Tag: prayer

What’s Up with Pastor Todd 5-22-20

What’s Up with Pastor Todd 5-22-20

This Sunday marks both the seventh Sunday of the Easter Season and Memorial Day weekend. The gospel lectionary for this Sunday is John 17:1-11. Jesus has been giving his disciples an extended farewell address following what would be their last supper together. Chapter 17 contains the concluding prayer of Jesus’ farewell address. 

My years learning the crafts of preaching and writing have taught me to pay special attention to endings. For example, while I may go off script while preaching the body of a sermon, I always make sure I have a carefully crafted final sentence that will bring my homiletical flights in for a landing. Of all the things one might write or say, folks tend to remember the ending.

Another rhetorical strategy for helping an audience retain information is repetition. In his concluding prayer Jesus repeats the phrase “that they may all be one.” This is the message that Jesus wants to leave his disciples–that he wants to leave us: “that they may all be one.” It also happens to be the motto of the United Church of Christ: That they may all be one.

The UCC motto “That they may all be one” caught my attention while I was a divinity school student. I had left the denomination of my upbringing and was searching for a new church home. While I didn’t know a lot about the UCC, I thought Jesus’ final prayer for his disciples, his dream for the world, was a great foundation upon which to build my faith, my vocation, my career.

Over the past 20+ years I’ve learned a few things about the prayer that they may all be one. The most important is this: on the most fundamental level of reality, the level that is beyond human comprehension, we are always already one. In other words, Jesus’ prayer is less an expression of a goal he wants us to achieve and more a description of a reality he wants us to wake up to.

Buddhists use the metaphor of waves and the ocean to explain the confusion we experience around unity and separation. Like waves each one of us is a manifestation of the movement of the great ocean. We are never at any moment not a part of the ocean. In fact, waves are the ocean. We are one with God. We are one with each other. At all times. What affects the ocean affects the waves. What affects the waves affects the ocean. It would be ridiculous for a wave to say, “I am not the ocean,” or for a wave to say to another wave, “You have nothing to do with me.” Yet, that is how we humans too often behave. We act as if an injury to one has nothing to do with us. We wallow in self-pity thinking we are bereft and alone. We become envious or annoyed with others thinking their words or behavior are somehow personally directed at us when more often than not, they are just rolling along, manifesting as one small crest on this great, ever active womb of life.

Worship Resource 5-17-20, Easter 6A, John 14:15-21

Opening Prayer

We love you, Jesus, and we do our best to keep your commandments. You said that no one has greater love than to lay down one’s life for others. Though we are too often tired, discouraged, and preoccupied we once again offer ourselves as your hands and heart for the world. Bless our worship that we might offer a sacrifice worthy of your boundless love. Amen.

Worship Resource Lent 4A, 3-22-20 based on 1 Samuel 16:1-13

Opening Prayer                                                                                      

God of yesterday, today, and tomorrow, we are not alone. Though we may find ourselves in a trackless and frightening wilderness you provide the necessary resources to see us through. You raise up leadership from unexpected places. Give us the courage to lead and the willingness to follow. You show us the way to get through this. The way we get through this is together. Amen.

What’s Up with Pastor Todd 3-13-20

What’s Up with Pastor Todd 3-13-20

Congratulations! You’ve made it to the third week of Lent! We’re haflway through our season of fasting and prayer that ends Easter Sunday! How’s your practice been going? Last Sunday Connecticut shifted to Daylight Savings Time, so now when I get up for my 35 minutes of meditation-prayer, it’s not only quiet but also dark in the house. The pets scamper and wag until I fill their bowls with breakfast. Then I sit on my cushion while morning light slowly fills the sunporch. It sounds lovely. And it is lovely. But while the universe simply does it’s thing without anxiety or self-centered thought, I’m faced with my racing mind. I rehearse conversations I had the night before: “I should have said this!” I write sermons. I add to my to do list. Part of the value of sitting still in silence is accepting the mess that is my own mind. This is important because accepting my own mess is the first step in taking responsibility for it. 

While I sit as still as possible I bring my attention to the breath. (Remember: “breath” and “spirit” are the same word in the Bible’s original languages!) My mind inevitably scampers away like a puppy that isn’t yet housebroken, but that’s OK. Puppies scamper. Minds wander. That’s just the nature of puppies and minds. Nevertheless, eventually attention returns to the breath. The longer I remain still, the longer attention remains on the breath. Mind stills. The puppy settles down. I notice a clear, calm space near my heart center. Not everything’s a mess after all. A pure, unchanging oasis exists. I can access it. And so can you.

When my youngest daughter, Olivia, was old enough, Nicole and I invited her to take responsibility for tidying up her own bedroom. Mostly this meant putting her toys in the toybox and books on the bookshelf. Nicole and I did this not because we were trying to be mean, horrible parents, but because we believed (and still believe) that learning to take responsibility for your own mess is a key piece of becoming a mature adult. Nevertheless, Olivia spent hours sitting in the middle of her mess screaming and crying and yelling, “I can’t do it, daddy.” Hoping that Nicole or I would relent and clean up her mess for her. It was tempting. Who wants to listen to a child scream for hours on end? 

Instead, I would sit with her in her mess, point to a toy, and say, “Pick up that toy and put it in the box.” When she was truly and finally convinced that I would not clean up her mess for her, Olivia might venture to put a toy in the toybox. Then I’d point to another and repeat the process. It was excruciating and time consuming. No doubt it would have been quicker for me to clean her room for her. But I loved her, and I wanted her to grow into an adult that could take care of herself, so I persisted.

Our Scripture for this coming Sunday comes from Exodus 17. It is one of many “complaint” stories from the Israelites’ wilderness journey. Compared to the reliably brutal structure of Egyptian slavery, freedom in the wilderness was messy and anxiety provoking. The Israelites complained against Moses saying they would rather go back to Egypt than continue through the wilderness to the Promised Land. God’s response to the people’s complaints varied from providing for them to punishing them for their lack of faith.

A key to successful transition is handling anxiety and the resulting complaints. Some complaints express legitimate needs of the community. Even though Olivia was old enough to clean her room, she was not old enough to make her own supper. The need for supper was a legitimate need, so Nicole and I fed her supper, of course. Sometimes, however, complaints arise from emotional or spiritual immaturity. In this case, it is incredibly important for leadership NOT to give in to complaints. Rather, compassionate leadership will equip individuals with the tools to tend to their own mess. Just like each of us has a role to play in maintaining a safe space in church by taking responsibility for washing our own hands and managing our own health, each of us has a role to play in maintaining a safe emotional space by finding effective ways to manage our own anxiety.

Worship Resources Lent 3A based on Exodus 17:1-7

Opening Prayer                                                                                      

Holy God, in times of comfort we forget you. In times of distress we question you. Teach us in every moment to trust in you. We confess that at times we’re impatient. When our bodies are stressed our moods get depressed. Lift us up. Save us, O God, and see us through. Amen.

Prayer of Dedication                                                                            

O God, you provided us life-giving water in the desert of despair. We make our offerings in humble gratitude. Amen.

Ash Wednesday Homily 2020

A woman receives ashes at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral on Ash Wednesday in New York February 13, 2013. REUTERS/Adrees Latif (UNITED STATES – Tags: RELIGION ANNIVERSARY) – RTR3DQUC
Sermon by Rev. Dr. Todd Grant Yonkman at First Congregational Church of Granby 26 February 2020

Worship Resources Proper 4C following 1 Kings 18:20-21, (22-29), 30-39

Pastoral Prayer

God of sheer silence,

We quiet our minds and open our hearts to you. We await an encounter. Our ears alert to an authentic word of life. We recognize the fragility of existence. Life and death are of extreme importance. Time passes quickly and opportunity is lost, so we strive to awaken. We fear dropping our defenses, but the danger is really only a danger to our ego, our pride is threatened, or narrow sense of self, our old, tired stories: I’m alone, no one will help me, all is lost. We step past all of these fears.

The only thing lost is scarcity thinking. The only thing lost is self-pity. The only thing lost is the sweet drug of defeat. Instead of indulging our whining, you invite us, even command us to get up and get busy building your kingdom. With the slightest breeze you breathe us to life.

Worship Resources Epiphany 3A, Mt. 4:12-23

Pastoral Prayer

Jesus, our brother, leader, and friend–

Every moment you draw close. You call us away from our chattering minds. You call us out from our greed, anger, and ignorance. You invite us to expand our hearts and broaden our vision. Too often we’re stuck in doubt, confusion, and fear. Teach us to drop our nets. Teach us to drop our self-concern. Teach us to drop our self-defeating stories of the way things are. Teach us to drop our self-fulfilling prophecies of the way things always will be.

Worship Resources for Pentecost C June 9, 2019

Call to Worship                                                                          (from Psalm 104)

Leader: O LORD, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures.

People: Yonder is the sea, great and wide, creeping things innumerable are there, living things both small and great.

Leader: I will sing to the LORD as long as I live; I will sing praise to my God while I have being.

People: May my meditation be pleasing to the LORD, for I rejoice in my God.

Opening Prayer

Holy God, where can we go from your Spirit? Where can we flee from your presence? The advent of your Spirit is this very moment. Our only home is this very place. All that is required to rest in you is simply to rest. Draw our hearts here. Fill our hearts now with this breath and the next. Amen.