Notes on Sermon
Luke 11:1-13
Colossians 2:6-15
Luke 11:1-13 He 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.
Colossians 2:6-15 “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 you 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!”
You may know that I am a chaplain for
a Hospice in
I think this patient shares the same
question as the disciples in our text today.
We find the disciples warn down and tired from two years on the road
with Jesus. Never knowing where
tomorrow’s meal is going to come
from. Persecuted and ostracized by their
community. They are waiting,
anxiously
for the
I think a lot of us often have the
same questions about prayer. We see the
oil spill in the gulf. We remember those
who died in the twin towers. We hear
about Christians burning the Koran. We
lose the people we love the most. Our
prayers seem to go unanswered. “Lord
teach us to pray as John taught his disciples.”
In such a world as ours, with so much
pain, and need, we often think of Prayer as a way to get what we want from
God. Prayer becomes a wish list for what
we desire most. This is not necessarily
a bad thing. We believe that prayer is a
response to the injustice and suffering in our life. God wants to hear what we need, what we
desire. The problem is when we allow our prayer life to be only about the
things we need or want.
The story is told of a small boy who
gets his hand caught in a priceless vase.
The parents do all they can to get the boys hand out. They rub oil and butter, but nothing seems to
work. They call for the doctor and other
towns folks, but no one is able to get the boys hand out of the vase. Finally, after they see no other way, they
smash the vase, only to find that the boys hand was stuck because he was
grasping a penny.
We’re often like that small boy. Using our prayer life to let God know what we
need and want. Like the boy we grasp to
pennies that we think are so important and forget that prayer is truly a
deepening of our relationship with God.
It’s about learning to draw near and know God. God craves relationship with us. This is the insight that my patient
recognized. That prayer is a spiritual
practice. The more we pray the more we
are shaped and molded to God’s will. The
more we pray the more we are aware of God’s love and grace in our life.
In our passage today Jesus’ teaches us to pray. He begins, “Father.” Some people are quite offended that we are
taught to pray to God as a father.
And
to the extent that we limit God to a gender, to being male, they may be
right. But what is even more interesting
and controversial is that the Gospel of Luke omits the Our. By doing so, we are reminded that we do not
posses God. This is not My God, or Our
God. The God we pray to is creator of
all the universe, present through out history, and chooses and even yearns for
relationship with us. This God is surely
not our property. Stanley Hauerwas
writes, “Before we reached out to God,
God reached out to us and claimed us, promised to be our God, promised to make
us God’s people. Thus, not because of
who we are or what we have done, but rather because of what God in Jesus Christ
has done, we are privileged to say, “Our Father.”” (Lord Teach Us,
Hauerwas, p.25)
We are bold enough to address God as
Father. Can you believe that the God of
this universe wants to be known chiefly as loving parent? As the provider of
all that is good, and protector of all those in need. Thomas Aquinas wrote that we are created for
no greater purpose than friendship with God.
God desires friendship, relationship with us. In prayer we enter into conversation with
God. The more we talk to and listen to
God the better friends we become. The
more intimate we become. We can
understand why Paul wrote, “Pray without ceasing.” Paul was saying, always be in conversation,
in relationship with God.
Key to our relationship to God,
indeed, key to any relationship, is honesty.
Any authentic relationship is grounded in honesty which brings forth
trust. When I work with people that are
dying I often find that they are afraid to talk honestly to God. They are afraid to tell God how disappointed,
or how angry they are. Or how they still
hope for a miracle. As if God’s can’t
handle our anger. God’s love for us is
bigger then our anger, our disappointment our unbelief.
In the movie The Apostle, Jessie a charismatic
pastor on the run for murder, is seen in his mothers house shouting at
God. Jessie is furious at God and he is
letting God and the entire neighborhood know.
The mother receives a phone call from an angry neighbor. She replies, “Sometimes he prays. Sometimes
he just yells.” Our prayers should
always be that honest, for it’s in this honesty that we begin to become
intimate with God. Don’t take it just
from me, honesty in prayer is biblical.
Just read Habbakuk, or Christ from the cross, “My God, my God, why have
you forsaken me?”
Or in
our prayer today, Thy Kingdom Come! God
wants, God can handle, our honesty in prayer.
In a bit we are going to sing one of
my new favorite hymns. It’s been around
a while, but I just discovered it. “O
savior in this quiet place.” The sixth
verse, is a good example of the honesty I think God craves, “Of all my prayers
may this be chief; Till faith is fully grown, Lord disbelieve my unbelief and
claim me as your own.” Some times it
feels like God is not listening.
Sometimes we feel like we are alone.
It happens to all of us. Faith is
a journey, and sometimes we are on the mountain top close to God, and other
times we are in the valley, and we feel alone and scared.
It’s in times like these that I think
the Lord’s prayer becomes more then just a memorized chant we say on Sunday
without thinking of what it is we are praying.
It’s when we don’t know what to say, or don’t have the words or the
faith to pray to God, that we can join the two thousand years of saints that
have prayed the Lord’s prayer.
If honesty is important to prayer the
other side of the coin is persistence.
If we don’t read our scripture this morning very carefully we might make
the mistake of thinking that we just need to bug God more to get what we
want. If we just keep knocking loud and
long enough God will get fed up and give us what we desire. Unfortunately this is not how it works. If it did, I’d be playing quarter back for
the Dallas Cowboys.
In the gospel of Luke persistence in
prayer is just not ‘asking, searching, and knocking." Consistency in
prayer includes the receiving, the being found, the opened door. No longer can
we only hear prayer as the means to an end. It has become the duration between
the spoken word and the final receiving. Prayer is the way of life. Being persistent in prayer means that we are
always engaging in conversation with God;
Prayer becomes a way of life. The
question in our text today is not how do we pray in a way that God gives us
what we need. Jesus does not give us a
spell or magic words. Rather the
question for the disciples, for us today, is are we willing to see prayer as
the practice between asking and receiving, between Thy Kingdom come, and thy
will be done. This is were being
persistence in prayer places us. In a
relationship.
If we are willing to live in this
place of prayer that’s based in honesty and persistence, then I promise your
relationship with God will change. You
will become more intimate with God. You
will become better friends with God.
Your relationship will begin to be grounded in Trust. So today, our scripture is not so much a
lesson on how to pray, or how prayer works, but rather an invitation. Each one of us, this church, is invited into
a deepening of our relationship with God.
We are invited to become good friends of God. And in so doing, we learn to trust God.
Trust that the God we pray to is a
good Father. A
Father that protects us, “Do not lead us into temptation but deliver us from
Evil. A Father that gives us what
we need. While
this may not be what we want, it is what we most need. Give us this day our
daily bread; indeed.
So in the coming week. My charge to you is to pray. Pray in the midst of your day. Before you sleep, before you eat, after you
awake. During work, or while your
driving. If you can’t think of anything
to say to God, just pray the Lord’s prayer.
But be intentional about your prayer.
And don’t forget to listen. If we
are going to take the time to talk to God, we might as well take the time to
hear God’s response. I’m the worst a
this. The moment I say amen my mind is
some where else. I’m ready for whatever
is next. I’ve had to really work at
listening. To being still and open to
God. So that God and you are like old
friends sharing a comfortable silence with one another.
One of my favorite poems is by the
Islamic poet Hafiz. I think it’s a good
example of the intimacy that God craves.
“God
and I have become like two giant fat people living in a tiny boat. We keep bumping into each other and
laughing.”