1. Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Heavenly Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. The message from God’s Word on this 15th Sunday after Pentecost is taken from 1 Timothy 2:1-15, it’s entitled, “Quiet Time in Christ Brings Peace,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
2. “Could I have some peace and quiet?” It’s a phrase we all know — said with longing after a noisy day, with a sigh in the middle of a household of lively children, said sometimes when the weight of the world presses in. I know some of you parents of young children are thinking, ‘Pastor, peace and quiet? What is that? I haven’t heard that phrase since the day before my first child was born!’ And grandparents are grinning — because now they can send the kids home when they get too noisy!”
3. Yet peace and quiet so often slip like water through our fingers. Why? Because peace is not first a product of circumstances. True peace is a gift that comes where Jesus is known and where his people bow in prayer, lifting up the world to the God who made heaven and earth. St. Paul tells young Timothy — and he tells us — that the life of worship, especially the posture of prayer, is the wellspring of that peace. Quiet time in Christ brings peace.
4. Let us hear again Paul’s simple urgency: “First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people” (1 Tim. 2:1). Paul’s language places people before devotion: hands folded not for escape but for love.
5. The power of God is embraced in folded hands. Folded hands in prayer are a bold thing. They confess helplessness and then, in the very same act, entrust everything to God. Paul lists four ways we pray: supplication, prayer, intercession, and thanksgiving. These are not different ways of saying the same thing — they are the full work of love before God: the humble pleading on behalf of another, the steady daily lifting of needs to the throne of God, the courageous coming before the King for someone else, and the thankful trust that God will use even difficult people and painful events in his mysterious plan for good.
6. When we pray for “all people,” we mean everyone — the folks we love, those in authority over us, our enemies, and even those who mock us. That means praying for presidents, governors, even the IRS. Now, I know some of you think the IRS stands for ‘It Really Stings,’ but Paul still says pray for them! Prayer trains our hearts to see people as God sees them: not simply as problems or statistics, but as souls for whom Christ died and rose.
7. Why we pray in the face of horror — and why “thoughts and prayers” are not a tired shrug. Whenever there’s a time of national or personal tragedy, people offer sympathy in the old Christian way: “My thoughts and prayers are with the victims and the families.” Lately our world has been sore with grief. Last week we remembered the 24th anniversary of the tragic events of September 11, 2001, when terrorists hijacked planes and carried out deadly attacks. Thousands of lives were lost at the World Trade Center in New York and at the Pentagon near Washington, D.C. We mark other violent wounds in our nation and neighborhoods. Last week our nation mourned the assassination of Charlie Kirk while he spoke at a university event. A few weeks ago, a Ukrainian refugee was fatally stabbed on a commuter train in Charlotte, North Carolina. And shortly before that two young children were killed in a shooting at a Catholic school worship service in Minneapolis, MN — a wound that has cut deep into families and the church.
8. In the wake of such horrors, it has become common for some to sneer at the words “thoughts and prayers.” There are mockers who treat prayer as if it were nothing but a way to avoid action — as if offering prayer were a substitute for compassion or responsibility. Some commentators even tried to make a mockery of those who were praying when bullets fell. Such sentiments are not only cruel to the grieving. They reveal a misunderstanding — and, I will add, a blindness. Some say prayer doesn’t do any good. Well, if prayer doesn’t do any good, then I suppose those prayers you whispered before your driver’s test or your wedding day didn’t count either. And yet here you are — alive, married, and still driving!
9. We pray because we have come face to face with an unchanging truth: in ourselves we are helpless before purposes of wickedness. The mockers are helpless too, though they will not say it. They may seize the moment to press their policies, which they believe will solve the problem. But, even if they succeed at their aims, they will never root out the darkness of the human heart. Wickedness has been with us since the fall into sin in the Garden of Eden. Only God’s grace in Christ can truly change a heart.
10. So, we will pray — not in place of action, but in the true order of faith: prayer energizes, humbles, and directs action. We take refuge in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth. We pray as those who know the name of the Lord — the name that delivers, the name in which we have hope even in the shadow of death. We pray because Jesus is our Help, and he is risen from the dead. To those who mock, we don’t scoff back with equal bitterness. Instead, we lift them before God’s mercy, for we grieve that anyone should be so lost as to be unable to see how utterly helpless in sin we all are apart from Jesus. When evil strikes, it is right to make the sign of the cross and pray as we do in the 7th Petition of the Lord’s Prayer, “Deliver us from evil.” It is clear that we cannot deliver ourselves.
11. Prayer changes us — and then sends us out. Prayer does not leave us passive. It changes the way we look at one another and the world. When we pray for our leaders and for those who hate us, our hearts are softened. We begin to want the best for people we previously wrote off. The Psalmist cries out for guidance: “Teach me, O LORD, the way of your statutes; and I will keep it to the end” (Ps. 119:33). Prayer reshapes desire. It feeds our delight in God’s righteousness.
12. Jesus’ story of the shrewd manager (Luke 16) challenges us. If the children of this age are so cunning with money, how much more ought the children of light to be wise in using the true riches — the Gospel and the means of grace — for the salvation of others. Prayer and worship fuel a holy wisdom: we use the means God gives — Word, Sacrament, mercy, and witness — to bring people to Christ. 1 Tim. 2:3–6 says, “This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time.”
13. Quiet time in Christ then becomes anything but quiet in the sense of inactivity. It is the calm in which the Holy Spirit equips us to move with urgency and compassion. A woman in her final days at a nursing home could no longer walk far or see well. But she knew the power of prayer. So, in her quiet days she prayed. She prayed for everyone — her family, her pastor, the nurses, the cooks and the dieticians at the nursing home, even for people she never met as she prayed from the phone book. Now I don’t know if she prayed that the food would taste better — but if she did, that’s one prayer I hope the Lord answered quickly. She is with the Lord now, but who can doubt that because of her prayers others too will be with Jesus? Her quiet time in Christ brought peace—peace for her, peace for those she prayed for.
14. Conclusion — the comfort and the task. Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, our help is in the name of the Lord. We are helpless in ourselves. But, we are saved and sustained in Christ. Quiet time in Christ brings a peace that surpasses circumstances — a peace that holds us in the face of terror, death, and wickedness. That peace comforts the afflicted and moves us outward to compassion and mission. When the world laments and when hearts fail from fear, we will pray without shame or apology. We will do the works of mercy and pursue wise, lawful action where we are able, but always knowing that our true refuge, our true deliverer, is the Lord. We pray for the victims, for the grieving, for our nation, and yes — we pray for those who mock and scoff, that God would open their eyes and deliver them from despair and hardness of heart. May the God of peace himself sanctify you wholly; may your hearts be kept blameless in love and guided by the Spirit to lives of prayer, witness, and compassionate service. And now the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus until life everlasting. Amen.
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