Upward Calling and Earthly Realities

Pastoral Prayer, Broadway Baptist Church
February, 2015
Rev. Chris Caldwell

• Lord, in a few moments we will pray, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done,”

• and we do pray for your kingdom of heaven to break into our earthly lives

  • may healing overcome illness

  • may hope overcome despair

  • may compassion overcome apathy

  • may love overcome greed

  • may sobriety overcome addiction

  • may wisdom overcome racism.

• Lord, we have come to your sanctuary to have our eyes drawn upward

  • to be reminded there is more to living than what the eye can see

  • that there is more to grace than the mind can fathom

  • that there is more to love than the coldest heart can stop.

• So keep our eyes on the prize

  • and our focus on the greater things above,

• And help us,

  • in Sunday School

  • in Bible study

  • in small groups

  • and in our devotional lives

  • to grow in our understanding of what is true and noble and just.

• But help us also not to take our eyes off the realities here below

  • even as we pray for what our world can be

  • help us to see our world clearly for what it is, a place where

  • bigots still hate

  • abusers still assault

  • thieves still steal

  • murderers still kill,

• And hear our prayers also for those whose life callings do not shield them from the places where hell has come to earth.  Hear us as we  pray for

  • soldiers defending civilians from evil people who want to kill them

  • social workers helping people rebuild lives broken by those who have abused them

  • school teachers inspiring dreams in the lives of children whose parents do not nurture them

  • police protecting children from dealers who lie to them

  • missionaries ministering to villages whose world has forgotten them,

• And forgive us, even as we pray about noble ideas and for noble people

  • when have opted not for the noble, but the convenient

  • not for what which is best, but for that which is easiest

  • Forgive us when we have bent the truth in our direction

  • stacked the numbers in our favor

  • Forgive us when we have seen evil and done nothing

  • when we have seen injustice and said nothing.

• Help us to practice what we preach

  • Help us to live in our lives what we teach to our children

• O God, we are your servants

  • which means, on many days, you don’t have much to work with

  • but help us to do better, for our sakes, and for the sake of your world.

Amen

Pastoral Prayer: Doors

Offered in Worship at Broadway Baptist Church, Louisville

November 28, 2010

Rev. Chris Caldwell, Pastor

0 God, we give thanks for doors in life you have opened for us. Doors labeled

Life
Learning
Love

Doors leading to

Fun
Fascination
Fulfillment

Doors leading to

Family
Friends
Fellowship

We offer you our forgiveness for doors we have refused to open.  Doors labeled

Compassion
Forgiveness
Generosity
Honesty
Civility
Patience

We offer you our forgiveness for doors we should have kept closed.  Doors
labeled

Unfaithfulness
Greed
Hatred
Prejudices
Spite

We pray for people behind their own unique door

We pray for the man behind the crafted solid oak door, which faces onto a lush green lawn. We pray for him as he considers his family, who are a bedrock of love and support, and his business, which teeters on a cliff of strain and uncertainty.
 
We pray for the woman behind the apartment door, which faces onto an evening parking lot where yet again the flashing blue lights speak of violence.  We pray for her as she considers her daughter, who soon will graduate from college, and her son, who again roams the streets late at night.

We pray for the army medic behind a door of sandbags, proud of serving his nation, yet depleted by too many deployments.

We pray for the prisoner behind a door ofbars, ashamed of her past, clinging to her sobriety.

We pray for widowers passing through doors of funeral homes.

We pray for patients passing through the doors of operating rooms.

We pray for our fellow pilgrims who have passed with us through the doors of this sanctuary.

May we who are troubled find peace
May we who are discouraged find hope
May we who are weary find strength

Finally, 0 God who stands at the door and knocks, may we who need to make a decision today, open the door to you.

Amen

Pastoral Prayer: Empty Manger and Stained Glass

Offered in Worship at Broadway Baptist Church, Louisville

December 5, 2010

Rev. Chris Caldwell, Pastor

A note about this prayer: Before offering the prayer, I explained to the congregation that in Eastern expressions of Christianity, visual images are often used as a way to focus during prayer. I then explained the four images forming the foundation of the prayer I was about to offer. The first was an empty manger placed where normally our pulpit rests. The second was an image of angels at the base of our stained glass window behind the pulpit. The third was the images of Jesus at his baptism in the stained glass. The fourth was the image of a dove descending upon Jesus, also depicted in the stained glass.  Before offering the prayer, I encouraged congregants to pray with their eyes open if those chose to, or with their eyes closed, and assured them their prayers would be heard either way.

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Let us pray

How strange it is, 0 God, to bow before an empty wooden box resting on rickety legs.  How daring it is to look for power where there is emptiness.

But this is what we do.

We worship, and we wait.

Waiting as people unaccustomed to mangers, but familiar with emptiness.

We wait as people who know the emptiness of grief, of a place at the table not filled this year.

We wait as people who know the emptiness of illness, of bodies robbed of strength.

We wait as people who know the emptiness that comes from chasing after the thing we know will satisfy, but which does not.

We wait as people who know the emptiness of promises made but not kept.

We come seeking more than emptiness, which is why we find hope in the angels above the manger.  Angels come to proclaim the good news of a child who is more than a child, but rather a king, and the good news of a manger that is more than a manger, but rather a throne.  Angels come to proclaim Immanuel, God among us.

Send the angels to us, too, Lord.  Send them to remind us that "unto us," a child has been born, who is a savior.

Send through them the promise that your Spirit comes first and foremost to the empty places.

But beyond even the angels, help us to see the promise of Christ above them. Show us the faithful Christ, his arms outstretched.  Show us Immanuel, God among us, who journeyed from a wooden manger to the seeming emptiness of a wooden cross.

Show us the living Christ, who humbled himself, so that he might be exalted.  Show us the living Christ, who emptied himself so that our spirits might be filled.

Forgive us when we settle for empty things.  Fill us with the fullness of Christ's love and grace.

And on this Sunday when we light the candle of Peace, may the peace of your Spirit descend upon us even as the it descended upon Christ.

Fill us with your Spirit, Lord.

But forgive us if we settle merely for being receptacles of your Spirit.  Help us to be instruments of your peace. Let us not forget the image of the disciples standing behind Christ.  Teach us, like them, to follow.  And make the circle complete by leading us to empty places and to empty people, so we might do our part to bring there the fullness of your love, and the peace of your Spirit.

Pastoral Prayer: Eye Has Not Seen

Offered in Worship at Broadway Baptist Church, Louisville

December 19, 2010

Rev. Chris Caldwell, Pastor

0 God, scripture speaks of Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, And which have not entered the heart of man, All that God has prepared for those who love him. (I Corinthians 2:9)

Lord, our eyes cannot see fully what you have prepared for us.
Our ears cannot hear fully the blessings you offer.

But we give thanks that you have offered us glimpses.

We have seen glimpses of your hope at sunrise, as purple gives way to orange, then pink, then to a blue sky.

We have heard your peace in the inaudible whispers of a baby's breath.

We have heard your joy this week in the sounds of the Louisville Symphony Orchestra, who, like the angels on a Bethlehem hillside, blessed us with the harmony of joy.

We have glimpsed your love in the smile of a friend who truly knows us and who truly cares.

Forgive us the times we fail to see what you set before us.

Forgive us when our eyes are distracted.

Forgive us when our ears are filled.

Forgive us when our hearts are hardened.

May others seem glimpses of you in us.

May our living in some small way reflect your loving.

 And May our giving in some small way reflect your grace. Amen.

Higher, Nobler

Pastoral Prayer, November 2012

O God we thank you for this hour of worship,

For this time when we can think on things which are:

Higher
Nobler
Truer
Purer

For this time when we can consider a path which is:

More loving
More forgiving
More generous
More rewarding

Walk close beside us, Lord, for we dwell in a land where:

Lives are not long enough
Bodies are not strong enough
Minds are not clear enough

We live in a land where people:

Demand too much
Forgive too little
and are consumed largely by their own needs

And so in many ways life is not easy for us, Lord

But in some ways it is.

For we do not worry

Where our next meal will come from
Where the next bomb might be placed, although many in our world do.

We do not live on streets where gunfire echoes in the night

Although many in our city do

We do not live in homes where cardboard tries to keep out the bitter Kentucky cold

Although many in our state do

And so, Lord, we ask you to turn your caring eyes of mercy upon us as we face our struggles

And forgive us when we have turned the cold eyes of indifference upon the struggles of others.

Amen

Veteran's Day Pastoral Prayer

Chris Caldwell, Pastor

Loving Heavenly Father, we come on Veterans Day to offer our prayers for those in uniform now and in the past.   Gathered as we are in the name of love and peace, it is with some uneasiness we offer prayers for those trained in the ways of war.   
 
Even so, we give thanks today for men and women who have served our nation,  
For people for whom the word loyalty has real meaning,
People who have given themselves for a cause greater than themselves,
People who have risked their lives for someone else,
People who have acknowledged that there are things in this world worth dying for, and that one of those things is the person in the line beside them.
 
We pray especially for veterans home recently from war who have sacrificed much, many of whom struggle to handle strong emotions, or who struggle to retrain broken bodies.   
 
Lord, we live in a culture that demands little of us, but still we ask that you would nurture within us a sense of loyalty, honor, and duty.
 
That you would call us beyond our selfishness so that we would also be willing to put someone else’s needs above our own.   
 
That you would help us to see that our calling to follow you is not to be taken lightly, and that we cannot simply cast aside for convenience sake the duty of a Christian to forgive, to love, and to be honest.
 
Amen