Sermon for the Fourth Sunday after Epiphany

Sunday 1st February

In the Name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen


When we look at a key we know it’s made to turn in a lock. When we look within ourselves – deep down, we know that we are made to turn to God, Our Creator.

We can say: “My soul was made for God to hold communion with Him” and this communion – this relationship – this spiritual reality – we call prayer.

It is as the poet priest George Herbert said: “Something understood”.

For a few minutes then let’s reflect on prayer for it is the most natural thing for us to pray.

Our Lord makes the point. ‘You ought always to pray’.

HE prayed. HE taught his disciples to pray and he gave us the best of all prayers –“When you pray say ‘Our Father’”.

Moreover in the Bible – either by precept or example – we are constantly reminded of how vital prayer is on this journey of faith – day by day.

We are also reminded that we may neglect to pray. In other words the Bible makes it clear that prayer is an act of will.

St Augustine said it was ‘a turning of the heart to God’.

And Job knew that we might pray in an empty, meaningless way: ‘Men say to God….we have no desire to know your ways’.

So through neglect and shallow lip service we may turn away from God and that, says the Bible, leads to ‘hardness of heart’.

That is understood in the Bible as a condition of the soul. It is a condition that leaves us less open to God’s love; less available for our neighbour; less willing to serve; less likely to play our part – for a part we surely have in God’s plan – in establishing the Kingdom of God here on earth.

In his Epistle James writes: “He that cometh to God must believe that he is.” Prayer is not thinking about God – rather its communion with God.

So when we are willing to engage in a genuine conversation with God in our worship and in our prayers – there are consequences.

It’s a truism that ‘believing and behaviour go together’.

Bonehoeffer said: “He who believes is obedient, and he who is obedient believes”.

So when we turn to God, when we turn the key, we are invited to enter into the presence of the Lord. Then we may expect to be given orders. Also we may be prepared to obey- otherwise our faith is futile.

“Search me O Lord and know my heart; try me and know my thoughts and lead me in the way everlasting.”

When Moses turned to God he found himself on Holy Ground. The burning bush experience overwhelmed him with a sense of the Presence of God. Yet there was more to it than that.

It prompted in his inner being a sense of vocation. That took him by surprise. He blurted out a prayer that took the form of a question.

“Who am I that I should go?”

Now he wasn’t kicking for touch or trying to side step the challenge or making a lame attempt to get out of it.

It was a genuine question. “Who am I that I should go?”. I who am so unsuitable, so ill prepared, so weak, so undecided.

And God said: “I will be with you”. And we are told, “The Lord spoke unto Moses as a man speaks with his friend”.

What a wonderful lesson in what prayer is all about – “The Lord speaking to us as a friend”.

Moses fulfilled his vocation. He obeyed God – he was not perfect, he was not immune to failure or to disappointment. Nevertheless he turned to God in such a way that his life turned in a new direction with a sense of purpose and hope.

For Moses it was about learning to co-operate with God. “I will run the way of your commands”.

In those words there is a sense of adventure, a zest for life and a keenness to do the right thing and obey.

“I heard the voice of the Lord saying –“Who shall I send?”- I answered, ‘Here am I send me’”.

Prayer is an adventure. Prayer presents the awesome prospect of being a partner with God in extending His Kingdom of love and mercy and hope.

“Thy Kingdom comes”.

So we have to ask ourselves ‘What does that mean in terms of the choices we make, the values we embrace, the duties we honour, and the work we do?’

In these things do we reflect our obedience to the Lord?

“Let our ordered lives confess the beauty of thy peace”.

Also in prayer we worship in the Church congregation and with the great company of the redeemed in heaven.

This is a vision of prayer as shared communion in the worshipping body of all faithful people, the Household of Faith.

I remember growing up in such a congregation. In my minds eye I can still see so many familiar faces. I see them assembled faithfully in the same pew each Sunday. I see my mother and father kneeling in the quietness of that ‘Holy Ground’.

What a wonderful encouragement they were – in their kindness, in their sense of order and discipline, in their prayers.

“Truly the Lord was in this place”.

Rupert Brooke remembers such a Household of Faith. He writes:

“ These hearts were woven of human joys and cares:
Washed marvellously with sorrow:
Swift to mirth:
The years had given them kindness
Dawn was theirs and sunset
And the colours of the earth”.

And always in that worshipping household was the experience of faith

It was a challenging experience best likened to Jeremiah’s analogy of the potter whose masterly hand moulds the clay – holding it, shaping it and bringing it to some purpose and usefulness.

In prayer, individually and as members of the Household of Faith, in the company of all faithful people, the Lord holds us and moulds us.

So the prayer of the Church echoes down all the years of our life – from one generation to another.

“O God be in my head and in my understanding”

“Graft in our hearts the love of Thy Name”.

“Increase in us true religion and virtue”

“By Thy Holy Inspiration help us to think and do those things that be good”.

“Lord in your mercy, hear our prayer”.

In prayer, even when like the psalmist, we feel ‘my only companion is the darkness’ – the Lord comes to us as a friend – ‘a kindly light’ of compassion and Holiness.

So we pray that the Lord will grant us a holy vision,
To see what we can achieve,
To reach out beyond ourselves,
To share our lives with others,
To stretch our capabilities,
To increase our sense of purpose,
To be aware of where we can help.

Prayer is turning to God; prayer is God turning to each one of us. “Come near to God and He will come near to you”

“The Lord spoke to Moses as a man speaks with his friend”.

It is a friendship, a Holy Communion that is “something understood”.

Amen