Fourth Sunday after Epiphany

Year 1: February 3, 2019

Preaching Text: Matthew 6:7-21 [25-34]

The Quiet Book by Deborah Underwood

(Written for ages 4-7)

Comment: The premise of The Quiet Book is that quiet things can be just as valuable and important, as noteworthy and varied, as loud things. The animals in the book go through their day noticing the variety of quiet in their lives, calling our attention to them as well. In our Matthew passage, Jesus says not to be showy with our faith, and part of not being showy with our faith is to refrain from praying in an overly wordy way—that is, not trying to use the words and length and noise of prayer to try and be impressive. For Jesus, the most important parts of prayer are to whom it is directed: God, whose name is hallowed through our prayer; and the genuine way of praying, which he shows us through the Lord’s Prayer. This kind of prayer is valuable and important, even if it is a quieter, less-showy form of prayer. Like The Quiet Book tells us, and Jesus teaches us, quiet is a good thing, just as valuable as noise, and so in our prayers we don’t have to be loud and showy for them to be valuable. Our prayers can be simple and clear, and even quiet, and still be worthy in God’s eyes.

Thanks to Sara Anne Berger, pastor of First Presbyteria Church, Nachitoches, LA, for writing the Year 1 Narrative Lectionry Links.

Lectionary Links (NL): February 3, 2019 by Storypath is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.