Lord, please use me as a vessel to convey your love and hope.

Good morning or Guten Tag as you might have heard yesterday at the Octoberfest celebration. Thanks to all who did the hard work throwing the party.

Thanks too, Reverend Debra Bullock for being kind enough to lead our worship today while Father Jesse is preaching in Downers Grove today.  Welcome!!

Sometimes, when I’m asked to preach, the gospel story just leads me to an appropriate topic, but today’s Gospel while being encouraging to us sinners wasn’t helping me get to a topic that seemed appropriate. In fact, last Sunday, I sat in my normal pew quite concerned about what God had in mind for YOU and me this week. But as always, the Holy Spirit is far more powerful than this feeble human being.

As you ALL know, we are in the midst of the Stewardship season. It started with the Ministry Fair where all of us were invited to donate some of our talents to the many and extremely worthwhile activities and ministries that St. Michael’s offers. Each Ministry provides an opportunity to strengthen our faith. I’ve been part of the Home Eucharistic Ministry for many years and every time I’ve taken communion to someone who has requested it, I’ve left that person as a better person and a stronger believer. The faith of those others brought me much closer to God.

I’m also a big believer in Foyers, signed up last week. I encourage you try it or rejoin it after a long layoff. I’ve met a lot of new people and made a lot of very good friends sharing a common meal.

Next week, folks will be talking with you about donating money to support the operation of St. Michael’s. We all know our pledges are necessary in order to keep things running and growing. I’m sure it will be a great program and I thank the folks who are leading that effort. 

However, as I said earlier, last Sunday it came to me that I should discuss the third leg of the stool we need to consider when thinking about how we can offer up our time, in to supporting St. Michaels.  So, today’s topic is PRAYER.

Deacon Tim is currently running a great series about the many, different ways we can pray or find fulfillment in varying prayer types, and I encourage you to check it out.

Prayer

Here’s one of my favorite explanations of why we should pray. It may be familiar to some of you – Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, praying only for the knowledge of God’s will for us and the power to carry that will out. Prayer at its core naturally enables us to improve our relationship with God no matter what we’re praying for.

Please don’t get me wrong.  I suspect that there are many of you with strong, rigorous prayer lives that include scheduled or unscheduled prayer throughout your day or week. If you are one of those people, I wish I were you, but I am not. So maybe this sermon is for me. But even if that’s what this is, I ask you for a few minutes grace to talk about prayer in the context of stewardship at St. Michael’s. We gladly donate our talent and our treasures to St. Michael’s so let us discuss how we can donate some of our time in prayer for St. Michaels.

I appreciate we are all extremely busy just living life in these very uncertain times. There’s the good, the bad, the difficult, the joy and all the other feelings we experience. Life distracts us from taking a few minutes to share our thoughts our fears, our needs and our hopes with the One who will listen more completely than anyone here on earth. 

Praying to God and asking for help, whether it be a cure or an answer will never guarantee we get what want, but it will always draw us closer to the God who loves us ALL the time. 

Jesus isn’t a fixer but being in communion with Jesus fixes our hear. Through prayer we come to realize that no matter the outcome of our prayer we will be okay because God loves us and cares about each of us. God is always pushing us to the best outcome, so I’m not saying prayer doesn’t work or denying that sometimes God does hear our prayers. BUT sometimes prayer works in ways we could never fathom. The AA motto, “Let go and let God” reminds us that relying on God brings us a peace that often takes a long time to arrive, but when it does, it often is so much better than what we prayed for in the first place.

I’m not here to discourage you from praying for specific requests. To the contrary I am asking you to pray with a daily discipline and purpose and that part of that prayer life is specific to the St. Michael’s community.

Let’s look at today’s prayers of the people which we will recite together in just a few minutes. Those prayers are the prayers of this congregation, praying together in common purpose focused on the major themes we all share. So, add a pledge to pray daily for this parish and its intentions.  

Taking a look at the Prayers of the People I see 7 particular communal prayer themes, one for each day. If we are able to stop and pray each day, those prayers will be an amazing support for this community and for all those this community cares for and supports. I ask you to schedule 5 to 10 minutes of prayer for St. Michaels and the world. 

Choose whatever form of prayer that brings you into communion with God. Here are the suggested daily topics:

• Pray for the clergy here and worldwide. All of us sitting here today know, the world needs to come to grips with the fact, that without God at its center, this world is destined for failure. So let us pray for religious leadership at all levels and all religions to rekindle an experience of faith in God. It will take tremendous individual and institutional leadership to provide the example and moral fortitude that this world desperately needs. Pray for the clergy and religious throughout the world and for vocations in the midst of this secular drought. We cannot pray enough for the folks who dedicate their lives to God’s work.
• Pray for the state of our nation and for the world – Let’s not just pray for what we think the world should look like but rather prayerfully ask God to help our nation and all who abide in this world to treat each other, every person, as Christ has modeled for us.
• Pray for those in our community that are celebrating. Pray that each of us experiences more joy, happiness and fulfillment every day and that we share that happiness with others who need a lift.
• Pray for those named and unnamed that are suffering. We all know many people in this community that are struggling with issues; whether it be health, addiction, depression, loneliness, shame or any of the other burdens we quietly carry. But there many more people we know nothing about who are in pain and agony of ALL kinds. Let us pray for each other, all of us, that all those around us find the care, companionship and support to bear their burdens and feel just a bit better today than they did yesterday. No burden is too great for Jesus so let us ask Him to lift the burdens and raise us up.
• Pray for those we and others have lost. Lost to death, lost to relocation, lost to dementia, lost to family struggles that drove us apart, lost friendships once dear, relationships lost because we were just too busy or distracted to keep them going, but OH how much we miss those relationships that we hold close to our heart even today. Pray for those who have lost or have the feeling of losing their sense of communion with God; that true relationship with God that we once had but just isn’t there anymore. Please pray that we can find God in the center of our lives and pray to God for all that is lost, so that it can be found, revived  and sustained and bring peace to our lives.
• Pray for the end of hate, oppression and war. Pray that all people can have the opportunity to live the life God planned for them without fear, recrimination or oppression.
• Pray for St. Michael’s. First let us pray for our children that we teach them how much God loves them, model his teaching in the way we trat them and others so that as they grow their relationship with God grows as they leave this nest.

Pray too that we as a community and as a church can be the light at the top of the mountain; that we as a community can grow not just in size but in spirit and sense of purpose, not just for the good of this parish but for the good of all those looking for a spiritual home. Pray that our service, our worship and our prayers change all the communities we live in as it also changes us.

I suspect this sermon might have sounded kinda hokey or idealistic to many of you and if so, take what you like and leave the rest, BUT as we ALL know, the relationship we have with God and the inspiration inserted into our lives by the Holy Spirit comes from God’s love AND the effort we put into improving that relationship with the Almighty. The fruits of our prayers will appear in ways we could never have imagined, BUT those fruits only appear if we show up and do the work. So, I ask you to consider 35 minutes of prayer a week, 5 minutes of prayer each and every day for the needs of ALL of us in this St. Michael’s community and for ALL who seek the truth.

I’ll be praying for you.

God Bless you all.