Before today’s extract, let me just give you the answers to yesterday’s quiz:
Answers to ‘Money, money, money’ quiz
- b. Judas betrayed Jesus for thirty pieces of silver.
- c. According to Jesus, five sparrows were sold for two pennies.
- a. The unmericiful servant owed ten thousand talents.
- b. The poor woman put two small copper coins into the temple treasury.
- b. Jesus told the rich ruler to give his money to the poor.
- b. Jesus spoke of paying taxes to Caesar.
- c. Jesus told a parable about a lost coin.
- a. Jesus overturned the tables of the money changers.
- c. Zacchaeus promised to pay back four times what he’d cheated people of.
- a. The Good Samaritan gave the innkeeper two denarii.
Today’s post
In some of my early gift booklets I explored the medium of poetry as a means of prayer; a way of approaching God in a way that captures the imagination and speaks as prose sometimes cannot quite do. The poems from those booklets, together with many others I’d written subsequently, were later collected in my book Poems to Help You Pray. Here’s one of them: a prayer of intercession for our divided world.
For reconciliation in a divided world
How good and precious it is when people live together in unity. Psalm 133:1
Lord, to our world in its madness –
broken, bemused and concussed,
crushed by a burden of sadness,
ravaged by fear and mistrust –
grant your renewal and healing,
courage where hope seems in vain,
reach out to all who are reeling,
bring them relief from their pain;
break down the roots of division,
walls that destroy and estrange;
overcome hate and suspicion,
grant us the prospect of change.