The story so far… I am preparing a sermon on the theme of “A people of prayer” to be preached on February 9th 2020 at St Mark’s Staplefield Common. The readings are: Matthew 6:5-8 and 1 Thessalonians 5:16-28 On Day 1 I recorded my initial impressions of the theme and the two set readings. On Day 2 I read around the Bible passages a bit more thoroughly to gauge the context. Day 3 saw me looking at commentaries, starting with Tom Wright. Yesterday I moved on to William Barclay’s Daily Study Bible. Today I’ll finish Barclay, and then I’m looking at some more commentaries.
Saturday evening approaches, so I need to start putting the sermon together. With only 10 minutes of sermon to play with, I need to have a sharp focus. Two approaches spring to mind:
Private or corporate?
The rule of three: 3 things about God; 3 about us; yesterday, today and tomorrow; Father, Son and HS.
If this were a 20 minute sermon for Slaugham, I’d move from the first idea into the second. The second for me has the most significant things: keeping God at the forefront; the tension between Father and Heaven; outward-facing prayer; Probably that, then.
I like to start with a hook, something personal, or something amusing. It needs to catch people’s interest, but it must not be the only thing that they remember afterwards! Or if it is, it must contain the kernel of what I’m aiming at.
Something personal is often good, because people are interested in you, and if you don’t have anything of yourself invested in your preaching, well it could be anyone.
I’m reminded of the first great commandment: love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. We have to remember that this is the FIRST. The second reminds us that this isn’t all self-centred. Our, we; not I me mine.
This passage isn’t pointing us away from corporate prayer; it’s pointing us towards meaningful prayer, towards prayer that has the intimate connection that one of the commentaries mentioned.
Jesus provides a model of prayer. Praying corporately often uses set prayers – everyone can pray together, there’s no waiting for someone else to finish. But there’s a danger that we do what Jesus warned about – we just try to get through it. It becomes mindless repetition. So let’s take the prayer and make ourselves mindful of it:
The Lord’s Prayer is top-and-tailed with God. The doxology was added later, but gives the prayer a pleasing symmetry. 3 things about God: 3 things about us. 3 spheres of time; 3 persons of God.
I’m going to start by revisiting each of my sets of notes, and just copying from each what I think might go into the sermon. I’ll wind up with too much, but pruning is an excellent way to give the sermon focus. When I’ve got that into some sort of order, I’ll post it.
