Sermon for July 28, 2019Proper
12C – RCL Track 1
Jesus
was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples
said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples."
He said to them, "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."
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."
And
he said to them, "Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at
midnight and say to him, `Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; for a friend
of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.' And he answers from
within, `Do not bother me; the door has already been locked, and my children
are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.' I tell you, even
though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, at
least because of his persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs.
"So
I say to you, Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock,
and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and
everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be
opened. Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give
a snake instead of a fish? Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a
scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your
children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those
who ask him!"
The request
of the unnamed disciples that Jesus “teach us to pray” is probably one that we
have asked ourselves. We wonder what is
the proper way to pray. We wonder if
prayer “works”. We worry that we are not
skilled in the art of prayer and therefore we will not be heard by God. We even can worry about the proper body
language for prayer. Do I sit, knell or
stand? When is the best time for prayer?
What does God want? Are prayers that
have come down to us from great theologians better then free form impromptu
prayers? When should we pray prayers of
thanksgiving? Prayers of praise? Prayers
if lamentations? Prayers of
intercession? Prayers of
repentance? Is there a magic ratio of
these types of prayers?
There are
probably as many types of prayer as there are people. I could easily turn this sermon into a menu
of types of prayer – breath prayers, contemplative prayer, centering prayer,
arrow prayers, walking prayers – just to name a few. There are numerous books on spiritual
practices that will give you ways to pray.
The answers
to all of these questions is that it really doesn’t matter. What
matters is that we find what works for us. I have attempted versions of centering prayer
and was convinced – based on the instructions of the leaders that I was always
doing it wrong – until I read a book called “Spirituality for Extroverts: and
Tips for Those Who Love Them” by Nancy Reeves that gave me permission to not
beat myself up if by extrovert brain could not stop thinking of a thousand
things during centering prayer – the book gave me permission to realize that my
extrovert brain is not really going to be cleared in centering prayers and no
matter how many times I use my centering phrase it just doesn’t happen – and
that is ok.
What matters
is that we do pray. What matters is that
we open our hearts to God. When we open
our hearts words don’t really matter.
When we open our hearts, we become vulnerable – we become open to the
Holy Spirit. There is really no right or
wrong way to pray.
It is also
important to realize that the way we pray says something about our
theology. It says something about who we
believe God is and how God relates to us.
Matt Skinner, a preacher from Luther Seminary that I follow said “This
is what makes prayer -- in any kind of a context, whether private or public --
so powerful: to pray is to articulate a theology.
In other
words, everything about a prayer reveals something about what the pray-er
thinks God is like. Is God merciful? Forgetful? Too busy? Ready to order the
entire universe to make you happy? Already way ahead of you? Our prayers will reveal
it.”[1]
If we believe
in the God of Love that our Presiding Bishop Michael Curry preaches about it
will be reflective in our prayers. If
you approach God as one who desires nothing more than that we help bring God’s
love to earth it will be reflected in our prayers. The God of love that will not give us a snake
instead of a fish, the God of love that will not give us a scorpion when we
need an egg. That God is the one who
asks us to be God’s’ agents in this world.
That God is the one that we open our hearts to when we pray.
On the other
hand if we believe in an angry, vengeful God then we will approach our prayers
not with an open heart but with a heart filled with dread. We will worry that we will make God angry. We will worry that we will find the God that
told Hosea to marry a whore. We will
worry that God will say to us like the prophet Hosea promised that God is not
our God. We have to remember when we
read the prophets that they are calls for a people to return to God’s
grace. They are meant to be upsetting
because they were meant to get a people’s attention who had strayed from the
God of love to worship idols of gold. To worship idols of power. To worship idols of privilege.
Yet even in
this call of the prophet Hosea we hear the promise of a loving God, “Yet the
number of the people of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea, which can be
neither measured nor numbered; and in the place where it was said to them,
"You are not my people," it shall be said to them, "Children of
the living God." Even in God’s
lamentation over a people who have abandoned God’s love there is a promise.
…………….
The prayer
that Jesus teaches is not really that radical.
The form of the prayer was likely familiar to his Jewish followers. It follows the form of the ancient prayer the
Qaddish.
Heightened and hallowed be his great name
in the world he created according to his will.
And may he establish his kingdom in your life and in your days
and in the life of all the house of Israel,
very soon and in the coming season.
--And you say: Amen!
Blessed, praised and glorified, raised, lifted up and revered, exalted and lauded be the name of him who is Holy, blessed be He!
Although he is high above all blessings, hymns, praise and solace
uttered in (this) world.
--And you say: Amen!
May our prayers and the supplications of all Israel
be accepted by their Father, who is in heaven (abuhon di bishemmaya).
--And you say: Amen!
May there be abundant peace from Heaven
and life for us and all Israel.
--And you say: Amen!
May he who makes peace in the heights make peace for us and all Israel!
--And you say: Amen![2]
in the world he created according to his will.
And may he establish his kingdom in your life and in your days
and in the life of all the house of Israel,
very soon and in the coming season.
--And you say: Amen!
Blessed, praised and glorified, raised, lifted up and revered, exalted and lauded be the name of him who is Holy, blessed be He!
Although he is high above all blessings, hymns, praise and solace
uttered in (this) world.
--And you say: Amen!
May our prayers and the supplications of all Israel
be accepted by their Father, who is in heaven (abuhon di bishemmaya).
--And you say: Amen!
May there be abundant peace from Heaven
and life for us and all Israel.
--And you say: Amen!
May he who makes peace in the heights make peace for us and all Israel!
--And you say: Amen![2]
Jesus is, in
many ways, telling the disciple that he already knows how to pray. Jesus provided a format that was
familiar. Jesus made a statement of his
theology. Matt Skinner said. “[Jesus}
prayer, along with the short parable and aphorisms that follow in Luke 11:5-13,
presents us with a sketch of how to imagine who God is and how God operates.
Jesus speaks confident declarations:
God hears.
God provides.
God forgives.
God protects.
God expects us to be generous to one another.
God provides.
God forgives.
God protects.
God expects us to be generous to one another.
Those are all
theological statements. They all come from Jesus, who is teaching all of us,
whether you are the most gifted preacher alive or the most wounded and
fainthearted of saints.”[3]
The parable
and the aphorisms that follow can also cause problems. Some folk have read them and turned them into
a Gospel that is called the “prosperity Gospel”. We hear people say that if you want that
private plane you just have to bombard God with prayers to get the plane – and
you need to enlist others to pray for that plane to come to you (preferably
with gifts of money to help you purchase the plane).
They can also
lead to doubts. Doubts about our
relationship with God and doubts about if God is even listening. When we read that if we ask God will give we
wonder why God has not given. I asked
that my cancer would go away – and it looks like it did – although not by some
miraculous intervention of God but by the God given skills of my surgeon – and
his robot. When bad things happen to
those that we pray for we wonder why.
Why if God will give us anything we ask does this stuff happen.
Dr. Charles Reeb,
senior pastor of John’s Creek Methodist church said, “we have the hope
that one day Christ will come in glory and all of our questions will be
answered and all of the great mysteries will be solved and all of our confusion
will turn into clarity. So get your list of questions ready for that day. I
know I've got mine. And the question at the top of my list will be, "Why
did bad things happen to good people?"…You know what Mother
Teresa said? She said, "When I die, God will have a lot of answering to
do." And Billy Graham once said, "When I die and go to heaven, I will
spend the first 100 years just asking God questions." We can look forward
to doing the same thing.”[4]
My theology,
and my prayers to God, are out of a belief that God is Love. Period.
That we, as people of God are called to help bring about God’s
kingdom, God’s
dream of Love, to our world. We are to
help work to bring about a people that can bring about a place where good rules
and evil is deposed. Prayer – in all of
its forms – helps center me into that attitude of love of God and love of
neighbor. Prayer opens me to the gift of
the holy spirit – because Jesus in this lesson did not promise us the gift of a
private Jet, or the gift of that phantom 5 Rolls Royce that I want, listen
again to what he promised “how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy
Spirit to those who ask him!” Jesus
promised that in prayer God will give us the gift of the Holy Spirit. The gift that will drive us out our selves,
the gift that will drive us to explore ways that we can help initiate a world
that responds in Love instead of Hate, to bring to fruition a world where we
take care of the environment, take care of those who are hungry or thirsty,
provide shelter to those that are in need, visit the sick and those in prison.
We are called
in this place to offer our prayers to God.
We are called to open ourselves to the gift of the Holy Spirit to
inflame our hearts in ways that will bring about God’s dream. To use our resources to help build a place of
Love and Peace – a place of God’s Shalom on this corner of 15th and
J streets. When we open our hearts to
the Holy Spirit we may find ourselves on a wild ride – a ride that will call us
to do a new thing, a ride that will call us to be God’s agents of change, God’s
agents of Love, in this hurting and hurt filled world.
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