Wesley Covenant Prayer
The Wesley Covenant Prayer has been used in the Methodist Church (since 1755) as a part of the Covenant Renewal Service. The covenant prayer can be jarring to the 21st century ear. The language is old. The petitions are demanding. For some, it describes a God they do not recognize.
Steve Manskar writes that the God addressed in the Covenant Prayer is the One into whom we are baptized. The prayer is a reaffirmation of the baptismal promises to:
· “…renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness, reject the evil powers of this world, and repent of your sin….”
· “…accept the freedom and power God gives you to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves…”
· “…confess Jesus Christ as your Savior, put your whole trust in his grace, and promise to serve him as your Lord, in union with the church which Christ has opened to people of all ages, nations, and races…”
This is the same God who invites us to the communion table, as we take the bread and the cup and pray: “Make them be for us the body and the blood of Christ, that we may be for the world the body of Christ, redeemed by his blood. By your Spirit make us one with Christ, one with each other, and one in ministry to all the world, until Christ comes in final victory and we feast at his heavenly banquet.
The Covenant Prayer is a radical declaration of the love and loyalty to the God whose nature and name is Love. It’s radical, because if you dare to pray it, you are praying to the endless spring of love and life. This God has the power to change lives. Falling in obedience before this God, directs us beyond ourselves, to something much bigger.
“I am no longer my own but yours. Put me to what you will, rank me with whom you will. Put me to doing, put me to suffering. Let me be employed for you or laid aside for you, exalted for you or brought low for you. Let me be full, let me be empty. Let me have all things, let me have nothing. I freely and wholeheartedly yield all things to your pleasure and disposal. And now, glorious and blessed God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, you are mine and I am yours. So be it. And the covenant now made on earth, let it be ratified in heaven. Amen.”
(Adapted from Steve Marskar, United Methodist General Board of Discipleship)
In Service with You,
Mark E.
.
January 2012
