song will I praise him.

The Lord is the strength of his people,
  a safe refuge for his anointed.
Save your people and bless your inheritance;
  shepherd them and carry them for ever.

Psalm 28: 6–9

Hear us, Shepherd of your people,
forgive us our sins
and, in a world of pretences,
make us true in heart and mind;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen

Jesus Stills the Storm

And when he got into the boat, his disciples followed him. A gale arose on the lake, so great that the boat was being swamped by the waves; but he was asleep. And they went and woke him up saying, ‘Lord save us! We are perishing!’

And he said to them, ‘Why are you afraid, you of little faith?’ Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a dead calm.

They were amazed, saying, ‘What sort of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him?’

Matthew 8: 23–27

This Gospel record is from a time early in our Lord’s ministry in Galilee.
Matthew has the record of the birth of Christ, his baptism and temptation in three chapters.
He calls his disciples in chapter four
and we have his initial teaching to them in the ‘Sermon on the Mount’ recorded in chapters five, six and seven.
Chapter eight has miracles of healing and then this episode.
It is reasonable that the disciples should say, ‘What sort of man is this?’

‘Save your people’ is what is being said by both the Psalmist and the disciples.
The answer in both cases is the same: ‘Why are you afraid?’ ‘Have you no faith?’ ‘The Lord is the strength of his people.’

It was the message on Sunday and it is a pretty good message for all of us to carry with us today.
You feel that it is difficult not to have fear in our current situation?
The First Letter of John has some wonderful insights including this from Chapter 4:

God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God. And God abides in them. Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgement, because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.

1 John 4: 16b–18a

We pray for the Christian Church in all parts of the world;
where it is struggling to maintain its mission because of the limitations
preventing us from meeting together for worship as we have been used to.
We give thanks for the new ways with technology in which the Church is keeping worship alive
and in which we are still showing God’s love to those around us.
Let us remember before God the Church in countries where there is
persecution, abject poverty, severe lack of resources,
such as trained ordained ministers and the means of communication that we enjoy.
Pray for our own clergy that they may return to us refreshed and ready to lead our mission in Central Milton Keynes.

A prayer from South Africa

Do not forget the joy of the Lord is your strength: but remember this …

We are called not to be fearful; we are called to love.
We are called not to parade our holiness; we are called to be faithful.
We are called not to be all-knowing; we are called to believe.
We are not called to claim; we are called to give.
We are not called to be victorious; we are called to be obedient.
We are called to serve and walk humbly with our God.
Lord reveal your will and remake your people.

Amen

We pray for our troubled world:

The news we hear and our prayers this week have been for the people of Beirut and Lebanon.
There is news of other nations which could be described as ‘failed states’.
We have news media which has become fatigued in telling us of the suffering in Yemen.
Cross from Yemen over the entrance to the Red Sea to Africa.
From Somalia in the east all through this continent to the Atlantic coast in the west there is an area known as the Sahel.
It suffers from drought, poverty, terrorism and lack of any effective government control.
Terrorist organisations such as Al Shabab and Boko Harram appear to have more sway than so-called national governments.
You rainbow people will have experience of other parts of the world with great need, yet out of the headlines.
We have been praying for our own country and for those who have been ill and for those caring for them.
This emergency is causing loss of many jobs and we face unemployment levels not experienced for generations.
We pray for all who face the upheaval of losing their job.

Our education services are under great strain to deal with effective precautions
while giving effective opportunities for learning from September.
The exams which produce a fair system for entry into universities have not taken place and many will feel cheated,
and those leaving university will have fewer chances to start their working careers.
A lost generation unless we show care as a nation.
Pray for all young people and that we, more fortunate older ones, do not lose our sense of wonder
and retain a feeling of delight in discovering new things.

A prayer by Robert Louis Stevenson

Give us grace and strength to forbear and persevere.
Give us courage and gaiety with a quiet mind.
Spare to us our friends, soften to us our enemies.
Bless us if it may be in all our innocent endeavours,
if it may not, give us strength to encounter what is to come,
that we may be brave in peril, constant in tribulation, temperate in wrath.
And in all changes of fortune, down to the gates of death loyal and loving to one another.
Merciful Father accept these our prayers for the sake of your Son, our Saviour, Jesus Christ.

Amen

Go with a sense of delight in whatever you do today, good friends.
Remember, we are the rainbow people of God, the rainbow a sign of God’s covenant of mercy and love.

Don Head