In the Episcopal Church, we have a series of small prayers called Collects. (The accent is on the first syllable, but they are called collects because they collect or gather the thoughts of the people.) There's one appointed for each Sunday of the Church Year. Collects offer to God a prayer that often focuses on one aspect of God, and asks God's help for us to behave in a certain way as a result of our growing awareness of that aspect of God's --shall we say?--character. The result is a small prayer that is quite specific in its focus yet applicable to the lives of everyone who has gathered for worship.
What is fascinating is that, for the long seasons between Epiphany and Lent and between Pentecost and Advent that are sometimes called "Ordinary Time," the Collect of the Day is not intentionally related in any way to the readings from the Bible that are appointed by our three-year Lectionary cycle. Often these readings bump up in very interesting ways with the readings.
Tomorrow at All Saints' we will read the passage where Jesus reflects on the place of money and wealth in the life of someone who might seek to follow him. Instead of regarding wealth as a sign that God is rewarding the deserving, Jesus sees it as an impediment to entering the Kingdom of God. So, if the poor are "godforsaken" and the rich can't get into the Kingdom any easier than a camel can pass through the eye of a needle, Jesus' disciples' ask, who CAN enter the Kingdom of God? Jesus answers that it's humanly impossible. But with God, ALL things are possible. Even the rich may inherit the Kingdom of God. Even the poor may find themselves welcome there. Even you. Even I. And that is God's grace at work, God's tendency to love before anyone must show him or herself worthy of love. It's all about grace.
Here's the collect appointed for tomorrow (October 14, 2012):
follow us, that we may continually be given to good works;
through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you
and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Three years ago, as I reflected on how the collect and the Bible readings of the day came together, I wrote a the following poem.
Thirty Seconds on a Sunday Morning
She stands up to lead the
flock,
their heads bowed,
some still settling in
to the business of
worship,
To the stillness of
worship
In the community that
gathers
in Sunday morning
darkness
in October in North
Georgia.
She stretches out her
hands,
evoking spaciousness
making room, welcoming
all
into God’s generosity.
She prays ancient words.
They speak of God’s
grace.
In an eternity between
syllables
she hears a dialogue
between herself and God,
riffing, jazzlike on the
Collect’s contours:
She
says to God:
“How I need your grace!
I can’t be alone in this
need
to be at the meeting of
mercy and love,
to taste this unimagined
blessing.
God
says to her:
“Here you ask for what
you surely know is true:
that my grace will
precede and follow you.
She
prays for her flock:
“that, before we know
where we are going
and after we have been
there,
we may see
signs of God having been
there already.
“And…” she thinks between other syllables---
“lest we gaze at God
like deer in the
headlights
(before he runs us over?)
“Lest, caught in the
glory of this holy instant,
we forget: that soon
enough
we will walk out these
doors
back into a world with
pain--
She
sighs.
“We must follow the logic
of prayer
and be pushed
out of the nest of the
Mother Hen
back into the world.”
Grace has this purpose:
that we may continually
be given—ah! we are the
gift!--
to good works.
The grace first, then the
works.
