Praying the Way

with Matthew, Mark, Luke and John

Terry Hinks

• Publisher: BRF
• Year: 2021
• eBook ISBN: 9780857468079
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Through raw and authentic prayers, based on the gospel stories, Terry Hinks leads readers into the heart of the gospels the more clearly to see the needs and joys of today's world. This highly original book helps readers to pray out of, and with, the words of Jesus and to discover the joy of prayer as a two-way conversation – listening as much as speaking to God.

The Bible Reading Fellowship

15 The Chambers, Vineyard

Abingdon OX14 3FE

brf.org.uk

The Bible Reading Fellowship (BRF) is a Registered Charity (233280)

ISBN (ePub) 978 0 85746 807 9

ISBN (Mobi) 978 0 85746 717 1

First published 2018

All rights reserved

Text © Terry Hinks 2018

This edition © The Bible Reading Fellowship 2018

Cover image and chapter-opener pages: Jenny Meehan, Leap of Faith © Jenny Meehan. All Rights Reserved, DACS 2018

The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

Acknowledgements

Unless otherwise stated, scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, Anglicised Edition, copyright © 1989, 1995 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked REB are taken from the Revised English Bible, copyright © Cambridge University Press and Oxford University Press 1989. All rights reserved.

Prayers in Praying with Mark previously published in God’s Passion: Praying with Mark (Darton, Longman and Todd, 2011), and prayers in Praying with Luke previously published in God’s Embrace: Praying with Luke (Darton, Longman and Todd, 2012).

Every effort has been made to trace and contact copyright owners for material used in this resource. We apologise for any inadvertent omissions or errors, and would ask those concerned to contact us so that full acknowledgement can be made in the future.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Contents

Introducing the gospels

1 Praying with Matthew

1 The surprising God

2 I shall not pass by

3 The Beloved

4 Wilderness struggle

5 Light dawns

6 Beginning with blessing

7 Dig deep

8 The ceaseless babble

9 One-hearted living

10 Removing the log

11 Act on it

12 He bore our diseases

13 Confronting chaos

14 Follow me

15 Great compassion

16 Unconditional gospel

17 Come to me

18 Standing alongside Jesus

19 Dull hearts, closed minds

20 The pearl

21 They went and told Jesus

22 Sacred ground

23 Shameless prayer

24 A sign, a word, a way

25 Mountain light and mustard-seed faith

26 Children and sheep

27 Sex and money

28 Upside-down kingdom

29 Donkey-riding Messiah

30 The son who truly said ‘yes’

31 Questions

32 Weightier matters

33 The hen and chicks

34 The break-in

35 Where shall we meet you?

36 Made ready

37 Going farther

38 Blood on our hands

39 The Son of God dies

40 Shaken by joy

2 Praying with Mark

1 Are we ready?

2 Call

3 A deserted place

4 Healing and forgiveness

5 From money table to meal table

6 Stretching hands and hearts

7 Sent out

8 Our brother Jesus

9 Seed of grace

10 The growing mustard seed

11 The storm and the questions

12 Hem and hand

13 Rejection and mission

14 Death interrupts

15 Green grass

16 Passing glory

17 Lip service

18 Crumbs

19 Be opened

20 Sign and no sign

21 Partial vision

22 Glimpse of glory

23 I believe, help my unbelief

24 The greatest

25 The welcoming one

26 How shall I respond?

27 Servant

28 Blessed is the one

29 House of prayer

30 Tenants

31 Death and taxes

32 The good scribe

33 Alert and awake

34 Remember her

35 New in the kingdom of God

36 The cup

37 Peter’s tears

38 Handed over

39 The body broken and curtain torn

40 He is not here, he is going ahead

3 Praying with Luke

1 Your prayer has been heard

2 Standing in the presence of God

3 Yes to God

4 Mary’s song: love’s laughter

5 A new name and a new dawn

6 No room?

7 Glory to God

8 Seeing salvation

9 Heaven breaks open

10 Testing to the limit

11 God’s today

12 Caught in God’s net

13 Only speak the word, Lord

14 A woman’s love for Jesus

15 Mountain prayer

16 The peace mission

17 Jesus rejoices

18 Christ in the dust

19 Martha and Mary

20 Lord teach us to pray

21 Friend indeed

22 Let us look

23 Lost sheep

24 A woman and a coin

25 Coming to our senses

26 The older son

27 Children of Abraham

28 Were not ten healed?

29 Widow’s plea

30 The Pharisee’s prayer

31 The one who seeks

32 Lament over Jerusalem

33 Rejected cornerstone

34 The desire of Christ

35 Sleeping?

36 The hour

37 Remember

38 Emmaus Road

39 History’s hinge

40 Breakthrough

4 Praying with John

1 The beginning

2 John the Baptist

3 Come and see

4 Signpost

5 The new temple

6 Rebirth

7 God’s increase

8 Living water

9 The second sign

10 Jesus the questioner

11 Nothing lost

12 Words of eternal life

13 Divisions deepen

14 Words in the sand

15 Radiance

16 Before Abraham

17 Eyes opened

18 The shepherd

19 One with the Father

20 Tears

21 Fragrance

22 God glorified

23 Foot washing

24 Betrayal and love

25 The way

26 The advocate

27 The true vine

28 The advantage

29 Jesus’ prayer

30 The arrest

31 Truth and power

32 Crown of thorns

33 Mother and son

34 Finished

35 The gardener

36 Sent out

37 Living trust

38 It is the Lord

39 Do you love me?

40 The story continues

Appendix: A pattern of prayer

About the author

Introducing the gospels

This collection of readings and prayers is an invitation to journey with the four gospel writers, as they share with us the precious pearl that is God’s kingdom, revealed in the life and teaching of Jesus Christ. Each writer told the story of Jesus in their own distinct way, reflecting the sources and traditions they knew and the situations which they and their church communities faced. Each brought their own wisdom, background and gifts to bear as they shared the good news of Jesus, energised by God’s Spirit. Their fourfold witness to Christ is a source of delight rather than concern and difficulty; their very differences give reality to their testimony. Ultimately there is only one gospel – the good news of Jesus Christ – but the four witnesses bring a more rounded, fascinating and dynamic picture of Christ than one storyteller could produce.

Each invites us to follow the way of Jesus. In the book of Acts, Luke describes the early Christian movement as those who belonged to ‘the Way’: Saul journeyed to Damascus, ‘so that if he found any who belonged to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem’ (Acts 9:2). ‘The Way’ has a whole variety of meanings within Acts and the New Testament as a whole, with deep roots in the Old Testament. It speaks both of God’s initiative and of our human response.

First and foremost ‘the Way’ is God’s rather than our own; it is God who reaches out to the world to bring rescue and liberation. Isaiah spoke of a new exodus, with the exiles in Babylon returning to Jerusalem, and the gospel writers took up this imagery as they reflected on the work of Jesus. Quoting from the book of Isaiah, they describe John the Baptist as the voice crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight’ (e.g. Mark 1:3).

God opens the way for us all – the way to God and the way to truly live. In Jesus, the Son of God, the Word made flesh, God dwells with humanity, having made a way into the world. Luke’s great song of Zechariah describes the coming of Jesus as a new dawn for humanity, giving ‘light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace’ (Luke 1:79).

The dawn does not come without cost. Jesus is recognised as one who teaches the way of God, but this does not prevent his being rejected by those with power or position to lose. The way of Jesus becomes the way of the cross. At a critical moment in the gospels Jesus turns his face to Jerusalem and begins to speak of the rejection, suffering and death he will face there. Yet the way of the cross is ultimately transformed into the way of victory as, raised to new life on the third day, Christ breaks the bonds of death and hatred. That evening he walks unrecognised with two disciples on the road to Emmaus and shows himself risen and alive as he shares bread with them. They recall how their hearts were burning within them as he talked to them on the road (see Luke 24:13–35). The way of life is open ahead of them, a life to be lived and shared with the world.

All this is God’s doing and the gospel writers emphasise the centrality of God’s kingdom and the person of Jesus, contrasting this with the doubts, misunderstanding, failures and inadequacies of his disciples. John sums up the message in the great ‘I am’ statements as he meditates on the person of Jesus: Jesus is ‘the way’ (John 14:6), making the unseen God known and opening God’s heart to all who trust in him.

The Way is of God’s making, but humanity is challenged to respond and to enter this way. Key to the gospel message is Jesus’ invitation, ‘follow me’. For the fishermen and the many others it meant their world’s being turned upside down, with a new way of looking at God, the world and themselves, and a new way of living too. That following required trust, risk and love. It involved listening deeply to Jesus’ teaching and learning from his every action. Mistakes and misunderstandings became the opportunity to discover their need, experience forgiveness and take to heart the challenge to trust more in Jesus. They and all potential disciples are invited to follow the difficult way that leads to life and to build on rock, rather than shifting sand.

As we prepare to embark on our reading of the four gospels and to pray with them, it is good to reflect on the way we will be taking. Prayer at its simplest is about giving loving attention to the God who is the source and goal of all life. As we pray with the gospels we give our attention to Jesus, and listen for that word of God that was made flesh in him. We seek God’s Spirit to enlighten and connect his story with our own situation and the world in all its wonder and terror. We choose to follow the Way and pray:

The gospel comes to me, full of choices:

the choice to follow or to stay,

to walk the broad path that may destroy my soul

or the narrow way that leads to life;

the choice to be built on rock or on sand;

trust or fear, love or hate,

blessing or curse, life or death;

the choice to live by outward appearance

or the inward naked heart,

to respond to need or to turn away.

Living Lord, help me to choose life,

not once, but each and every day.

Show me how to pray and walk your way

not tomorrow or yesterday,

but now.

1

Praying with Matthew

How do we best pray the way with Matthew? One of the great keys to prayer in Matthew’s gospel lies at the heart of the sermon on the mount (Matthew 6:5–15). It begins by warning against parading our prayerfulness, but then goes deeper with the instruction to go ‘into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father’ and not to heap up ‘empty phrases as the Gentiles do’ (Matthew 6:5–8). These four verses are unique to Matthew and lead on to the giving of the Lord’s Prayer, in the form Christians use to this day.

The verses are both beguiling and challenging in their directness and simplicity. Here Jesus gives the three entry points into true prayer as being space apart, stillness of heart and trust of God, the one who knows our need. All these are hard to achieve in our frantic 21st-century society, where technology provides a huge umbilical tube to keep us constantly connected, where we are bombarded with an unceasing flow of words and images that remain in our minds long after we turn off our televisions or computers, and where trust is often in short supply. Matthew’s Jesus speaks of a room where the door can be shut, a storeroom for treasure, a place of safety; Elisha ‘closed the door… and prayed to the Lord’ (2 Kings 4:33). Here is a place of the heart, a place to encounter the God who is in secret and sees in secret, a place where one’s motivation is truly exposed.

This is the groundwork necessary to prepare to pray, to be in the presence of the one who sees into the heart. Our praying is constantly in danger of degenerating into an exercise of self-justification and self-importance, into that hypocrisy that Jesus confronts so brutally in his attack on paraded piety. So we are challenged to enter the room of prayer and shut the door, yet assured that the room is not empty – God is present.

Matthew underlines this by breaking the threefold teaching on secret piety (almsgiving, prayer and fasting) to include teaching on prayer itself. After encouragement not to babble, Jesus gives his disciples a way of praying that is a series of petitions addressed to ‘Our Father in heaven’. The Lord’s Prayer is, in effect, the pinnacle and centre of Jesus’ first collection of teaching. It begins ‘Our Father in heaven’ (Matthew 6:9), unlike the simpler ‘Father’ in Luke’s version (Luke 11:2), to emphasise the communal dimension of prayer. Matthew has a particular concern for the life of the Christian community and is the only gospel to use the word ‘church’. Even alone we pray in the company of God’s people; if nothing else, God’s reality as ‘our Father’ connects us together.

The balance of the prayer as Matthew records it is perfect, with three petitions focusing on God’s name, kingdom and will and three petitions focusing on our bread, our wrongs and our struggles. Anthony Bloom likens the prayer to a series of ripples spreading from where a pebble falls into a pond, the centre of the circle being ‘Our Father in heaven’. This careful construction reflects the Jewish traditions from which Jesus and Matthew himself came. Three times Jesus’ followers are to ask for God’s purposes to be fulfilled; then and only then do they turn to their own needs and challenges. This is a challenging way to enter prayer, but a necessary antidote to the self-help agendas of our own times. ‘Strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness’ (Matthew 6:33) and then the rest will follow.

Prayer is always bound up with action. We pray so that we may live more according to the will of God, more in tune with the kingdom to come. We pray in dependence to God for our day-to-day lives, our very sustenance. We pray for forgiveness for the ways we have acted at odds with the teaching of Jesus and for help to forgive those who have wronged us. We pray for strength and wisdom in the face of trial, temptation and evil, praying for ourselves and others. Praying flows into living, and living is reflected upon in prayer. It expresses our utter reliance on the grace of God, the faithful presence of ‘God with us’. Matthew assures us that this faithful presence will not fail, ending his gospel with Jesus’ assurance, ‘I am with you always, to the end of the age’ (Matthew 28:20).

1 The surprising God

Matthew 1:1–25

‘… and they shall name him Emmanuel’, which means, ‘God is with us.’

Matthew 1:23

Jesus, Son of Abraham,

we worship you in word and silence.

We will not forget

your deep roots in the Jewish story,

fulfilling the Hebrew scriptures

and the promise of blessing

made to an elderly couple

long ago.

Jesus, Son of David,

we worship you in word and silence.

We will not forget

that you are the Messiah, the Christ,

fulfilling the longing of Israel

for a just and gentle ruler

for all nations.

Jesus, Son of Mary,

we worship you in word and silence.

We will not forget

the woman who carried you in her womb,

vulnerable yet strong,

bearing hope for us all.

Jesus, Son of Joseph,

we worship you in word and silence.

We will not forget the one

whose compassion and vision

protected your mother and you

from scandal or worse.

Jesus, Son of God,

we worship you in word and silence.

We will not forget

your presence with us always

as God with us

in the very heart of our living.

2 I shall not pass by

Matthew 2:1–23

‘A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children…’

Matthew 2:18

I shall not pass by this story

of evil, pain and grief,

a tyrant’s rage

and an order to destroy,

obeyed without mercy:

a story of death when life had hardly begun

and the agony of loss that none can quench.

I shall not pass by this story,

echoed in every generation

in genocide and holocaust,

in gas chambers and ethnic cleansing,

Rwandan village, Armenian town

and Nazi concentration camp.

I shall not pass by.

The tears of so many overwhelm me.

I can only look to the child,

who escaped for a time

but not for very long.

When the hour came

he entered anguish and darkness,

a lonely death amid hatred and fear.

I can only look at his wounds,

the wounds of all humanity,

and pray, ‘Lord, have mercy.’

3 The Beloved

Matthew 3:1–17

And a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.’

Matthew 3:17

Come immense, amazing God.

Come as the water of life,

immersing this world with your goodness,

turning our lives towards your kingdom,

our hearts and minds

to a new way of thinking

and a new way of being.

Come as the fire of truth,

exposing our presumption and complacency,

confronting the world’s corrupt powers with your light

and our fruitless greed with your simple grace.

Yet in your fierce judgement,

do not forget your mercy.

Come as the Spirit of love,

freeing us from all that binds us,

drawing us into your kingdom way,

showing us that we too can be your beloved sons and daughters,

to walk the way of Jesus and delight your heart.

4 Wilderness struggle

Matthew 4:1–11

Jesus said to him, ‘Away with you, Satan! for it is written, “Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.”’

Matthew 4:10

God of the wilderness,

in the name of Jesus,

who hungered in the desert,

we pray for humanity today.

We hold before you

those who hunger for food and justice.

We do not ask you to change stones into bread,

but to speak your living word,

to touch hardened hearts and burdened spirits,

to release the oppressed from the systems we create,

that the bounty of the earth may be shared by all.

God of the wilderness,

in the name of Jesus,

who held true to your living word,

we pray for your people today.

We do not ask for a magician’s wand to keep us from all harm,

but a deep courage and perseverance,

the faith that will change lives and see us into your kingdom.

And when we hear your word,

give us the wisdom to hear it well

and not twist it for our own comfort and security.

God of the wilderness,

in the name of Jesus,

who resisted all evil and temptation,

we pray for the powerful of our world,

those whose words and actions affect so many.

We ask you to guard all from false pride or twisted vision,

the worship of power and wealth itself,

the delusion of being self-made.

For you alone are God,

the living God to be worshipped for evermore.

5 Light dawns

Matthew 4:12–25

From that time Jesus began to proclaim, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.’

Matthew 4:17

God of every place and every journey,

we thank you for the road Jesus travelled,

from Bethlehem to Jerusalem,

from Galilee to every nation.

We thank you for his identity as

a child of Bethlehem,

a refugee in Egypt,

a carpenter in Nazareth,

a son immersed in the Jordan,

a man tested in the wilderness,

and a travelling preacher

around the villages of Galilee,

reaching out to those on the very edges of your grace.

We thank you for the message he proclaimed,

a kingdom without boundaries or flag or force.

We thank you for the crowds

who followed him seeking help and healing

and the fishermen he called,

to come with him,

to follow his way,

to share his kingdom work.

May we be part of his story today,

sharing his journey,

his life, here and now.

6 Beginning with blessing

Matthew 5:1–16

‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.’

Matthew 5:3

So, Lord Jesus,

this is how you begin,

not with accusations

or condemnation,

not with plans

or strategies.

You begin with your blessing,

on the poor ones,

the broken ones,

the unnoticed ones,

the longing ones.

You point us in a new direction,

calling humanity to be

hungry for change,

hungry for justice,

hungry for peace.

In our discontented

and merciless times,

speak your strange blessing.

Give us that purity and simplicity,

that singleness of heart,

that depth of compassion,

which will open our eyes to the God with us today

and bring us close to the kingdom of heaven.

7 Dig deep

Matthew 5:17–48

Jesus said: ‘You have heard that it was said… But I say to you…’

Matthew 5:21–22, 27–28, 31–32, 33–34, 38–39, 43–44

Dig deep, Lord Jesus, dig deep into our hearts.

Blow apart our

self-satisfied

self-righteous

self-centred

claims to goodness

with your piercing words.

Purify our relationships

of every element

of use or abuse,

every crumb of anger,

every glimpse of false passion.

Empty our mouths

of the words that twist the truth

and our minds

of bitter thoughts.

Turn our lives around

by your cross-bearing love:

the love that does not count the cost,

the love that does not seek revenge,

the love that reaches out

far beyond the cosy inner circle

to those we count our enemies,

to those we do not count at all.

8 The ceaseless babble

Matthew 6:1–18

‘When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do.’

Matthew 6:7

The ceaseless babble of our prayers

rises up to you, God of all:

our cries for help,

our angry shouts,

our longing dreams,

our thanks,

our praise,

our hopes,

our fears.

Yet will you hear your people, God of all?

Will you listen for our voice?

In hearts stilled

and tongues turned to silence,

in minds exposed to grace

and souls in secret,

there you listen, Father of us all.

There we meet you,

as vibrant life and utter truth.

There you meet us,

with grace and joy.

9 One-hearted living

Matthew 6:19–34

‘But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.’

Matthew 6:33

Such powerful forces lay claim upon my life.

I am battered by all those voices

that lay siege around my soul,

all the adverts pointing me

this way and that,

all the research projects and campaigns,

saying one thing, then another,

all the experts, all the reporters,

all the politicians, all the commentators,

arguing one case and then the next.

And those sterile voices within me,

shifting with the sands,

those wants that become needs,

those good things that take over.

Such powerful forces lay claim upon my life.

Yet you, the source of life,

are the true centre of all.

In you, all things find their rightful place.

With you, life makes sense.

10 Removing the log

Matthew 7:1–12

‘Why do you see the speck in your neighbour’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye?’

Matthew 7:3

God of simple truth,

we thank you for the words of Jesus,

the strange pictures that still

work their way into our minds and souls.

We thank you for the image of the log stuck in an eye,

an uncomfortable reminder

of our careless judgement of others

and our blindness to our own distorted seeing.

Open our minds, clear our vision,

give us truer understanding and wider compassion.

We thank you for the image of the pearls fed to the pigs,

an unsettling reminder of the ways we waste our souls,

using the best of our talents and our curiosity

on things that are not important.

Open our minds, clear our vision,

give us truer understanding and wider compassion.

We thank you for the image of a parent

feeding a child with a snake or a stone,

at odds with our most basic instincts,

an upside-down reminder of our need to trust you

as your children today.

Open our minds, clear our vision,

give us truer understanding and wider compassion.

With these striking pictures, turn our lives around,

that what we would want and pray for ourselves,

we may do for others.

So we ask this prayer not simply for ourselves

but for all humanity, in the name of Jesus,

your gracious image made flesh.

11 Act on it

Matthew 7:13–29

‘Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock.’

Matthew 7:24

I will travel your road today, Lord Jesus,

though the path may be hard

and the obstacles many.

I will travel your way,

that life that is full

of grace and goodness.

I will plant my life in ...

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