This morning, we return to Paul’s
letter we call 1st Timothy. The letter is addressed to Timothy, who
was a man led by Paul’s evangelistic efforts to embrace Christianity. Although addressed to Timothy, all of Paul’s
letters were copied over and over again and shared with neighboring Christian
groups, creating a chain of information sharing between all of the baby Christian
churches.
Listen to Paul’s words as he gave
advice about prayer and how Christians are to pray as they are recorded in 1
Timothy chapter 2, verse 1 through 7:
Proclamation of the Scripture 1 Timothy 2:1-7
I urge, then, first of all, that petitions,
prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people—
for kings and all those in authority, that we may live
peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness.
This is good, and pleases God our Savior,
who wants all people to be saved and to come to a
knowledge of the truth.
For there is one God and one mediator between God and
mankind, the man Christ Jesus,
who gave himself as a ransom for all people. This has now
been witnessed to at the proper time.
And for this purpose I was appointed a herald and an apostle—I
am telling the truth, I am not lying—and a true and faithful teacher of
the Gentiles.
Here ends this reading of the word of God for the people
of God. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditation of all of our hearts be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
If you ask people what they are personally afraid of, in
addition to death and becoming a victim of a crime, public speaking typically is
towards the top of their list. People
will take many steps to avoid public speaking -- They claim people can’t
understand their accents; they say their nervousness will cause them to forget
what they intend to say. They feign laryngitis.
I have the kind of profession that requires public speaking, and
I have learned to be less nervous about leading worship, but it still causes me
a lot of stress. I am usually exhausted after a morning of leading worship and
need to take a nap on Sunday afternoon. I have been a minister for 18 years, and I
still am scared of public speaking.
In addition to people being afraid
of public speaking, many of us are nervous about praying out loud in front of
other people. I think this is an
extension of the public-speaking fear. We are ok with saying the Lord’s Prayer
in unison with others, but if we are called upon to just pray extemporaneously,
most of us clam up. We dodge the request.
We say that we don’t know what to say. We compare ourselves to others and fear
that our words won’t sound as pious as other prayers we hear.
Having a template is helpful. When I
have led children’s ministry programs, one of the prayer techniques I have taught
is the ACTS prayer formula. ACTS is easy to remember, because of the New
Testament book of the Acts of the Apostles. The name of the ACTS prayer formula
is an acrostic – A is for Adoration, C is for Confession, T is for Thanksgiving,
and S is for Supplication. So, we adore and worship God, we confess our sins to
God, and we thank God for what God has done. Supplication is a prayer for our own needs and
other people’s needs. In the letter to
the Ephesians, Paul encourage us to make “supplication for all the saints”
which means to pray for our sisters and brothers in Christ. The Supplication
part is primarily what we do on Sunday morning when we list our joys and
concerns. The Thanksgiving part of the formula is what we highlight when we
mention our “God Sightings” of the week.
The ACTS prayer formula is echoed in
today’s reading from 1st Timothy. The portion of First Timothy we
read today is described as “Instructions for Worship” in the NIV Bible. Paul starts out with saying Christians should
make petitions, prayers, intercession, and thanksgiving for all people. It is
our work to pray to God – prayers of Worship, prayers of requests for others
and ourselves, prayers of intercession on behalf of ourselves and others, and
prayers of thanksgiving for the blessings we have received.
Paul then says the people should
pray “for kings and all those in authority, that we may live
peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. “ Why would Paul
tell the people to pray for kings and all those in authority?
In the 1st Century, the
Roman Empire’s leaders viewed the Jewish people as being horribly defiant. The Jewish people adhered to the laws of
their religion and their religious leaders, and resisted the control of the
Roman Empire. They were combative – over and over again, Jewish revolutionaries
led armed rebellions against the Romans. In 70 AD, after a 5 month standoff, Jerusalem
and the Jewish Temple were destroyed.
At this early point in the development
of the Christian Church, Christianity was seen as part of Judaism. They were
not fully separated, especially in the eyes of the Roman authorities. So, when
Paul told the Christians to pray for the kings and the people in authority, he
was praying that their hearts would be softened towards the Christians and their
treatment of the Christians would be just and fair. Paul wanted all the
Christians to have peaceful and quiet lives, not under threat of suspicion and
terror from the powers that be.
This message from Paul is
instructive for us. It reminds us of strategies to be mindful of as we pray.
And, it also reminds us of our need to pray for the people we don’t like or
consider our enemies. So, we should pray for our own government so that we are
able to have the freedoms and protections that allow practicing our faith. And,
we are also called to pray for our enemies – for the Russian government, for the
North Korean government, for the Iranian government, for the Cuban government.
We pray for them not only because we value our safety as a nation not a war
with them. But, all of our “enemy” countries also have Christian citizens. In
some of those places, Christianity is illegal. And, all of those countries have
mminority groups that are under attack and persecution – LGBTQ people, political
prisoners, people who are differently abled, and people who are not part of the
dominant religious group or non-religious group, in the case of Cuba and North
Korea. Our work is to pray for people
who are at risk, and also to pray for the people in power that make them at
risk.
Beloved, we are called to be people
who pray. We pray prayers of worship and adoration of God. We pray prayers of
supplication and petition for other people and ourselves. We pray prayers of thanksgiving
for all the good things we have experienced and received. We even pray for our enemies and the people we
disagree with. Our calling is to be people who pray.
May we remember to do so with love
in our hearts? Amen.
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