Video for September 4th, 2025
Hello everyone and welcome to this week’s video. I hope you have had a good summer.
As we Christians believe prayer is the foundation for everything, its been good to start off the autumn term with another prayer pilgrimage around the diocese. This time the route has been to visit benefices in vacancy – I hope to encourage them. Its been a particular joy to visit churches I’ve not been to before- some of the smaller ones where services are infrequent. This week has been a national prayer initiative around the world organised by the 24/7 prayer movement, and this pilgrimage has been an opportunity to join in. If you are in the vicinity of the Cathedral there are prayer activities continuing on Thursday through to Saturday 6th.
People raise several theological, philosophical and practical problems about intercessory (i.e. asking for stuff from God) prayer owing to His omnipotence. If He really is all powerful, and knows the end from the beginning, what is the point of telling him our issues; he knows them all already. If he’s all powerful, why does he need our involvement in the unfolding of his purposes at all? If the Bible really is a story of God’s dealing with the world and apocalyptic books like Daniel and Revelation describe the end of the story, how can our little prayers make any difference to anything. We read in Paul’s reflections in his letter to the Romans references to predestination, implying that everything is fixed from the beginning and thus even free will is essentially illusory. John Calvin’s misinterpretation of these verses in his Institutes of Religion have had a blighting effect on Protestantism for centuries. I would respond that predestined is not the same as preordained. In the context of Paul’s writing the mood is of potential rather than restriction and exclusion. It is possible and indeed necessary to be faithful to the scriptures to hold two ideas at the same time: God is indeed powerful and does intervene in creation and human free choice is real.
The scriptures introduce the extraordinary idea that God wishes to act in partnership with human beings, not impose his will upon them by dictat. Prayer seems to be the limit that God chooses to place on his activity in order to foster genuine collaboration. From the earliest chapters of Genesis the idea of a co-regency is introduced. The power to care for the earth is given to humanity and is real. Co-operation with the Spirit of God can build the kingdom of God and it is also possible to quench the Spirit by our disobedience and sinfulness.
All of Jesus teaching on prayer gives a lie to the idea that we should never ask for things or seek God’s intervention to change circumstances. We pray, thy Kingdom come – because clearly it hasn’t yet come in all its fullness. Jesus tells a parable in Luke 11 of someone coming to their friend at midnight, a very inconvenient and unsociable time, and having their request granted. Jesus uses this as an illustration of God’s desire to give good things to his people and concludes, “how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him.”
This is why, even though we are now in the Year of Engagement, I want to emphasise the continued importance of prayer to all that we do as a diocesan family. Intercessory prayer is a central part of our services where we depart from liturgical structures to more extemporary requests. I encourage us to be specific rather than general. On my pilgrimage this week I have been praying specifically for the provision of clergy for these vacant benefices and for strength for those carrying the burden in the meantime. Jesus teaching on prayer encourages us to such specificity, honestly expressing our heartfelt requests to God. In some cases, a transformative answer would be an extraordinary thing, for which we give thanks. In others, we may find the inner nudge of the Spirit challenging us to address these issues ourselves. “Lord, we need financial provision for our church”, may be answered by a fresh spirit of generosity. A need for broken relationships to be healed may be answered by the gift of a spirit of mediation, or even a change in our hearts if we are part of the problem.
Lord revive and renew your Church. Bless us so we can be a blessing to others. And may your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
+Richard