Teach us to Pray

Sermon for July 28, 2019Proper 12C – RCL Track 1 

Hosea 1:2-10
Psalm 85
Colossians 2:6-15, (16-19)
Luke 11:1-13

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."

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]

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.

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 15^th 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.

---

^[1] https://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=5367

^[2] http://virtualreligion.net/iho/prayer.html#qaddish

^[3] ibid

^[4] http://day1.org/955-i_wonder_why_bad_things_happen_to_good_people

Prayer

Sermon for October 23, 2016

Proper 25C – RCl Track 1

Joel 2:23-32
Psalm 65
2 Timothy 4:6-8,16-18
Luke 18:9-14

Jesus told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt: "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, `God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.' But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, `God, be merciful to me, a sinner!' I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted."

This parable is one that can certainly get us in trouble if we are not careful.  It is easy, perhaps too easy, to read this with disdain for the Pharisee.  A plain reading puts him into a bad light.  While the tax collector – they guy who is in a dishonorable profession – working for the occupation force and extorting money from the Jewish people is the good guy.  We want to read this as a story of absolute grace – which is the right thing.  It is God who justifies the tax collector – and nothing that the tack collector does that causes the justification.

Every week I listen to a podcast about the lessons.  And one of the members of the podcast mentioned that we want to think that the tax collector – who is begging God for mercy – is going to leave with a change of heart and do something different.  But that is not what the story says.  It does not say that the tax collector goes off and stops collecting taxes.  He might not even be able to stop.  He is stuck in a system where he is unlikely to be able to get another job.  We want to think that being justified means change. Justification is a gift from God.

It is also important to point out that the Pharisee is doing nothing wrong.  Being described as righteous is a good thing.  It means that he has been able to follow all of the law of the Torah – and unlike the tax collector – is easily ritually clean.  The problem with him is not the righteousness but that he gives credit for the righteousness to himself and himself alone.  There is no room for God to enter into his prayer.

The problem for us is that I think we all too often find ourselves saying the prayer of the Pharisee.  Perhaps not as straight forward as his ‘thank god I am not like that tax collector over there’.  But perhaps more subtly “There but for the grace of God go I”.  Did you ever think about how even that simple phrase sets up the same judgment that we hear from the Pharisee? 

There are all kinds of subtle prayers – or perhaps we think of them as only thoughts that invoke judgment.  When we think of other people as the outsider – the other – we are casting judgment.  Thank goodness I am not a republican or democrat or ... fill in the blank.  It is when we demonize other people because of who or what they are we are committing the sin of exclusion. 

The sad part is many of us are conditioned by our society to place people in bins.  We automatically categorize people as in our out.  White, black or brown.  Straight, gay, lesbian, transgendered, queer.  Male or female. People who sleep in houses and those who sleep in sheds.  People with privilege who feel threatened when even thesuggestion is made that we need to reach out to those who don’t have privilege.  Because somehow when society helps someone else it causes there to be less of some thing for me. 

Our society traps people into behavior and actions that separate.  We refuse to fund adequate mental health care for veterans returning from the nightmares of war.  We refuse to provide youth who have – at the tender age of 18 – termed out of the foster care system.  We refuse to recognize that people need adequate shelter – even if they can’t afford it and even if they are self-medicating.  We demonize the other even at the top of our society – just dare to watch or read about the presidential candidate debates. 

And dear friends that is not what we are called to do.  Our call is to recognize when we are separating people into the saved and the dammed based on our expectations – or societies expectations.  And when we recognize we are doing it we need to try and stop.  To stop and remember that we are all beloved children of God.  And that really none of us is any better than the other when taken on the whole. 

Our call is to work towards a society that is justified and not a society that is righteous.  I say that because a justified society recognizes that it is not about the individual.  It is not about pulling ourselves up by our own bootstraps.  A justified society will recognize the contributions that each and every person has the potential to make and that we are not to judge.

A justified society leaves the judgment to God – where it belongs.  We are called to Love god and love our neighbor.  With no judgment on that neighbor – even – and perhaps especially when they deserve it.  Which is not easy and we all have failed at that calling from time to time.

We are not called to separate ourselves like the Pharisee did for fear of being contaminated.  We are called to work to break societal expectations that oppress.  Make no mistake changing society is hard.  And will not happen overnight.  I am hopeful that the resurgence of white supremacy and misogyny that has reared its ugly head during our presidential campaign is a sign that these attitudes are on their way out and are surfacing in desperation.  But that will only be true if we work to reach out and show that we loose nothing when we value each other. 

My prayer this week is that we will recognize when our prayers turn into the prayer of the Pharisee.  A prayer of exclusion. And that when we do we will – like the tax collector – throw ourselves on the mercy of the one who justifies so that we can change the world into the one that God dreams will be a reality.  A world where we respect the dignity of all creation.

Amen.