When You Pray
Luke 11:1-13
Rev. Lisa Day
Swarthmore Presbyterian Church
July 25, 2010
It was the end of a deacon meeting. Our new moderator looked around the table and said, “Who would like to close the meeting with prayer?” Up until that meeting, we had all kind of assumed it was my job: – the designated paid pray-er. Can you guess what came next? Every person around the table immediately assumed a pious posture of prayer: eyes downcast, heads bowed. We were saved from the lengthening silence by a deacon, one of our youngest, who raised his head and said, “Sure, I’ll do it.”
Early last Sunday, the ASPers gathered. Hands clasped in a circle, John asked for a volunteer to close in prayer – his rule is if you volunteer someone else, you have volunteered yourself. After a long silence, one of the adult volunteers got “caught” suggesting his neighbor, and lead the group in prayer.
There is a reluctance to be called upon to pray out loud, to ask God to bless our work, even for those who do God’s work with diligence and delight, even by deacons who extend the love of Jesus Christ and his church to those in deep need, with visits, meals, rides, phone calls, flowers. A reluctance to ask God to bless our journeys and our service, even for those ready to spend a week of summer vacation. Adults, some of whom aren’t paid that much to begin with, sacrificing a week of earned vacation time, high schoolers with summer jobs and summer AP work hanging over them ready to sacrifice I-pods, Facebook, and air conditioning to spend a week in service to far away neighbors in West Virginia.
Is it surprising to find so many faithful disciples of Jesus, gathered here in this congregation who are reluctant to pray, who perhaps fear we don’t really know how to pray? Or at least how to pray out loud, together, in front of our peers, gathered in work and worship. Is it surprising?
Well, not really. Look at our gospel today. Here are the disciples of Jesus, the inner circle, the ones who’ve given up work and family and the comforts of home, and not just for a Sunday afternoon, or a week. And here they are, well into that ministry, amazingly successful in that ministry, asking for lessons in prayer. How strange that they don’t know how to pray! So I am a little surprised here by three things when they ask Jesus to teach them to pray.
First, why did it take so long? They have followed Jesus along the way. They have seen him pray again and again. Jesus prays SO much in Luke’s gospel. After his baptism, it is when he is praying that the Holy Spirit comes upon him. Before he selects the 12 apostles from among the disciples, he prays. He prays at the transfiguration. He raises prayers of praise on the return of the 70 from their successful mission trip. All of these excellent examples of prayer have come before this, and yet they wait until now to ask for a lesson in prayer from their master.
The second thing that surprises me is why they think they need this lesson in prayer at all? We’ve already seen two successful missionary journeys as Jesus’ has sent them out with nothing but faith and hope, two by two. First the 12 apostles and then the 70 disciples. And that faith and hope gave them power to cast out demons, power to cure diseases, power to preach the good news of the Kingdom of God now come near. And NOW they are asking for lessons in prayer?! That’s good news– news that prayer doesn’t just come naturally. It can be taught, practiced. And there is no shame in asking for help from the master in how to do it well, even when you feel like maybe you should have asked years ago.
The third thing that surprises me, and the one that surprises me most, is the way Jesus answers their request, “Lord, teach us to pray.” He does, simply and directly. “When you pray, say…
Father, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
Give us each day our daily bread.
And forgive us our sins for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.
And do not bring us to the time of trial.
This is so unlike Jesus when he is teaching. No answering a different question than the one they asked, no asking a question in response, no turning the question back on the disciples, no teaching by parables with their twisty ways of drawing us in and turning on us. A simple and direct answer, a clear and simple prayer. Indeed, Luke gives us the simplest version of it.
Jesus gives this simple and direct answer and then some stories to add to the lesson. Stories that tell us who is listening to our prayers – who is listening for our prayers. Even the worst human neighbor would arise at midnight to stop the pestering knocking. Even most flawed human parents tenderly care for their children. Jesus says, pray like this, and when you pray, persist, be shameless, don’t hold back – God is listening with hospitality better than the kindest neighbor, God is leaning forward, ears tuned, waiting for our prayers, more tender-hearted than the most loving parent.
Jesus seems interested in teaching both the how of prayer, and the who of prayer. The prayer he teaches reminds us who we are – those in need of bread, those in need of forgiveness, those in need of saving from trial and testing and temptation. And he reminds us who God is – the one listening, the good neighbor, the generous all-giving Father. Jesus invites us into honest relationship with God through prayer. We are invited to come near to the God whose name is too holy to speak and whose face is too frightening to look upon, to come near with the familiarity, the brazenness and the deep trust of a young child running to her parent for food, for healing, for safety.
There is a deep question that can come when we put these promises to the test of prayer. Jesus says, Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. And I am here to testify that is so true. We prayed a lot this week for our ASPers and those on Triennium. And look, here they are, our prayers answered -- back safe, sound, lives touched deeply by one another, by those they have served and by the good God we call upon in our prayers. And we prayed this week too for healing – and there were some miraculous turns to the light, back from the edge of death. But I know too, that there were other fervent prayers we prayed this week that might have left us feeling some distance between the promises in this text and our experiences. Some who remain in the hospital who are deeply longed for at home, some still caught in addiction, some bound by anxiety, struggling in dark depression, so many longing for bread, for forgiveness, for security and peace. Unanswered prayers can make us wonder if there is something wrong with us or the way we prayed, or if there is something wrong with the God to whom we have prayed.
I have struggled with these questions in my own life and as we have shared life, wondered about what’s wrong with us, or what’s wrong with God when prayers have gone unanswered – good, unselfish prayers. And I don’t have any easy answers for you, nor does this text. But there are two things I believe deeply about prayer, and that I believe this text supports. God wants us to pray, and God is listening to our prayers.
Jesus, who prayed over bread, gave thanks for it and broke it and gave it to his hungry friends, invites us to pray for our daily bread. Jesus who prayed from the cross, saying “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” invites us to pray for forgiveness. Jesus who prayed that Peter’s faith might not fail when he was tested, who prayed in the garden of Gethsemane that the cup might pass from him, invites us to pray that we might be saved from the time of trial.
Jesus invites us to pray without shame, persistently, insistently. Jesus promises that the God to whom we raise our voices is the God leaning toward us, longing to shape and form us into a faithful people, fit citizens of the divine kingdom. Pray like this – come back week after week. Say it out loud, get it so deep in your body that when we bring you communion when you seem lost to dementia, or visit you in the hospital as you seem almost gone on that journey into God’s arms – even there you will come to life and speak it from some deep place in your body. Pray it aloud in worship, because it reminds us who we are together – hungry, forgiven and forgiving sinners, frightened of being tested – beloved children of a loving God. Pray it with the Spirit, who intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words. Pray it with Jesus who sits even now at the right hand of God the father, praying for us.
Pray it with me now:
Our Father, who art in Heaven,
hallowed be thy name
thy kingdom come
thy will be done
on earth as it is in Heaven
Give us this day our daily bread
and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors
and lead not into temptation, but deliver us from evil
for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever, amen!