Today marks the last day of something happening in our services, at least for some time ! Before people get alarmed, I am not about to make some major change in the type of service we have, but today for the last time until Easter next year, we began our Sunday services with the words – ‘Alleluia ! Christ is risen ! He is risen indeed ! Alleluia !’ And we will end our service with the words ‘Go in peace to love and serve the Lord. Alleluia, Alleluia’ to which the response comes back, ‘In the name of Christ. Alleluia ! Alleluia !’
On Thursday we celebrate Ascension Day, the day when Jesus ascended into heaven – entrusting his work to his followers, but assuring them of his strength and his power with them always. And as the Easter season officially ends so do those words, ‘Alleluia ! Alleluia !’ – but they hopefully only end as part of our formal liturgy – in our thoughts and in our minds, and maybe even from our lips at times, we hope to feel the need to shout these words – because, as we thought about some weeks ago now, the word simply means, ‘Praise God’ !
Today is rogation Sunday; the word rogation comes from the Latin ‘rogare’ which means ‘to ask’, and it is a day when we traditionally ask for God’s blessing on crops and we ask for God’s blessing on the area where we live. We ask that God will bless all those who live, work and visit our community.
And as we ask for God’s blessing on anything, there must be an immediate connection with that word ‘Alleluia’ – because as we ask, we must praise…
And on this rogation Sunday, I think there are three very important words to consider - they are PRAYER, in other words asking, PRACTICE and PRAISE.
First of all PRAYER - We hear a lot about prayer but one story tells of a little boy who was sent to his room because he had been naughty. After he had been there a little while he came out and informed his mother that it would all be ok now because he had said a prayer. The mother was pleased and said, "if you ask God to make you good, He will help you." "Oh, I didn't ask Him to help me be good," replied the boy. "I asked Him to help you put up with me."
Prayer is about asking, it is about talking to God. God knows what we need before we ask Him, but this does not mean though that we should not ask. The gift of prayer is an unbelievably powerful gift which we so often neglect – The theologian Karl Barth said that ‘to raise the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world’ – prayer can make that much difference…
On this day when we pray we can ask God to bless all those whose lives cross with ours, we can ask Him to help those who are in need, we can ask Him to make us better able to be like Him. We can ask for strength to proclaim His name to those who need to know Him, we can ask for the strength of God to help us to work for Him bringing hope, the resurrection hope – that is everlasting hope, to the world. May we believe that prayer can transform, and as we pray for transformation around us, may we be ready to be transformed as well…
And now on to PRACTICE – By seeking to be more like God and to pray for change and hope we have a responsibility. A responsibility to “practice what we pray”. That is not to just ask God for something and do nothing about it ourselves but to actually seek to do more. By this I mean not to just pray for a better world, but to seek to make the world a better place. We will do this by being more like God, by offering hope and support to all those who need it. We will do this by listening to God, and through reading the Bible more to find out the ways that He would do things and to do this ourselves. To give of our time, money and willingness to listen to God and act on His word.
In the reading we heard from the book of Acts Paul, heard the voice of God telling Him to go to someone in need and tell them about Jesus and he did. What an example for us, to listen to God and to tell others about him.
We are not just to ask God to bless the world, we are to put it into practice in our own lives ! Prayer and practice must go together – there’s a story of a man who took a friend to watch a boxing match – the friend knew nothing at all about boxing and so he explained the rules to him and what might happen – just before the bell starting the 1st round, one of the boxers marked himself with the sign of the cross – when the friend asked what that meant, the other man replied, ‘it means nothing if he can’t box’…
God will strengthen us for any situation, but he also expects us to use the gifts that he gives us wisely….
And thirdly our lives must be filled with PRAISE- When we ask God for good things, we are always to give thanks; to praise God that wonderful things can happen so that even when it seems unlikely to us we can know that God can step in…
One of the sadder aspects of the perception people have of Church at times is that they are places of judgement, places of solemnity, places of formality – it’s a perception which is very often mistaken, but we must continually ensure that what we reflect is that the Church is a place where people gather to celebrate a great hope, to celebrate a wonderful love, to give thanks for salvation – the Church is, in effect, one great party, where people gather together as a family to share good moments and to support each other in more difficult times…
In our praise we celebrate the gifts of God, and we celebrate above all the gift of life, and new life trusting in Jesus…
As we ask for God’s blessing in PRAYER, as we seek to do our bit in PRACTICE, so in PRAISE we can remember that this rogation day, and always, we are to PRAISE God, to shout ‘alleluia’, because He alone is worthy to be praised.
I was reading the Psalm that we have had this morning, in a paraphrased version of the Bible. I think that this Psalm helps us to think about the role that we have to play on rogation Sunday and everyday in our lives as we seek to PRAY, PRACTICE and PRAISE.
I would like to finish with this Psalm:-
God, mark us with grace and blessing ! Smile !
The whole country will see how you work, all the godless nations see how you save… God ! Let people thank and enjoy you. Let all people thank and enjoy you.
Let all far-flung people become happy and shout their happiness because you judge them fair and square, you tend the far-flung peoples.
God ! Let people thank and enjoy you. Let all people thank and enjoy you… Earth, display your exuberance !
You mark us with blessing, O God, our God.
You mark us with blessing, O God.
Earth’s four corners – honour him ! AMEN
On Thursday we celebrate Ascension Day, the day when Jesus ascended into heaven – entrusting his work to his followers, but assuring them of his strength and his power with them always. And as the Easter season officially ends so do those words, ‘Alleluia ! Alleluia !’ – but they hopefully only end as part of our formal liturgy – in our thoughts and in our minds, and maybe even from our lips at times, we hope to feel the need to shout these words – because, as we thought about some weeks ago now, the word simply means, ‘Praise God’ !
Today is rogation Sunday; the word rogation comes from the Latin ‘rogare’ which means ‘to ask’, and it is a day when we traditionally ask for God’s blessing on crops and we ask for God’s blessing on the area where we live. We ask that God will bless all those who live, work and visit our community.
And as we ask for God’s blessing on anything, there must be an immediate connection with that word ‘Alleluia’ – because as we ask, we must praise…
And on this rogation Sunday, I think there are three very important words to consider - they are PRAYER, in other words asking, PRACTICE and PRAISE.
First of all PRAYER - We hear a lot about prayer but one story tells of a little boy who was sent to his room because he had been naughty. After he had been there a little while he came out and informed his mother that it would all be ok now because he had said a prayer. The mother was pleased and said, "if you ask God to make you good, He will help you." "Oh, I didn't ask Him to help me be good," replied the boy. "I asked Him to help you put up with me."
Prayer is about asking, it is about talking to God. God knows what we need before we ask Him, but this does not mean though that we should not ask. The gift of prayer is an unbelievably powerful gift which we so often neglect – The theologian Karl Barth said that ‘to raise the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world’ – prayer can make that much difference…
On this day when we pray we can ask God to bless all those whose lives cross with ours, we can ask Him to help those who are in need, we can ask Him to make us better able to be like Him. We can ask for strength to proclaim His name to those who need to know Him, we can ask for the strength of God to help us to work for Him bringing hope, the resurrection hope – that is everlasting hope, to the world. May we believe that prayer can transform, and as we pray for transformation around us, may we be ready to be transformed as well…
And now on to PRACTICE – By seeking to be more like God and to pray for change and hope we have a responsibility. A responsibility to “practice what we pray”. That is not to just ask God for something and do nothing about it ourselves but to actually seek to do more. By this I mean not to just pray for a better world, but to seek to make the world a better place. We will do this by being more like God, by offering hope and support to all those who need it. We will do this by listening to God, and through reading the Bible more to find out the ways that He would do things and to do this ourselves. To give of our time, money and willingness to listen to God and act on His word.
In the reading we heard from the book of Acts Paul, heard the voice of God telling Him to go to someone in need and tell them about Jesus and he did. What an example for us, to listen to God and to tell others about him.
We are not just to ask God to bless the world, we are to put it into practice in our own lives ! Prayer and practice must go together – there’s a story of a man who took a friend to watch a boxing match – the friend knew nothing at all about boxing and so he explained the rules to him and what might happen – just before the bell starting the 1st round, one of the boxers marked himself with the sign of the cross – when the friend asked what that meant, the other man replied, ‘it means nothing if he can’t box’…
God will strengthen us for any situation, but he also expects us to use the gifts that he gives us wisely….
And thirdly our lives must be filled with PRAISE- When we ask God for good things, we are always to give thanks; to praise God that wonderful things can happen so that even when it seems unlikely to us we can know that God can step in…
One of the sadder aspects of the perception people have of Church at times is that they are places of judgement, places of solemnity, places of formality – it’s a perception which is very often mistaken, but we must continually ensure that what we reflect is that the Church is a place where people gather to celebrate a great hope, to celebrate a wonderful love, to give thanks for salvation – the Church is, in effect, one great party, where people gather together as a family to share good moments and to support each other in more difficult times…
In our praise we celebrate the gifts of God, and we celebrate above all the gift of life, and new life trusting in Jesus…
As we ask for God’s blessing in PRAYER, as we seek to do our bit in PRACTICE, so in PRAISE we can remember that this rogation day, and always, we are to PRAISE God, to shout ‘alleluia’, because He alone is worthy to be praised.
I was reading the Psalm that we have had this morning, in a paraphrased version of the Bible. I think that this Psalm helps us to think about the role that we have to play on rogation Sunday and everyday in our lives as we seek to PRAY, PRACTICE and PRAISE.
I would like to finish with this Psalm:-
God, mark us with grace and blessing ! Smile !
The whole country will see how you work, all the godless nations see how you save… God ! Let people thank and enjoy you. Let all people thank and enjoy you.
Let all far-flung people become happy and shout their happiness because you judge them fair and square, you tend the far-flung peoples.
God ! Let people thank and enjoy you. Let all people thank and enjoy you… Earth, display your exuberance !
You mark us with blessing, O God, our God.
You mark us with blessing, O God.
Earth’s four corners – honour him ! AMEN
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