Abstract
Praying with Matthew
These prayers are guided by the lectionary readings from the gospel of Matthew. They guide our thanksgiving, supplication, and intercession in a variety of directions but always in the light of the Cross. The feast of the Holy Cross comes in the middle of September; a reminder that Christian prayer is illumined by Calvary, the defining ‘epiphany’ of God’s relation to the world. As Orkney theologian, John Oman, expressed it, the Cross is the fullest revelation of Divine Sovereignty. Our invocations, therefore, are not appeals to omnipotent power but to the power of love: victorious in weakness, triumphant in defeat. Through prayer, we become kindred to every soul that is moved with care for others, participants in the divine compassion ‘for all creatures great and small’.
3rd September (Matthew 16:21–28)
Discipleship
Jesus—teacher, friend, and lover—we pray for your disciples today. Your call to a life of self-denial, then as now, makes aspiring souls hesitate. Like Peter, our minds do not rest easy with the thought of living the ways of heaven here on Earth.
Awaken Lord, in the hearts of your disciples, love that casts out fear, joy that does not count the cost, gratitude that stirs willing sacrifice. Grant to anxious minds peace needed for everyday living and courage for challenges that appear insurmountable. Give comfort to those whose best efforts have failed and whose noble intentions have come to nothing. May the Cross be an icon of divine presence, of love, of hope that ‘no tears are lost and all in the end is harvest’ (Edith Sitwell, poet).
We pray for disciples in those parts of the world where persecution, imprisonment and martyrdom are everyday dangers. We pray for these, our sisters and brothers, least in the eyes of oppressors but ‘saints’ dear to your heart.
Together Lord, with you and all your disciples, we pray ‘your Kingdom come, your will be done’.
10th September (Matthew 18:15–20)
Reconciliation
God of the reconciling heart, we pray for those working to repair friendships and who long for an end to the pain of estrangement. May good people±in every religion and throughout the human family—be priests (bridge-builders) who lift up the broken world to your healing love and who bring your compassion down to where there is enmity and hurt.
We pray that the Church would be an unpretentious example of reconciliation, humbled by its own great failures. Grant that, resting in your mercy, the Church may embrace the painful, tearful, paths of reconciliation; may Christian communities be places where there is truthful speaking and genuine remorse. We pray that the cries of the abused would always be heard; that the Church may be a safe environment, that truth and justice be honoured; that peace may come to lives that are waiting, some for a very long time.
Lord, does Matthew represent the full spirit of your teaching? He speaks of power given to the Church to make outcasts and of obdurate refusal recorded in the annals of heaven. This has given licence to much coercion and evil in the Church.
God, Most High, whose perfection is to be ‘kind to the ungrateful and wicked’ (Luke 6:35), we hope and pray for a great reconciliation that will bring home every child of yours—may the most reluctant, or fearful, be drawn by the gentleness of your love, for the sake of Christ.
17th September (Matthew 18:21–35)
Forgiveness
Master of compassion, brother of the forgiving heart, this parable reminds us that there is no insipid forgiveness—forgiveness is potent. To be truly availed of, forgiveness must expand the heart of the receiver; it must open the soul to the ‘Other’; forgiveness cannot be stored for private use.
Lord, we thank you that forgiveness comes to us in order to be ‘re-cycled’—so that its liberating and renewing power may be extended to those who need our forgiveness. We pray that forgiveness may have added value—the multiple value of ‘seventy times seven’—ever inexhaustible.
Forgiving Saviour, you alert us to the responsibilities of forgiveness. When the abundance of your forgiveness is ignored the transformative moment can pass. But, when shared, what potency and power forgiveness has to soften hearts, to ‘make all things new’!
May receivers of your divine gift be ever mindful of the power of forgiveness to “call to account”, should it be traded upon or cast aside with indifference.
Lord, in your mercy hear our prayer.
24th September (Matthew 20:1–16)
Generosity
God of all grace, your generosity is an offence to strict justice, to carefully measured fairness, to contractual thinking. That is not to say these latter are of no consequence. We are thankful for civic order that protects the vulnerable, restrains the powerful and promotes the well-being of communities.
But, in this parable you remind us that regulation and contract should never constrain generosity. It is divine to go beyond the call of duty; it is heavenly to give prodigally; it is compassionate to breach rules of propriety in the service of charity.
Gracious God, we pray that order and decency may not narrow into the curse of smug self-satisfaction. Teach your disciples afresh the lesson of the vineyard owner; so may the spirit of generosity be breath to our souls. Liberate the conscience of the Church from the letter of the law to the freedom of love.
Ever-giving God, bless and strengthen generous hearts today.
14th September (John 3:13–17)
A reflection on the Holy Cross
Christian faith is mediated in many ways: through the facts of history, which pass through the sieve of rational scrutiny; through story and legend, through icon and symbol. Both the critical faculty and religious imagination have inspired true faith and charity.
The feast of the Holy Cross recalls the discovery by St Helen, mother of Constantine, of the Cross on which Jesus was crucified. The ‘exaltation’ of the Cross gave rise to veneration not in Jerusalem alone, but throughout Christendom. Such aids to devotion, though marginal to Protestant spirituality, have the potential to move contemplation beyond the sacred relic to divine revelation: to Calvary, to the suffering, victorious, love of Christ.
The Holy Cross both plumbs the ‘heart of darkness’ and bathes the world in a healing light. In prayer we participate in the saving mystery; we are enabled to take up and bear our cross. In no pain are we alone; in no sin are we unloved; in no death are we abandoned.
God of the Cross, we thank you that the lifting up of the Son of Man is the salvation of the world; not as a distant event but as a present reality.
We thank you, God, that the grace of the Holy Cross draws souls to your redeeming love, each moment, in a thousand places.