In my preparation for this week’s sermon on Psalm 1, I came across this prayer, which I felt compelled to share.

It is found in an orthodox siddur, which I have found to be a wonderful gift for my life of prayer. (A siddur [Heb. for "order"] is a Jewish prayerbook, with prayers for morning, evening, sabbaths, festivals, and the like.  Reading one, you can see how Christians developed things like the Book of Common Prayer.  There are many editions of siddurs, but they all contain the same basic content and structure, and include prayers that date to biblical times.)

When Jesus (and the whole of the earliest church) prayed in the synagogue, the prayers would have been along the lines of what is recorded here.  I find this particular prayer quite moving (as well as being a constant reminder that we cannot understand the message of Jesus if we do not understand it within the larger context of Judaism).

In particular, I am stirred by the gratitude expressed for scripture.  I am the first to admit that there was a time in my life I did not understand what it meant to “rejoice in in the words of thy Torah.”  I understood not only the first books of the Bible, but much of scripture, as a list of ethical demands Continue reading