Sixth Sunday after Trinity – morning
Sunday 28th July 2019
Trinity 6 – Proper 12 – morning
Hosea 1.2-10
Luke 11. 1-13
Revd Preb Maureen Hobbs
At the 10 am service this video was shown in place of the sermon:
This sermon was preached at the 8 am said communion service:
Lord teach us to pray
We are all very familiar with the Lord’s prayer. We say it almost as a comfort blanket, something that makes us feel secure, connected with our childhood, but have you ever stopped to really think about the words.
What does it mean to hallow God’s name? What difference might it make if we did? Hallow is an ancient word meaning to make holy, to respect. Do we really respect the name of God?
And then we go on to think about God’s kingdom being real.
But as the film I will be showing later says, God can only bring in his kingdom if he truly controls us, or rather if we surrender to him; if we live our lives according to his will.
We are very good at asking God for our daily needs. The trouble is we don’t always recognise when we have them, and we always want more.
Then we come to the bit about temptation. Recently the Pope caused some controversy by suggesting changes to the Lord’s prayer, making it more evident that God would never lead us into a position of peril. No, it is ourselves who put us into situations where we are tempted, where we are morally in danger. Where we endanger our eternal salvation.
And what about forgiveness? How easy or otherwise do we find it to forgive those who hurt us in some way? But the truth is that revenge is not sweet, rather it embitters us and destroys our peace of mind. And God can only forgive us if we have forgiven others.
And it is only when we have taken all of that on board and accepted the truth of it, that we are entitled to share in the power and the glory that is always God’s. Amen.