Proper 12 – Year C July 28, 2019
Luke 11:1-13 Panzer Liturgical
Service, Stuttgart
I knew I was a clergy person when I stood in
a circle at my first church with youth and adults who had gathered to welcome me. As the time came to close, every eye turned
to me. “Anybody want to close us with a prayer?” I asked. The silence was
deafening. After a few seconds, which felt like an eternity, someone replied,
“We’ll leave that up to you, Rev Deb – you’re a professional pray-er.” Let me
just tell you this: praying well in public could be a considered a spiritual
gift, but you certainly don’t have to be seminary trained to be good at it.
If you ask adults about their study
choices, many immediately think – prayer. We want to get it right. We want our
prayers to be meaningful and eloquent. We want prayer to be a spiritual
discipline, and not just something we do when we have a pressing need. From
today’s gospel lesson, I think the disciples felt the same way.
This scene takes place immediately after Jesus’ visit
with Mary and Martha. If you ever wanted more evidence that Jesus was an
introvert, I don’t think you’ll find a better example. The passage starts with
this phrase, “He was praying in a certain place…” (v1). Perhaps fatigued by his
encounter with sisters who had different ideas about what quality time with
Jesus would look like, he needed to recharge his battery. (Other examples, see
Jesus sleep in the boat on a stormy sea and praying in the Garden even when he
knew the soldiers were on their way). Fortunately for Jesus, the disciples were
not quite as persistent as a toddler waiting for mom to finish up in the
bathroom. They waited until he was done and then asked him to teach them to
pray also.
Why ask at this moment? Was there a serenity about
Jesus they wanted for themselves? Maybe they saw prayer as Jesus’ “magic sauce”
– at the same time drawing people to him, and also helping him stand up to
those who challenged him at every turn.
What about us? Are we looking to be in closer
communion with God? Are we interested in techniques? Or are we just trying to
figure out why, after all these years, it feels like we’ve made little or no
progress when it comes to prayer? Will prayer books and journals give us what
we need? You want prayer techniques? I’ve got lots of books for those. But I
don’t think that was the disciples’ problem and I don’t think it’s ours either.
I fear what we seek is magic prayer, the right words to make God give us the
things we are asking for in the ways and time we are asking them. And that’s
where our plan to build a better prayer life fails.
Do you notice anything surprising about Jesus’ prayer?
First of all, it’s short. But short is good. I mentioned my role as a
professional prayer earlier. In spite of the assumption by many that because
I’m ordained, it’s my job to be the pray-er, I am just as likely to hear sighs as
people settle in for a flowery, theologically dense and, for lack of a better
term, long prayer. Of course, you all know that’s not my style. I am just as likely to hear, “Wow, that was
short,” as I am, “wow, that was great.”
Did you notice anything else? How about what Jesus
asks for? Jesus’ prayer is not a cosmic wishlist. He doesn’t list a bunch of
petitions or requests for miracles. He’s not trying to persuade God of
anything. He’s not imposing his will on God. Instead, he teaches us to see and
be open to God’s will in everything, today and every day. In teaching us to
pray this way, he breaks old stereotypes about why we pray. We don’t pray
because we are instructed to, or to change God’s mind. Instead, we pray to know
God’s mind and to direct our lives to the intentions that God had for from the
very beginning.[i]
Christian theologian, Richard Foster, has spent a
life’s work studying prayer. On the Lord’s prayer, he writes, “I determined to
learn to pray so that my experience conforms to the words of Jesus rather than
try to make his words conform to my impoverished experience.” He goes on to
say, “If we long to go where God is going and do what God is doing, we will
move into deeper, more authentic worship and living. In prayer, we begin to
think God’s thoughts after him: to desire the things he desires, to love the
things he loves, to will the things he wills.” [ii]
From the beginning of the prayer, OUR FATHER, we set
the tone for our encounter. This is not the relationship of a master to slave but as the best kind of communion between parent and child.
HALLOWED = HOLY = BE YOUR NAME… this is the highest
form of praise, but we make this confession not for God’s benefit, but for
ours. When Moses experienced the voice from the burning bush, he asked, “Who
are you?” God replied, “I AM.” Simple, perfect, and everything we need to spend
a lifetime getting acquainted. It’s so easy to place ourselves at the center
of the universe. My needs, my wants, my beliefs, my desires… the more
self-centered we become, the less we are focusing on God’s needs, wants and
desires. This part of the prayer reminds us that this is not the way God
intended it to be.
GIVE US OUR DAILY BREAD… In one way, I don’t really
know how to pray this part because I’ve never been really hungry. The kind of
hungry that goes and scavenges food from a restaurant dumpster after closing…
the kind of hungry of giving up food so someone I love can eat… the kind of
hungry that gets peanut butter sandwiches instead of a hot meal at school because
my mom hasn’t had the money to pay my cafeteria bill since Christmas.
But I don’t think Jesus is just talking about food
here. I think he is talking about asking God for what it takes to be strong
enough to do God’s work in the world. Yes, that might be food-related, but it
also about seeing our relationship and communication with God to be as
necessary to our living as breathing and eating are. This part of the prayer
asks God to feed our souls so that we can be prepared to help feed the stomach
and souls of the world.
THY WILL BE DONE… What does it mean to give ourselves
over to God’s will? As they say, it’s complicated. For one thing, it will look
different for everyone and in different times and places. God’s overarching will
is always that we live faithfully in him. But the specifics, those are not so
easy to see or understand. We think of prayer as our way of talking to God, but
even more important is prayer as our listening post. We are not only called to
pray confidently that he will give us the grace to become instruments of his
will, empowered to proclaim him, and serve him… but that we will also hear how
we are called to give of ourselves… to be active extensions of his love, his
hands and feet and voice in the world.
FORGIVE US AS WE FORGIVE OTHERS… it’s really the only
quid pro quo in the whole prayer. If this, then that… to get mercy, we must
give mercy… beyond giving, we must be forgiving… we can’t just say it, we must
live it. Even when we don’t want to. Even when anger and striking out are
justified. Even when it feels impossible. And while we know that we might not
get forgiveness from others for both mistakes and willful sins, God’s
forgiveness is available, especially when we are in the mindset to receive it.
Jesus’ lesson on prayer didn’t end with “Amen… let’s
eat.” He finished his teaching with examples of what LIVING this prayer is all
about it. I’m sure each of you can think of a time when you went out of your
way to help someone, or someone did the same for you. Jesus taught that prayer
is also about persistence. It’s about repeatedly asking and seeking and
receiving because of the deep love of God and love for one another.
In the movie “Shadowlands,” British author C. S. Lewis
marries American divorcee Joy Gresham after they discover she's dying from
cancer. When her condition gets a little
better, Lewis responds to a friend who says that God may be finally answering
Lewis' prayers. Lewis says, “That's not
why I pray, Harry. I pray because I
can’t help myself. I pray because I'm
helpless. I pray because the need flows
out of me all the time, waking and sleeping.
Prayer doesn't change God; it changes ME.” In his speech to his friend, Lewis reminds us
that prayer is not a message scribbled on a note, jammed into a bottle and
tossed into the sea in hopes that it will wash up someday on God's shore. Instead, prayer is communion with God. We speak to God, but God doesn’t always speak
back in words. God also touches,
embraces, shapes and changes us through relationship – with God and with
others. No matter what we pray for, our
prayer is answered because in the act of praying we receive the gift we really
seek – intimacy with God.
The Lord’s prayer also teaches us “Public
Theology.” It is a prayer taught by the
church to people who are seeking to be the church, the body of Christ. It is not just the prayer of our waking and
going to sleep.[iii]
For many of us, this is our go-to prayer when we are out of words. But as we
pray this prayer in our communion liturgy, let us not think of this as a rote
prayer devoid of meaning. This is our centering prayer. Love of God… Love of
neighbor… it’s always the main thing.
I read a post on one of my preacher sites the other
day in which a minister was bemoaning the fact that her new church called
everything “ministry”. She seemed to be concerned that they were doing a lot of
outreach in the community without any expectations of reciprocal teaching… no
tracts, no sermons, no asking people if they were saved. She wanted to draw a
line – Ministry for “Jesusy” things… Good Works for everything else. Needless
to say, lots of people have had a different opinion of her situation, and most
tried to help her see that her congregation was getting it right. It’s easy to
get caught up in the numbers and statistical reports, while the most important
thing is so far from those requirements.
And it reminded me of a time when we were in a
congregation like that in Oklahoma, who had monthly free community lunches, and
drives to make sure that no child in the county went to school without new
supplies and a least one special gift under tree at Christmas – for 750 low
income children. Wow, it took a long time to get everybody there – lots of
prayer and lots of convincing, most led by our youth who wanted to make a
difference in the lives of their friends and their families. They dragged us
from our safe places into a world we would never forget.
One Thanksgiving at midnight, I was with our crew
loading up carts with toys and other gifts, and when the cashier asked who we
were buying for, I told her that we were the church heading up the toy drive
for DHS. She asked, “Are you from that Methodist church on Main St?” And when I
confirmed her suspicion, she smiled big and said, “I’ve heard about ya’ll….
You’re that church that loves people.” My friends, that doesn’t happen because
of us – that comes from the power of lived prayer.
If the world feels like it’s a mess, and that our
efforts are falling behind our intentions if you’re tired of keeping up a
façade of having our personal and collective acts together, know that you are
not alone. Trust me, many days my prayer time starts with “Dear God”… includes a
word salad of concerns, praises, and questions… and also deep, painful silences…
But when the Amen comes, I remember the lesson we learned today. The disciples
said, Lord, teach us to pray. And he did. And without requiring them to get it
perfect, he said, “now go and live it…”
Peace, Deb
[iii] Will
Willimon and Stanley Hauerwas, Lord, Teach Us: The Lord's Prayer & the
Christian Life, Abingdon Press, 1996
