"Behold, Lord, an empty vessel that needs to be filled. My Lord,fill it. I am weak in the faith; strengthen me. I am cold in love; warm me and make me fervent, that my love may go out to my neighbor. I do not have a strong and firm faith; at times I doubt and I am unable to trust you altogether. O Lord, help me. Strengthen my faith and trust in you. In you I have sealed the treasure of all I have. I am poor; you are rich and came to be merciful to the poor. I am a sinner; you are upright. With me, there is an abundance of sin; in you is the fullness of righteousness. Therefore I will remain with you, of whom I can receive, but to whom I may not give. Amen" (ELW – pg. 87)
I stumbled across this prayer as I was paging through a copy of the ELW (Evangelical Lutheran Worship). We are in the process of exploring this new worship resource. I am not sure why I was paging through the prayers at 7:30 on this Sunday morning, but I was. As my eyes glossed over the various prayers, my eyes stopped at this prayer. My eyes did not stop because I saw it was by Martin Luther (maybe that caught my attention) but what held me was the opening sentence –"Behold, Lord, an empty vessel that needs to be filled."
I am always amazed at the humility of Luther. He never thought himself worthy of the calling to preach, teach or lead worship. And as he says in his sacristy prayer – one I use every time I prepare to preach, teach or lead worship – "if it were left up to me, I would surely bring it all to ruin." And even more than that, Luther never felt himself worthy to call himself a Christian. I can definitely relate to that – not his humility, but not feeling worthy to be called a Christian. I sometimes feel weak in faith and cold in love. I need God to strengthen me and warm me with his love. I need God to speak to me.
Then this morning a 3 year old showed me love that energized me for worship. As I was greeting people before worship, a 3 year old from my congregation came running out of the sanctuary to show me her Scooby Doo fruit snacks. I bent over to speak to her face to face and showed her my genuine excitement because I love Scooby Doo fruit snacks — something I told her. She immediately ran back into the sanctuary. A couple minutes late she came running back out and handed me a pack of fruit snacks. I looked up and her mom smiled at me in approval. My heart was filled with love by a tiny act of love by a 3 year old little girl who hides behind mom’s leg when I come to greet her. Who knew a 3 year old and Scooby Doo could prepare me for worship.
"Thank you God for warming my heart with love, for filling this ’empty vessel’ and for strengthening my faith through a simple act by a 3 year old"
When we need it, God provides. I am indeed not worthy to be a pastor in his church, but God empowers me to lead his people through the Holy Spirit. Thank you, God and Amen. -edh-
The Heart of a Pastor 
Maybe it is just a difference in “culture” that I am not used to, but I sometimes cringe when I hear preachers, speakers on a Christian radio station that my sister listens to. Humble is not the way I would describe the tone of voice and word choice in many cases. There is often a sureness in the interpretation of scripture that seems over the top. And also a superiority in discussing the beliefs of other christian groups.
I am very comfortable with my own take on faith, however, I don’t see how I, or any person with any world experience, could ever come to the conclusion that the same God couldn’t be view through a different window, window = doctrine.
PS,
Through reading Martin Luther’s sermons (and someone correct me if I am wrong) I believe one can draw the conclusion that he was very sure of himself when it came to Biblical interpretation. I am not sure if he would sound like many of the radio/TV personalities today, but Luther definitely had an edge. When Luther debated his key revivals he had a “superiority” about himself because he was sure that he was right. Would you hear humility in Luther’s voice? I don’t know. But Luther never felt worthy of the call or deserving but he did know his stuff and was confident.
But also — when someone speaks from faith about scripture, there is a sense of “sureness” — I believe there has to be. Humility is not a tone we have in our voice when preaching but humility is our attitude toward the vocation of preaching. You can sound sure when you speak and still be humble — at least in my humble opinion.
Thanks for the comment,
Eric
ah, children are such good teachers sometimes.