Thursday 5 March 2009

Cheddington

Reading Isaiah 55

⁶ Seek the LORD while he may be found;
       call on him while he is near.

⁷ Let the wicked forsake their ways
       and the unrighteous their thoughts.
       Let them turn to the LORD, and he will have mercy on them,
       and to our God, for he will freely pardon.

⁸ "For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
       neither are your ways my ways,"
       declares the LORD.

⁹ "As the heavens are higher than the earth,
       so are my ways higher than your ways
       and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Gospel Matthew 7

Ask, Seek, Knock

⁷ "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. ⁸ For everyone who asks receives; those who seek find; and to those who knock, the door will be opened.

⁹ "Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? ¹⁰ Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? ¹¹ If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! ¹² So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.

Sermon

Seek the Lord while he may be found. Call on him while he is near. Ask and it will be given you. Seek and you will find. Your Father in heaven will give good gifts to those who ask him.

Today’s readings all about prayer. But do they ring true? Is it your experience that God gives good gifts to those who ask him? Or do you sometimes feel God is not listening, or has other ideas of what is needful?

The Isaiah reading is like the Woman Wisdom we read about in Proverbs. Seek the Lord while he may be found are wise words, probably addressed to the whole of Israel rather than to any one individual.

Matthew 7 on the other hand is all about prayer and conduct. It’s part of the Sermon on the Mount. The chapter opens with a warning not to be judgemental. Take out the log in your own eye before you remove the speck in your neighbour’s. Do not give what is holy to the dogs. Do not cast your pearls before swine, or they will trample them in the mud and then turn on you. More wisdom.

Verses 7 – 12 fit into this scheme of things. They are followed by more warnings – about entering the narrow way, avoiding false prophets and the like. So they are not so much about personal prayer or intercession as about the nature of God himself.

God is portrayed as kindly towards us, his creation. He is not depicted as the God of wrath and vengeance we see in the Hebrew scriptures. Like a father who wants the best for his child, God will always want the best for us. That’s not to say we will always be given what we ask for, any more than a child should be indulged with every passing whim or desire.

As if to emphasise the fact these few verses are more about God and our conduct towards him, the passage does not end by talking about the faith we need in order to pray aright, or with any example of how to pray – no, it actually ends with the Golden Rule. In everything, do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets.

So, there we have it. God is beneficent and kindly towards us, and wants the best for us as any parent wants for their child. The wisdom we gain from this is not how to pray, or how to ask for the good things God wants to give us. No, it is to model ourselves on God’s love, in the way we treat our fellow human beings. For just as God wants the best for us, so we should want the best for our neighbours.

That’s the message from today’s gospel reading. It’s about prayer, sure, but not intercession. It’s more about our conduct towards others, treating others as God wants to treat us. Amen