Devotionals

Discovery?

(Devotion by Graeme Harrison)

Prayer:

A Prayer for A rolling brown land

Lord God,

your Spirit has moved over the face of Australia

and formed from its dust a rolling brown land.

Your Spirit has moved over its warm tropical waters

and created a rich variety of life.

Your Spirit has moved in the lives

of men, women, and children

and given them, from the dream time,

an affinity with their lands and waters.

Your Spirit has moved in pilgrim people

and brought them to a place of freedom and plenty.

Your Spirit moves still today

in sprawling, high-rise cities,

in the vast distances of the outback,

and in the ethnic diversity of the Australian people.

Lord God,

in the midst of this varied huddle of humanity

you have set your church.

Give us, the people you have so richly blessed,

a commitment to justice and peace for all nations;

and a vision of righteousness

and equality for all people in our own country.

Help us look beyond our far horizons

to see our neighbours in their many guises,

so that we may be mutually enriched by our differences.

And may our love and compassion for all people on earth

be as wide and varied as our land

and as constant as the grace of our Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.

The Revd Douglas McKenzie

(Sourced from A Treasury of Prayers in Uniting in Worship, copyright 1988 Uniting Church in Australia)

Read:

Psalm 8. Read this 3 times, each time asking God’s help and thinking about those words or phrases that leap out at you.

Psalm 8

For the director of music. According to gittith. A psalm of David.

1 Lord, our Lord,

how majestic is your name in all the earth!

You have set your glory

in the heavens.

2 Through the praise of children and infants

you have established a stronghold against your enemies,

to silence the foe and the avenger.

3 When I consider your heavens,

the work of your fingers,

the moon and the stars,

which you have set in place,

4 what is mankind that you are mindful of them,

human beings that you care for them?

5 You have made them a little lower than the angels

and crowned them with glory and honour.

6 You made them rulers over the works of your hands;

you put everything under their feet:

7 all flocks and herds,

and the animals of the wild,

8 the birds in the sky,

and the fish in the sea,

all that swim the paths of the seas.

9 Lord, our Lord,

how majestic is your name in all the earth!

(Psalm 8 NIV)

Thought for the Day:

Today is the anniversary of Captain Cook’s landing at Botany Bay 250 years ago. He claimed the land for King George III and the rest is a history of enormous achievement and spectacular injustice. Our nation is both. Of those who identify with either or both of the two nations present in 1770 at the landing this day will be celebrated or mourned (or both). The beautiful imagery of the nobility of human beings shown in Psalm 8 seems out of place here. What can we learn from placing the Psalm beside the Landing?

I see a Psalm that sees a single humanity but when I look at the landing I see the dividing walls of national interest where the other is less human than ‘us’. National interest must never ‘trump’ the interests of our heavenly Father “from whom every family in heaven and earth derives its name” (Eph 3:15)

How does God speak to you when you place the Psalm beside the Landing?

Original Blessing

(Devotion by Graeme Harrison)

Prayer:

A Prayer for the Inland

(A Prayer written for different circumstances that mirror our own)

Lift our eyes, O Father,

that we may see our fellow citizens

even to the furthermost shores of our continent.

Quicken our imagination

until their lives become clear to us.

Call to our remembrance

our own struggles and difficulties when isolated,

our own sighings when in loneliness.

Open our hearts,

that our love may flow out in warm streams of blessing,

expressed in things both seen and unseen.

Keep and enable all whom we have sent forth in your name.

Follow our pioneers through all their days:

in the midst of drought or flood, keep them from harm;

in the days of loss, give them patience;

in time of temptation, strength;

in the season of pain, joy.

Especially we ask you to bless the children

in isolated homes:

enrich their lives, and make them great;

let your protecting wings cover them;

may the Holy Spirit –

who knows no distance, no time, no barrier –

comfort, inspire and perfect them.

Let the love of your Son flow about us all

and bring us to the rest of your eternal kingdom;

through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

A prayer written in 1915 by the Revd John Flynn, 1880-1951, the founder of the Australian Inland Mission and the Royal Flying Doctor Service.

(Sourced from A Treasury of Prayers in Uniting in Worship, copyright 1988 Uniting Church in Australia)

Read:

Genesis 1:26-31. Read this 3 times, each time asking God’s help and thinking about those words or phrases that leap out at you.

26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

27 So God created mankind in his own image,

in the image of God he created them;

male and female he created them.

28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

29 Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.

31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.

(Genesis 1:26-31NIV)

Thought for the Day:

The view of many outside the church is that we have an unhealthy interest in sin. Original Sin, a theory around the sinfulness of every human being, seems to be one of our best known ideas but is that a true reflection of what Genesis is trying to tell us?

Surely, Genesis begins with a focus on ‘original blessing’. In other words, human being were made to be blessed by God and we still are. Is that how you see yourself; blessed? There is a lot of conflicting things happening in life for all of us but Genesis at this point in the story wants you to know just one thing, you are under God’s blessing.

Push everything else from your mind right now and whisper your prayer to God, “I am blessed by you, thank you.”

(Devotion by Graeme Harrison)

Prayer:

The Lord’s Prayer

Our Father in heaven,

hallowed be your name,

your kingdom come,

your will be done,

on earth as in heaven.

Give us today our daily bread.

Forgive us our sins

as we forgive those who sin against us.

Save us from the time of trial

and deliver us from evil.

For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours

now and forever. Amen.

(Sourced from A Treasury of Prayers in Uniting in Worship, copyright 1988 Uniting Church in Australia)

Read:

Exodus 16:1-5. Read this 3 times, each time asking God’s help and thinking about those words or phrases that leap out at you.

1The whole Israelite community set out from Elim and came to the Desert of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they had come out of Egypt. 2 In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. 3 The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.”

4 Then the Lord said to Moses, “I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions. 5 On the sixth day they are to prepare what they bring in, and that is to be twice as much as they gather on the other days.”

(Exodus 16:1-5NIV)

Thought for the Day:

What makes “the good old days” so attractive? Surely, it is selective memory. Here the Israelites in the foodless wilderness selectively remember the food supplies that they took for granted during their despairing life as slaves in Egypt.

What makes “the good old days” so damaging to living in the present? Grumbling. The point of this type of nostalgia is to compare the present with the past in an unfavourable light. This creates grumbling and blaming. It doesn’t matter what it is that we are comparing whether it is Church life, the economy, or society as a whole. The result is the same grumbling and blame.

Our passage points out the origin of “daily bread” that God provides. The follower of Christ is to see God’s gracious kindness all around including in something as simple as bread. Then, instead of blaming, there is crediting; crediting God with the good things of life. So begins a life filled with daily thanksgiving. That is a life worth living.

(Devotion by Graeme Harrison)

Prayer:

A Prayer for Remembrance

O Lord,

remember not only men and women of good will,

but also those of ill will.

But do not remember all the suffering they have inflicted upon us;

instead, remember the fruits we have borne

because of this suffering –

our fellowship, our loyalty to one another,

our humility, our courage, our generosity,

the greatness of heart that has grown from this trouble.

When our persecutors come to be judged by you,

let all these fruits we have borne be their forgiveness. Amen.

(Found on the clothing of a dead child

at Ravensbruck concentration camp)

(Sourced from A Treasury of Prayers in Uniting in Worship, copyright 1988 Uniting Church in Australia)

Read:

Isaiah 9:2-6. Read this 3 times, each time asking God’s help and thinking about those words or phrases that leap out at you.

2 The people walking in darkness

have seen a great light;

on those living in the land of deep darkness

a light has dawned.

3 You have enlarged the nation

and increased their joy;

they rejoice before you

as people rejoice at the harvest,

as warriors rejoice

when dividing the plunder.

4 For as in the day of Midian’s defeat,

you have shattered

the yoke that burdens them,

the bar across their shoulders,

the rod of their oppressor.

5 Every warrior’s boot used in battle

and every garment rolled in blood

will be destined for burning,

will be fuel for the fire.

6 For to us a child is born,

to us a son is given,

and the government will be on his shoulders.

And he will be called

Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God,

Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

(Isaiah 9:2-6 NIV)

Thought for the Day:

The famous theologian Karl Barth once described human history without God as immensely boring because we kept repeating the same cycles of war and peace, greed and injustice over and over again. It is Christ who interrupts these endless cycles with the way of the Kingdom of God. Here the Prince of Peace calls us to something new that is rarely seen but we hope becomes the norm in God’s timing. Yes, let us honour on this Anzac Day the immense sacrifices made in good faith but let us look work toward a day when such sacrifices will not be needed; a day when Jesus’ new life holds sway over all his people. The new thing has already begun. Read again the child’s prayer above and be amazed at the new thing God is doing among us!

(Devotion by Graeme Harrison)

Prayer:

Saviour in storm

Jesus,

Saviour in storm,

when the waters of the deep are broken up,

when the landmarks are washed away or drowned,

come to us across the water;

hear us, for your love’s sake. Amen.

(Sourced from A Treasury of Prayers in Uniting in Worship, copyright 1988 Uniting Church in Australia)

Read:

Isaiah 40:27-31. Read this 3 times, each time asking God’s help and thinking about those words or phrases that leap out at you.

27 Why do you complain, Jacob?

Why do you say, Israel,

“My way is hidden from the Lord;

my cause is disregarded by my God”?

28 Do you not know?

Have you not heard?

The Lord is the everlasting God,

the Creator of the ends of the earth.

He will not grow tired or weary,

and his understanding no one can fathom.

29 He gives strength to the weary

and increases the power of the weak.

30 Even youths grow tired and weary,

and young men stumble and fall;

31 but those who hope in the Lord

will renew their strength.

They will soar on wings like eagles;

they will run and not grow weary,

they will walk and not be faint.

(Isaiah 40:27-31 NIV)

Thought for the Day:

The Jewish people in Exile in Babylon struggled with a shortage of one of the most valuable resources on earth; hope. Even though their life in the rich farmlands of Babylon was not difficult, they still yearned to go home. After three generations only the very oldest could remember the land of Israel and the city of Jerusalem (still in ruins). Even if you are well off lack of hope and can make life miserable. As despair brought on a weariness with life, God sent Isaiah to surprise them. They would soon be able to return to the land. God himself would declare their sins forgiven and make a straight path through the desert back to Jerusalem for them (Is 40:1-8).

They could renew their strength by having their hope restored. They had their hope restored because God had not lost his strength.

Like me, you might occasionally find yourself weary with your current lockdown situation even if you are well off and fortunate. Do not despair, re-read God’s promise above and renew your hope and strength. May you and I “soar on wings like eagles” today.

(Devotion by Graeme Harrison)

Prayer:

For strength through the day

Great Bunji God,

you sent your Son Jesus

to be our Saviour, our Guide and our Friend.

At the dawn of this new day

we pray for strength to follow in his steps,

and to be true witnesses for him

among our people who love the great earth mother,

your gift to them from the dreamtime.

We pray for all people of all countries,

that they may become one great family

with Jesus as Saviour.

As we come to the evening of this day,

may we go to our rest in the quiet hours of the night

knowing that, in spite of our human weaknesses,

we have truly walked with Jesus.

This prayer we offer in the name of Jesus,

our Good Friend. Aralba.

(Bunji is an Aboriginal word for Father.

Aralba means: I have spoken from my heart.)

Revd Lazarus Lamilami, 1910-1977,

the first ordained Aboriginal minister

of the Uniting Church

(Sourced from A Treasury of Prayers in Uniting in Worship, copyright 1988 Uniting Church in Australia)

Read:

Exodus 2:1-10. Read this 3 times, each time asking God’s help and thinking about those words or phrases that leap out at you.

The Birth of Moses

1Now a man of the tribe of Levi married a Levite woman, 2 and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. When she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him for three months. 3 But when she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile. 4 His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him.

5 Then Pharaoh’s daughter went down to the Nile to bathe, and her attendants were walking along the riverbank. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her female slave to get it. 6 She opened it and saw the baby. He was crying, and she felt sorry for him. “This is one of the Hebrew babies,” she said.

7 Then his sister asked Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?”

8 “Yes, go,” she answered. So the girl went and got the baby’s mother. 9 Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this baby and nurse him for me, and I will pay you.” So the woman took the baby and nursed him. 10 When the child grew older, she took him to Pharaoh’s daughter and he became her son. She named him Moses, saying, “I drew him out of the water.”

(Exodus 2:1-10 NIV)

Thought for the Day:

Privileged people are quite unconscious of their part in wickedness and often confuse it for kindness. Moses was born of the Hebrew race who were being persecuted by the privileged and powerful Egyptians because they feared the growing population of the powerless Hebrew minority group. The Pharoah ordered the death of all male infants. The baby Moses was put in a basket in the pathetic hope he would be overlooked. Instead, Pharoah’s daughter found him. In an act of “kindness” for the endangered baby she “adopted” him and asked his birth mother to nurse him till he was old enough to be taken away. Moses was a “stolen child” and he always knew it.

Is your mind now drifting to our aboriginal brothers and sisters and the “kindness” they had to endure in this very nation in our lifetime? Privilege can never see its own use of power is obscene. No wonder Jesus said of his privileged persecutors, “Forgive them Father, they know not what they do.”

Yet the story of God’s people is not defined by oppression but by how God sees them. They are precious and full of life and faith. The same applies to the First Peoples of this land. Through Jesus eyes they are not charity cases for “kindness” but precious peoples deserving of justice and respect. It is time we stopped looking through the eyes of the privileged and started looking through the eyes of Christ. Do not lose sight of these Australians as we bunker down with our many resources and wait for the virus to pass over.

(Devotion by Graeme Harrison)

Prayer:

O Lord and Master Jesus Christ,

Word of the everlasting Father,

you have borne our griefs

and carried the burdens of our human frailty;

by the power of the Holy Spirit,

renew in your Church the gifts of healing,

and send out your disciples again

to preach the gospel of your kingdom,

to heal the sick,

and to relieve the sufferings of your children;

to the praise and glory of your holy name. Amen.

Liturgy of St Mark, 5th century

(Sourced from A Treasury of Prayers in Uniting in Worship, copyright 1988 Uniting Church in Australia)

Read:

Exodus 4:10-17. Read this 3 times, each time asking God’s help and thinking about those words or phrases that leap out at you.

10 Moses said to the Lord, “Pardon your servant, Lord. I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue.”

11 The Lord said to him, “Who gave human beings their mouths? Who makes them deaf or mute? Who gives them sight or makes them blind? Is it not I, the Lord? 12 Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.”

13 But Moses said, “Pardon your servant, Lord. Please send someone else.”

14 Then the Lord’s anger burned against Moses and he said, “What about your brother, Aaron the Levite? I know he can speak well. He is already on his way to meet you, and he will be glad to see you. 15 You shall speak to him and put words in his mouth; I will help both of you speak and will teach you what to do. 16 He will speak to the people for you, and it will be as if he were your mouth and as if you were God to him. 17 But take this staff in your hand so you can perform the signs with it.”

(Exodus 4:10-17 NIV)

Thought for the Day:

What is the purpose of this bit of dialogue between God and Moses at the burning bush. All it seems to do is show that Moses wasn’t a great speaker nor was he a hero material. ‘Reluctant hero’ more like it. Perhaps that is the point. Just as we are encouraged to see ourselves in the flawed character of Peter in the New Testament, maybe we are encouraged to see ourselves in the flawed character of Moses in the Old Testament. Maybe God prefers to use flawed characters …

(Devotion by Graeme Harrison)

Prayer:

"The Jesus Prayer"

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God,

have mercy upon me, a sinner.

The Jesus Prayer or the Prayer of the Heart, or the Perpetual Prayer

(Sourced from A Treasury of Prayers in Uniting in Worship, copyright 1988 Uniting Church in Australia)

Read:

2 Corinthians 12:9-10 . Read this 3 times, each time asking God’s help and thinking about those words or phrases that leap out at you. 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:9-10 NIV)

Thought for the Day:

Most of us really dislike being weak and powerless. We yearn for the power to make things better but we can’t. Paul had discovered that nothing offered to God is wasted; even our weakness. He had learnt that only when he fully understood his powerlessness to change anybody or anything could he see that it was God who was acting through him. His weakness was the opportunity for God’s strength. Weakness should not lead us to inaction but to faith based action.

(Devotion by Graeme Harrison)

Prayer: Speak, Lord

Speak, Lord, for your servant hears.

Grant us ears to hear, eyes to see,

minds to obey, hearts to love.

Then declare what you will,

reveal what you will,

command what you will,

demand what you will. Amen.

Christina Rosetti, 1830-1894

(Sourced from A Treasury of Prayers in Uniting in Worship, copyright 1988 Uniting Church in Australia)

Read:

John 20:11-18. Read this 3 times, each time asking God’s help and thinking about those words or phrases that leap out at you.

Jesus Appears to Mary Magdalene

11 Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb 12 and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.

13 They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?”

“They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” 14 At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.

15 He asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”

Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”

16 Jesus said to her, “Mary.”

She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”).

17 Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”

18 Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them that he had said these things to her.

(John 20:11-18 NIV)

Thought for the Day:

Have you noticed how gardens keep reappearing in Scripture at key moments? Adam and Eve lived in relationship with God in the Garden of Eden. This garden was expressly made for human being to live a rich life in harmony with both nature and God. This same garden became the scene of Adam and Eve defying God’s will and consequently being expelled.

The Garden of Gethsemane was like this but in reverse. The representative of humanity, Jesus our king/Christ, wrestled against temptation and decided to follow God’s will.

Next we have the garden where the tombs were found. In this garden, Mary finds God (risen Jesus) and finds her harmony with God. She is like Eve in reverse. Like Eve, Mary is at the start of a very big change for humanity. Her cry of love and yearning for Jesus shows us what it means to find God. Faith is not dry concepts, or good morals, or religious traditions but is fundamentally a cry of the heart for God when you have made the astonishing discovery that because of Easter God (through Jesus) is standing right in front of you the whole time with love upon God’s face.