Sermon for the 12th Sunday after Trinity, August 22, 2010
Ready to Hear
“ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, who art always more ready to hear than we to pray, and art wont to give more than either we desire or deserve; Pour down upon us the abundance of thy mercy; forgiving us those things whereof our conscience is afraid, and giving us those good things which we are not worthy to ask, but through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ, thy Son, our Lord. Amen.”
IT’S MY favorite Collect of our Christian year in the Book of Common Prayer. And not because I’ve learned the lesson: rather, I like it because I see myself depicted in its lines and feel I am not alone. And I hear about a God who wants to know me, wants to hear from me, is generous beyond whatever dreams I might languish in, is more forgiving than I could ever hope.
A collect is a collective prayer, a special kind of prayer that fits us all, makes sense in any situation, and is always true. Just such a prayer was the one Our Lord gave His disciples to pray and just because it’s universal doesn’t mean it can’t have a surprising impact when we pray it. Although it was I who offered up the prayer a moment ago, I would like it to be your prayer as well.
Generally, a good collect does three things. The prayer opens with an address of some sort to our God, usually the Father, or God the Trinity, though sometimes it’s addressed to the Son or the Holy Spirit, when appropriate. In calling on God some attribute of His nature or some promise He has given is recalled in the address. Then the request is made, based on the characteristic of God or the scripture that was cited. Finally, we end in certain words making Jesus Christ our mediator, our advocate; the prayer goes up in His Name. Amen.
In the case of the Collect for the 12th Sunday after Trinity, all these elements are easily discovered. First, that God is almighty and everlasting. He can do anything. He is very powerful. There are no challenges that He can’t master. And since He is eternal, from before all things without beginning, everything is under Him: He answers to no one. Then this wonderful prayer adds that God is always more ready to hear than we are to pray, and more willing to give and give in greater measure than we deserve, or even desire. It’s a picture of a God who is personal, generous, interested in us, and always open to our prayers.
I know you all share with me the occasional frustrations about life and our unmet desires to have felt that God isn’t listening to us. Going out into a deserted field and screaming at the top of your lungs to get His attention, shaking your fist at heaven, shouting “Why?” or “Why not?” to a sky both empty and unyielding is a common enough experience. The Psalms seem filled with David’s angst at the remoteness of God and answers to the king’s problems. When a prayer goes unanswered, we may conclude that God doesn’t hear our prayers, or doesn’t care about us and is leaving us here to squirm and flail and figure it out for ourselves. Evolutionists and atheists celebrate their freedom from this exasperation by declaring that God doesn’t exist and that we truly are alone in the universe, the only sentient beings… Until they get sick, or lose a loved one. Scratch an atheist and underneath you find a child whose prayers were unimportant—not to God, but to his or her parents, perhaps. And the lessons to be learned in the silence went unnoticed, but their brooding over it motivated them to disprove Deity.
So this prayer comforts me. He will always be more ready to hear than I am to pray. That doesn’t speak well of me, and my flaccid prayers, my lukewarm spirituality, the duty-bound infrequent resort to God when my own powers soon find their limits. In our human attempts to solve complex problems, we often run up blind alleys and lose our bearings, and when we allow ourselves to realize that we’re lost, we throw up our hands in despair and resignation and say, “Well, I guess all we can do is pray.” Or we find a relative sick with cancer, the doctors giving it all they’ve got without much confidence in a cure, and we meekly sigh, “The least I can do is pray.” Our view of prayer is that it’s used when our powerlessness brings us, embarrassed, to the throne of God. We might imagine that God shakes His head that we are so incapable of finding our own way, and grudgingly listens to something about which He knows He will do nothing. Today, let’s correct that misapprehension. Prayer is not the least we can do, it’s the best we can offer, and that’s a lot. When all we can do is pray, we’ve got the most powerful Being in the universe listening intently. God truly is interested in your life, your problems, your simply turning toward Him and beginning to speak. It jazzes Him that you believe in Him and will talk to the invisible One. Points for you if you do this without a catastrophe.
The language of this prayer throws us for a moment here: “and art wont to give more than either we desire or deserve.” But you get the gist. He wants to give you more than you deserve, even more than you want to receive from this Almighty Being. He’s generous. He’s loving. He knows what you want, but better still, He knows what you truly need. And that’s a hang up for most of us. We know what we want—that shiny red crazy thing over there—but He’s like grandma and will instead give us socks and pajamas. Well, maybe we need socks, but that’s a low view of God. He’s designing a life for you, putting people in place who will be instrumental in your growth as a person, setting up challenges you will tackle and hardships that will make you strong, if you stay with Him and stay the course. The shiny red thing will break and get scratched and lose its luster, but your life is His concern. The reason you wanted the red thing is very important to Him, and He would rather you found out the source of that longing. A very great lesson for the world and its problems today would be learned if we all found out why we want the things we want, and answered that need more directly, more honestly. God wants very much to help us get those answers.
And if we think we’re disqualified, that our sins or the definition others handed us about ourselves make us unavailable to heaven’s gifts, let’s correct that notion, for God doesn’t regard our worthiness. He knows how unworthy we are. It wasn’t for our goodness that His Son came to die in our place. It was love, just love, and that can never be earned. You can’t fight it. He loves you, and wants to give you everything. You can, of course, refuse. He respects you that much. I recommend that you accept: I recommend that very strongly. The other path is well worn, but entirely tragic.
When the prayer lets us know how well God hears and how much God loves, we make our request. “Pour down upon us the abundance of thy mercy; forgiving us those things whereof our conscience is afraid, and giving us those good things which we are not worthy to ask, but through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ, thy Son, our Lord. Amen.” We ask that God pour out mercy, and abundantly. Jesus said He came to give us life and life abundantly. There is nothing meager about God’s giving and it is certain we need mercy in large quantities, we’ve blown it so completely. And we ask forgiveness even for the things we are afraid to mention, things that kept us from praying in the first place. Our consciences are sore. We have seen things, done things, wanted things—things we dare not name. The human drama is—in this life—played against a backdrop of pitiful failures and despicable deeds. And they are our own. We’d like another reality, but this is the one we find ourselves stuck in. Well, our Lord came to save us from this pathetic setting. Our consciences need not be afraid any longer. He forgives even these “things.” He knows already what they are. Thank God. He gives us what we are not worthy to ask for. Only through the merits of Jesus and His mediation do we find ourselves and our prayers being entertained before the Throne of the Father of all things, the ageless One. And we’ve come full circle. When we don’t ask, are afraid to pray, knowing our worth: the Christian faith is not faith in me, it’s faith in Him and His promises. What did He promise?
“Assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt… whatever things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive." Matt 21:21-22 “Whoever believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father. And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in My name, I will do it.” John 14:12-14 “Most assuredly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in My name He will give you. Until now you have asked nothing in My name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.” John 16:23-24 “You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you.” John 15:16
What do you pray for? And what are you afraid to ask of God? Are you in need of forgiveness? You’ve come to the right place and to the very right God, who forgives with the power of a crucified Son who cried out, “Father forgive them!” Are you in need of a healing? God heals everything, but it’s a matter of timing. He may use doctors. He may heal over time through the wonders of our own bodily processes. He may miraculously heal those whom doctors couldn’t help. And He may heal by death, for the life to come knows of nothing that can harm or discomfort you. Health is coming, no matter what. Pray for it now. Show Him you know He is master of these matters. Is your financial status shaky? Sometimes people think this is our arena alone, but everything on earth belongs to Him and all you have is either stolen from Him, or granted to you as His steward, overseeing His possessions. He will find out how well you kept His treasure later. What did you do with what He entrusted to you thus far? Pray for guidance in how to marshal your resources that He might bless you with increase. You may merely need to tithe. Are you alone? Are love and friendship your great need? Oh, He is so near the brokenhearted and lonely. This prayer may be the quickest answered of all.
“We have a High Priest who sympathizes with our weaknesses, and was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” Heb 4:15-16 (paraphrased) God is always more ready to hear than we are to pray. Ready? He’s listening. Are you ready to pray?
PFH+