The Eleventh Sunday After Pentecost

If I remove two words from the first part of this coming Sunday’s Collect it would read: “Grant to us, Lord we pray… to think and do always those things that are right…”

A prayer to think and do always those things that are right!!! For many of us, this prayer may be standard fare—we pray something like this every day! For others, this prayer may originate from a place of fear—fear of “thinking and doing” wrong! And for some of us this fear has become the very thing we are seeking to escape—not because we want to think and do wrong, but because we don’t want to be motivated by fear anymore. And we don’t like what always wanting to be “right” did to our souls.

And yet here we are—awaiting to be ushered into a prayer this coming Sunday that puts in our mouths a request to do and think always those things that are right… How are we to understand the deep-seated to desire to do right, alongside the clear observation (at least, for some of us) that the experience of pursuing “being right” resulted in our own spiritual deformity as well as the harm to those close to us?

I hope to explore these questions through the stories of a prophet hiding in a cave, a disciple walking on water and a song about God’s proclamation of Peace! See you on Sunday!