We
Need you Lord
Saunders
Davies @ Bangor
God
can change lives. He has the
capacity to transform the world. It is that discovery that has made the renewal movement
an agent of change and new life in so many churches.
Miracles of transformation still happen by the Spirit of God, which
flowed so freely in Christ’s earthly life.
This
came home to me anew as I read the Archbishop of Wales’ Lent book for this
year. The author, Jeffrey John, has
written about The Meaning in the Miracles (Canterbury
Press, £7.99). He is
convinced that all the miracle stories in the Gospels contain profound teaching
that is highly relevant to Christians and the Church today.
In his book he analyses almost all the miracles by investigating their
scriptural roots and literary origins, their theological purpose, their
religious and social content, and the various levels of meaning they convey.
He aims to help the reader to ‘read the language’ of the miracles.
After the commentary on each miracle, he has a section on its meaning for
today, and ends with material for prayer and meditation gathered from various
sources.
In
commending this book I give as an example Jeffrey John’s own meditation at the
end of his reflections on the cursing of the withered fig tree in the context of
the cleansing of the temple.
Lord,
do something about your Church.
It
is so awful, it is hard not to feel ashamed of belonging to it.
Most of the time it seems to be all the things you condemned:
hierarchical,
conventional, judgemental, hypocritical,
respectable, comfortable, moralising, compromising,
clinging to its privileges and worldly securities,
and when not positively objectionable, merely absurd.
Lord we need your whip of cords.
Judge
us and cleanse us,
challenge and change us,
break and remake us.
Help
us to be what you called us to be.
Help us to embody you on earth.
Help us to make you real down here,
and to feed your people bread instead of stones.
And start with me.
We
can use this prayer as a means of preparing for the Flames of Fire
conference in August or indeed for our own parish, diocese and province.
We all need to be touched by God’s renewing power.