AND WHEN YOU PRAY…
A sermon preached by
Rev. Dr. Randle R. (Rick) Mixon
First Baptist Church, Palo Alto, CA
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Texts: Luke 11:1-13
So it seems that Jesus has a thing or two to say about prayer when the disciples finally muscle up the courage to ask him about it. There is no doubt that, as devout Jews, they knew how to pray. Peter Marty say of Jesus’ followers, “Spreading their hands in upward devotion or lying prone with face to the ground were second nature practices. These prayer habits were not fancy secrets their ancestors forgot to pass along” (Peter W. Marty, “Living the Word,” The Christian Century, July 13, 2010, p. 21.) The postures of prayer were well-known and widely practiced by peasant and priest alike. So, they are not exactly asking how to pray, but they have observed something in the prayer practice of Jesus, and of John before him, that seems different from what they experience in their own prayer life. What they are asking of Jesus is to know some of what he experiences when he enters into prayer. In Luke’s account, Jesus is a regular, devoted practitioner of prayer. Time and again we see him stepping aside from the whirl of activity around him to pray. There are times he lifts his voice in public prayer. On the night of his arrest we find him praying in the garden of Gethsemane and we hear him pray from the cross itself as his life is taken from him.
What the disciples are seeing in him is not some unique style of prayer. What they are seeing is the constancy of his prayer life. Clearly, it centers him securely in his relationship with God. For him, prayer is about bringing those who pray into ever closer relationship to their Creator. Prayer is the opening up of life so that God’s Spirit may flow freely and fully through it.
We all know how to pray, right? You fold your hands together, bow your head and close your eyes. We all learned this in Sunday School or at the family table. There are many formulas for proper prayer – prayers of gratitude, petition, intercession, confession, lamentation, rejoicing and more. Volumes have been written on prayer throughout the centuries. But Jesus’ encounter here with his disciples seems to say that prayer may be simpler than we know. Of course, at the same time, it may be more challenging, because of the devotion it demands to the One who made us and is constantly drawing us into Herself. Prayer is not rocket science, but it does require a deep commitment to exploring our relationship with God.
Luke’s version of “The Lord’s Prayer” is leaner than Matthew’s version, which we prayed earlier this morning. “Father,” it begins simply. It was not uncommon for the people of Jesus’ time to refer to God as father. What seems to be unique is that Jesus uses a particular Aramaic word that translates something like “daddy.” It is a very intimate address. It speaks of a relationship as deep and loving as that between a gracious father – or mother – and child. The teaching is not gender dependent. It is meant to mirror the kind of ideal relationship possible between a loving parent and devoted child. So, to begin with, Jesus is instructing his followers to spend enough time with God to develop a depth of interaction and understanding that allows for intimacy. He is not reserving this privilege for himself, remember, for he is teaching them how they should pray.
But the intimacy is not to be cheap or easy either. This is the Father of Infinite Majesty, this is the Mother of Consummate Grace. Among the things that are wondrous and challenging in this relationship is the possibility of coming so close to the great God of the universe. What Jesus teaches is that it is possible, if we would seek it, to be holy as God is holy. In Jesus’ culture, one’s name was more than just a few identifying letters strung together. Names were not randomly selected from baby books or made up on a whim because they sounded pretty. A person’s name contained their character. In a heavily shame and honor culture, one’s name stood for one’s reputation. A good name was crucial. Jesus is saying that God’s name is “holy” and those who are truly members of the family of God will also be known by that name. In other words, prayer centers us solidly in the company of a loving parent whose name is “holy.” Therefore, our prayer life should bring us to identify with that family name and to incorporate it in our daily living.
This is not about being perfect or self-righteousness. It is about recognizing our potentiality to be all that God has made us to be. It’s about committing ourselves to live up to the family reputation, not as an onerous burden, but in the sheer joy of such identity. We take delight in belonging to the Holy One who loves us and accepts us. We celebrate the beauty that is around us and, yes, within us. We let that light shine. The writer of 1st Peter says we are “…a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people…” Why is this so? “…in order that [we] may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called us out of [the shadows] into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9.) But remember, this is no exclusive claim. God’s loving embrace reaches out to the whole creation - and that leads us into the rest of the prayer.
“Your kingdom come.” Well, isn’t this what Jesus’ ministry has been all about, the coming kingdom of God? The preaching and teaching, the healing and exorcizing, the feeding of the crowds and the calming of the waters – all of these point to the in-breaking reign of God. A new day is coming; in fact, it has begun in Jesus Christ. It is a day of justice, peace and fairness for all.
“Give us each day our daily bread.” This is a prayer for equity in the distribution of sustenance, a challenge that I imagine many of us may find disconcerting. Jesus is not asking God to make sure our cupboards and refrigerators and freezers are full. He is saying give us each day what we really need to live, not necessarily what we desire. This is not scarcity thinking. We know that Jesus liked a party and was happy to sit down at a feast. It is rather a word about not being greedy and hoarding. It is a word about ensuring that all our sisters and brothers throughout the world never go hungry. In God’s realm there is enough of everything that everyone needs to go around. God’s children see to that. If we pray this prayer honestly we are committing ourselves to see to that.
“Forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.” This is a curious turn of phrase, as Mary Granholm noted Tuesday in Bible study. It’s not the implied conditional statement we get in Matthew’s version in which we forgive as we are forgiven. It sounds like a sort of reversal in which God forgives us because we have learned to forgive. If sin is indeed broken relationship, this may be a word about the healing that comes to our relationship with God when we have learned to practice forgiveness ourselves. This is also word about justice. Richard Vinson writes that “In Luke’s day, as in Jesus’ day…[d]ebt was a scary thing, especially when the poor had to put their land or their personal property as collateral for the loan. If the weather was bad and the crops failed, or if you suffered some other reverses, you lost your home, or you sold yourself or others of your family into slavery to pay the debts.” Luke may have written the lines this way “to remind those in his audience with means to lend that Jesus expected his followers to ‘lend, expecting nothing in return’ (6:35) and to ‘give to everyone who begs’ (6:30). That was powerful medicine in Jesus’ day; perhaps even more so in Luke’s day, when there were some persons of means among Jesus’ followers, and certainly even more so in our day in our country, when the vast majority of American church-goers need to be forgiven of the sin of greed and to encourage our governments to forgive the debts of the world’s poorest nations” (Richard B. Vinson, Smyth & Helwys Bible Commentary: Luke, p. 373.)
“And do not bring us to the time of trial.” But this cannot mean what it says, for the times of trial and testing surely come. We know that was true for Jesus and his followers. We know that is true in our own lives. The time of trial truly comes. Perhaps, then, this is a word about being prepared when it comes, about finding the strength to resist temptation – and I would dare to guess that everyone in this room knows something about temptation. This is a word about enduring the trials of life. And, to go back to the beginning, for the individual or community that is grounded in God, that is centered in the Holy, that has given itself over to the leading of the Spirit, temptations, tests and trials, though inevitable, may actually have little power or meaning.
If, with whatever limitations we have, know how to give good gifts to those we love, then how much more likely is God, who is love, to give good gifts to those who ask. Those who are centered in God trust God to see them through whatever life brings. Pastor Gordon Atkinson tells a wonderful story about learning such childlike trust. His young daughter had asked the congregation to pray for her sick hermit crab. The good pastor was embarrassed. He knew that among the worshipers was a man whose father had just died, a woman whose father abused her as a child and a family whose 5 year old daughter had lost a painful struggle with cancer. He says, “All the heads were bowed except mine. I was left standing at the front, wondering how you pray for a hermit crab in the presence of a man who prayed that his daddy would live. How do you pray for a hermit crab while looking at the bowed head of a woman who prayed that her daddy would stop?
And what about Julie, God?...Maybe you have complex reasons for taking a hands-off approach. But what grand scheme would have been derailed if you had let her die without pain? If letting Julie die in peace was outside your self-imposed limits, what will you do for a hermit crab that we hear is a little under the weather?”
He goes on, “You know what got me started praying? The heads. Roy’s head and Chris’s head. All of them. Rows and rows of bowed heads, waiting expectantly…Here were people who would pray for a crab. They loved this little girl that much, and she felt comfortable enough to share the concerns of her heart. Even in the midst of their own unanswered prayers, they were big enough and small enough to pray with their young friend…” And he concludes, “I am a man who has become a child again, and I tell you I will pray for just about anything” (Gordon Atkinson, RealLivePreacher.com, quoted in Richard B. Vinson, Smyth & Helwys Bible Commentary: Luke, p. 377.)
And when you pray, that is, when you engage in sacred conversation, when you open your lives to almighty God who loves you with all the tenderness of the ideal parent, embrace that love as you are embraced by it. Then live out that love by spreading the good news of God’s in-breaking reign in the lives of all you meet. Set the table, bring out the bread, pour the wine, invite them all – family, friends, neighbors, colleagues, strangers, enemies – to join you at the table of the family called “holy” Let’s partake of the feast that heals every ill, binds every wound, forgives every debt, builds up every relationship, does away with every adversity and wipes away every tear. Amen.