What Does It Mean To Be Part Of The Church? - Sermon For Proper 18 – Year A

In the name of the father, and the son, and the holy spirit, amen.

I came upon this prayer, which I thought was very apt as we come to unfold the scripture, so let’s begin by praying.

Jesus said where two or three are gathered

in my name there I am among them,

then this must be a holy people a holy place,

and to this holy place we invite the communion of saints,

they are already here they have never left,

among that community are all our

loved ones who have gone before,

and on this holy assembly I ask a blessing on our food,

and on ourselves, asking, pleading,

that god be in our head, and in our understanding;

God be in our eyes, and in our looking;

God be in our mouth, and in our speaking;

God be in our heart, and in our thinking;

God be at our end, and at our departing

God be with us morning, noon, evening,

and through the night

God be with us, God be always with us,

and with our absent brothers and sisters.

Amen.

In our Gospel reading we hear of Christ's promise to us that when we agree with others in prayer that he is the unseen party to our requests.

The Greek word "agree", is "sumphoneo", from which is derived the English word, "symphony." I don’t know if any of you have ever sat and listened to a live orchestra play, but one of the things that it very clear from the very beginning is the power that is found in so many different musicians, and their instruments coming together as one, is that they have the ability to bring the composer’s work to life.

Likewise, Christ is teaching us how to work together and harmonise with other Christians in our prayer lives. Through time and patience, we come to find that this gives our prayers great power, and together we begin to achieve the work of our heavenly composer.

Now some may be thinking about Christ’s instruction to us earlier in Matthews’ gospel when he said ‘But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you’, and it’s right that we should continue to have our own private daily prayer devotional times.

however, as I thought about some of Christ’s other teachings on prayer, then it is clear that he meant for prayer to be not just an individual act, but that it should also be a corporate one.

A little earlier in Matthew’s Gospel Jesus said ‘‘Pray then in this way: Our Father in heaven’.

Notice that Jesus didn’t say, My Father, but Our. This small but distinct way of wording the prayer shows us clearly that there is a corporate element to prayers, which goes alongside our times of personal devotion.

He wants us, His people, to be unified in our prayers, because this is one of the core places where the bonds that we share can grow and be strengthen.

Think about how many times we pray together in this service, I could ask you how many times we do, but I won’t and instead ask you if it would surprise you that this morning we will pray no less than 13 separate prayers together?

There is a humbling aspect to asking others to pray with us, but there is also a unifying aspect. God wants us all to be a part of His family, and this is one of the ways that we become the community that God intended for us to be and also enjoy the benefits of.

Praying with others fine tunes our prayers, just like rehearsing together perfects the work of the musicians, but just as with the orchestra, it takes time and patience and what we must avoid is the expectation that prayer is always going to be answered immediately.

Of course there will be times when we see God’s answer to us very quickly, but we also need to remember that there will be times when we have to wait. In the prophet Micah he gives us some good advice ‘But as for me, I will look to the Lord, I will wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me.’

Paul in his letter to the Romans echoes the same sentiment ‘But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.’

So does that mean that if we pray for something then we will always receive it? Sadly, the answer to that is no. We need to be careful and mindful of what we ask for in prayer.

We need to ensure that our motives are right and just. James gives us this warning ‘You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, in order to spend what you get on your pleasures.’