Sermon - The Rev. Dr. Elise Feyerherm, Oct. 8th, 2023

Although it is the scripture readings that are meant to provide the primary fodder for sermons, another rich resource for reflection in our Anglican/Episcopal liturgy is always the Collect for the Day. This is that prayer which brings to a close our gathering rite after the song of praise. The collect of the day sets the tone, “collects” our intentions for the worship that follows, and unites us as a worshiping body. The collect for today is especially rich, worth probing more closely, because it gets to the beating heart of our relationship with God: prayer.

This collect is ancient, much older than the Book of Common Prayer; it comes from the Gallican Rite, which was prayed between the third and the eighth centuries in Europe. In that liturgy, it was the final collect concluding the prayers of the people in the Sunday Mass. That is a fitting place for it, I think; this prayer acknowledges all the things we might have missed in the intercessions for whatever reason, and roots it all in the readiness of God to hear all that we have to pray about.

All this prompts me to ask what it is we think we are doing when we pray, especially when we express desires and hopes, when we pray for something or for someone. What does it mean to ask God for something? What are we doing when as a gathered community on Sunday morning we offer intercessions for the Church, the world, and ourselves?

In the prayers of the people we pray for all sorts of things – the Church, for the world, the nation and our leaders, for the community, for those in any need or trouble, and for those who have died. Even though the form of the prayers changes from season to season, those categories are always included. Our prayers range far and wide, as wide as the globe itself, and as near as our own bodies and the bodies of those we love. There is nothing outside of the range of our prayer.

But why are we praying? If God already knows what is needed, why do we have to ask? And are we trying to get God to do something that God wouldn’t do if we didn’t pray? What if we don’t get what we have asked for? What if we do get it, and don’t know what to do with it? Our collect for today offers some wisdom, I think.

The open line invites us to enter the presence of God in hope and trust: Almighty and everlasting God, you are always more ready to hear than we to pray, and to give more than we either desire or deserve. This reminds us that whatever our prayer is, whoever we are, we are assured that God is eager, so eager, to hear what is on our heart, and eager to fill our lives abundantly.

John Pritchard, who served as bishop of Oxford in Great Britain from 2007 to 2014, wrote this about our prayers: “Intercession isn’t about changing God’s mind. It’s about laying hold of God’s willingness rather than overcoming God’s reluctance.” Laying hold of God’s willingness, rather than overcoming God’s reluctance. Imagine if we saw God not as reluctant, but as deeply willing, always ready, as the collect says, “to give more than we desire or deserve.” Imagine if, in our own prayers and here, in the prayers of the people, we thought of ourselves as drawing ourselves into God’s reality and energy, and asking not to change God, but to be transformed ourselves.

Pritchard uses the example of a ship coming into port, in which the sailors throw ropes on to the dock and use them to pull the ship closer. Pritchard writes, “[Prayer has] more to do with aligning our will in a creative synergy with God’s good purposes…[The sailors] aren’t trying to draw the quay to the ship, but rather the ship to the quay…”

The image of pulling a ship closer to the dock helps, but like all metaphors, it isn’t quite right. God is not a fixed, immoveable object, and we are not pulling ourselves to God on our own strength. Perhaps a better image is of God as a parent or loving caregiver with their arms open, inviting us, a wobbly toddler, to walk into their embrace. The child wobbling in response to the coaxing of a parent is responding to love, and their heart and mind and muscles are learning how to go in the right direction, toward that love. That’s us when we pray on our own, or with a small group of trusted friends. That’s us during the prayers of the people, not only during the actual petitions but in the silences, when our hearts are drawn toward what God envisions for the wellbeing of all creation. 

Putting our love and care at God’s disposal also means that our desires might actually be altered as we pray. In fact, we can guarantee it. The prayers of the people, and our own personal prayers as well, are meant to be the place where we lift our desires and longings to God, and where those desires are deepened and strengthened by God; if, that is, we are willing. We pray for the Church, the world, the community, ourselves, those who are close to us as an outpouring of our love, so that God can take that love and turn it into something salvific. In John Pritchard’s words, “Intercession is about putting our love and care at God’s disposal.” 

My bishop in Southern Ohio said on more than one occasion that the prayers of the people are what he called “the high priestly prayer of the laity.” By that he meant that these prayers are for the laity the equivalent of the eucharistic prayer for the priest – offering intercession to God for the world is the sacred work of God’s people in the liturgy. It embodies the vocation of the laity, to seek healing and justice and peace and abundance in the world. 

Just as the priest offers the bread and the wine, praying that it may become the Body and Blood of Christ, the gathered assembly offers their intercessions, praying that God will use these hopes and longing for the salvation of the world. The prayers are not just a lull in the action of the Sunday liturgy – they are swept up to the Holy Table and with the bread and the wine are given back to us made new. That’s what the collect means, I think, when it says that we are worthy to ask only through the mediation of Jesus Christ. Not that we are unworthy, but that as the Body of Christ it is essential to who we are to offer our prayers and thanksgivings through Jesus – it is our identity. It is who we are.

There is nothing our consciences should be afraid to ask of God. And we know that through Jesus, there is nothing that God cannot transform to be bread and life for the world. 

I invite you to turn to the collect in the front of your leaflet, and let us pray together:

Almighty and everlasting God, you are always more ready to hear than we to pray, and to give more than we either desire or deserve: Pour upon us the abundance of your mercy, forgiving us those things of which our conscience is afraid, and giving us those good things for which we are not worthy to ask, except through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ our Savior; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.