A Case of the Mondays

Monday is my day off, so this blog was put together last week and just posted this morning. It is a group of prayers from the Church of England's Prayer page at their website. These are work-related prayers for those headed once more into the breach, rather than enjoying a day of rest (rest in the sense of the domestic bliss of cutting the grass and buying groceries that is). Enjoy!

Before work
Forth in thy name, O Lord, I go,
my daily labour to pursue,
thee, only thee, resolved to know,
in all I think, or speak, or do.
—Charles Wesley

A Commuter’s Prayer
I failed to get a seat – again,
too many people on the train.
We’re stuck in a tunnel;
everybody’s sighing;
we’re not moving.
I breathe in –
‘Let me know your peace and grace.’
I breathe out –
‘And help me share it with the people here.’
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
For the sake of my sanity.
For the sake of your kingdom.
—Sheridan James

Inspiration needed
Great creator God,
maker of all things,
you called forth beauty
from emptiness
and order
from chaos.

Is it heretical to ask:
Was it so effortless for you?
Did you struggle, Lord,
to shape the mountain ranges?
Or did you just speak and it was so?

This work you’ve given me, Lord,
it’s supposed to be ‘creative’
but so often it is toil, and pain, and struggle.
Sometimes bringing something new to birth
is like trying to blow a boulder uphill
with a straw –
the effort is exhausting.

Lord, would you help me?
And would the same Spirit that hovered
over the face of the waters,
that breathed human life into being,
be with me in this work?
—Tracey Messenger

These prayers are taken from Pocket Prayers for Work, Church House Publishing (2004), compiled by Mark Greene.

Vocation

“Here lies John Smyth who cobbled shoes
in this town 40 years to the glory of God.”
This inscription found on an English tombstone is my favorite epitaph. It speaks volumes of how any job can be done to God's glory. This was also true for the German Reformer Martin Luther who taught that it was not only those called to be monks, nuns or priests who had a vocation from God. Luther noted that everyone has a calling from God no matter their station in life.

In 1990, the Synod of Orthodox Bishops published a statement saying,

All are called to be saints (to be Christians), but each person is called to do so in his or her own unique way.... Some will work primarily in a physical way, others will work intellectually. Some will be artists, scientists, business people, and professionals. In the eyes of God none is better than the other is."

As the poet W.H. Auden put it,

You need not see what someone is doing to know if it is his vocation,

you have only to watch his eyes:
a cook mixing a sauce, a surgeon

making a primary incision,
a clerk completing a bill of lading,

wear the same rapt expression,
forgetting themselves in a function...

There should be monuments,
there should be odes...

to the first flaker of flints
who forgot his dinner,

the first collector of sea-shells
to remain celibate.

Your vocation is the work you do that best uses the gifts God has given you. You may work in a job to pay the bills while your true vocation is a scout leader. Or your job might itself be your vocation as you are the teacher, sailor, banker, nurse (or whatever it is) that God created you to be, and you serve others through that vocation.

Frank+
The Rev. Frank Logue, Pastor