8 March 2016
Collects
Prayers developed from the daily readings
Tuesday 8 March 2016
Morning Prayer
Psalms 20 and 21: 1 – 7
(8 – 13)
The first psalm begins as a
bidding prayer asking that God will answer your prayers, protect you in times
of trouble, grant you your heart’s desire and fulfil all your plans. It was
originally about the king. God is the one in whom the community trusts, not men
or chariots. The psalmist knows God will help.
The second psalm takes this
theme of the power being with God and the king’s dependence on God in all
things.
Jeremiah
36: 20 – 32
The
scroll with all Jeremiah’s prophecies is left in the king’s secretary’s
chambers while the secretary and officials go to King Jehoiakim and report. The
king orders the scroll be brought to him and read. As the lines are read he has
them cut from the scroll and thrown into the fire. The writing perturbs neither
the King nor the people close to him. Jehoiakim orders that Jeremiah and Baruch
be seized. Jeremiah, in hiding meanwhile
instructs Baruch to rewrite the scroll and prophesies a humiliating death for
Jehoiakim and the end of his dynasty.
Luke
18: 15 – 30
Jesus
allows the infants to be brought to him to be touched and blessed. Infants,
those who have earned nothing and feely receive. Then the wealthy young ruler
comes running to kneel at Jesus’ feet. He has worked to earn a place in the
kingdom but cannot let go of serving his wealth acquisition and management: his
need to earn a future. Only God will be able to “get him into the kingdom”.
Then the disciples worry because they too have given up everything, they too
are trying to earn their place in the kingdom. Jesus tells them they, who leave
everything behind for the sake of the kingdom will get back more now and in the
life to come than they can imagine.
Collect for Morning Prayer
Baby Butternut Squash / Pumpkin Sheltered Harrietville Vic L Osburn |
God of power and relationship you
show us time and again that we can lose everything, our possessions, the
symbols of our identity and the things we labour diligently to produce and yet
you are with us, sheltering us and loving us. Help us this day to remember that
you love us because we are. Help us to bring our lives to you gently and to
accept your loving grace today through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Tuesday 8 March 2016
Evening Prayer
Psalms 24 and 26
The Lord of hosts is the
King of glory, is the focus of this psalm. The world and everything in it is
God’s. Those who aspire to heaven are the pure and righteous.
The second psalm is from a
person who is faithful and has integrity and who has been falsely accused. The
psalm asks God to look inside and to bring redemption.
Exodus
2
Moses
is born and at three months is placed in a pitch-covered basket in the reeds by
the Nile. Pharaoh’s daughter comes and finds the basket. Moses’s sister offers
to arrange a nurse for the baby and the Pharaoh’s daughter pays wages for the
nurse. When Moses is older he goes to live with Pharaoh’s daughter and she
calls him her son.
As an
adult Moses kills an Egyptian who is beating a Hebrew. He tries to mediate in a
fight between two Hebrews and they challenge him since he killed the Egyptian.
Pharaoh finds out about the killing and Moses flees to Midian. In Midian he
defends the right of the seven daughters of the priest to draw water from the
well for their flocks. Moses is invited to the priest’s house and eventually
marries a daughter Zipporah and has a son, Gershom. After some time the Pharaoh
dies. God is watching and remembering the Hebrews.
Hebrews
12: 12 – 24
The
writer compares being a Christian to being someone in a race who is tired and
lame. We need to care for each other, and to stick with the prize at the end of
the race and not give it up for a short-term need – like Esau gave up his birth
right for a bowl of food. To what are we racing? Is it to Mt Sinai and the Old
Testament or to Mt Zion, the New Testament and saving grace of Christ? In the
old, our sins require constant sacrifice. In the new Jesus has washed them away
and is the perpetual sacrifice. We can choose our path.
Collect for Evening Prayer
Female King Parrot Harrietville Vic L Osburn |
Magnificent God, for whom nothing is
impossible we thank you for the your Son our Lord and saviour Jesus Christ. We
thank you for this day and we ask for the strength and focus to keep in this
race, no matter how often we stumble so that we may through your grace and
mercy come into your glorious presence in confidence and love through Jesus
Christ our redeemer. Amen.
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