Luke 11:1-13
“Open Doors”
July 24, 2022
When I say the words “prayer life” what comes to mind?
Does it mean you have go-to prayers that get you through the rough patches?
Maybe you keep a written list of people or events that you lift up when you pray – maybe starting with the folks that are mentioned here on Sunday or on the insert in the bulletin.
Perhaps your prayers follow the lead of Karl Barth who said, “Take your Bible and take your newspaper, and read both.”
There’s certainly plenty in real life that is prayer worthy.
Where and how did you first learn to pray?
Was it at home before bed or meals?
Was it at a church or Sunday school?
Wherever it was, long ago or only recently, we each probably followed someone’s lead or example.
The passage that Sue just shared from Luke describes Jesus praying in a place where his disciples knew that’s what he was doing, and they wanted a lesson on prayer from him.
Prayer was a major part of Jesus’ life.
In Luke’s Gospel, we hear that Jesus sometimes needed time alone and he would go off to deserted locations to pray.
Or he went to the mountain to pray and “he spent the night in prayer to God.”
Jesus prayed before he chose these very apostles who want to soak up the how-to’s on praying because Jesus seemed to be always finding a way to pray.
Jesus took time to pray before he fed the five thousand.
And when the darkest point of his life was getting closer, he prayed on the eve of his death and then he also prayed while hanging on the cross.
Desperate times often call for desperate measures – think the old saying that there are no atheists in foxholes.
Today’s reading treats prayer as a learned experience.
The implication is that there is a discipline about prayer.
That might be the intimidating part.
But maybe the discipline is not just thinking you have to use the right words but leaning into it on a regular basis.
The writer Anne Lamott claims that every one of her prayers falls into one of two structures:
One is thank you, thank you, thank you!
I know that everyone of us, at any given moment can come up with at least a single person or event or feeling or experience for which we can give thanks.
As I was finishing this sermon last night, I looked up from my desk and out the window and saw stunning pink and blue swirls in the sky.
When I stepped outside and stood across the street in front of the farm stand, I was in awe and filled with gratitude – for the stunning beauty that was right in front of me.
Right now – think of a single person, place, or thing for which you feel tremendous gratitude.
And say aloud or whisper to yourself, “Thank you, God, for………” and fill in the blank.
Maybe everything is going pretty well for you but practicing gratitude when life is okay develops into a habit that we will have when life stinks.
That’s when Anne Lamott’s second way to pray comes in:
Her other prayer is “Help, help, help!”
As a person who has tried a variety of forms of prayer, including keeping a prayer journal, prayer beads, lighting candles, walking many labyrinths, participating in a prayer group, silent retreat, leaning into a spiritual director, using a word a day and seeking out that concept in the world to use as the basis for prayer, as well as owning multiple books of prayer, I’m here to say sometimes I feel the connection I seek with God and sometimes I don’t.
So often I’ve heard the frustration in the voices of people I know who feel like prayer doesn’t seem to be making any difference.
It can be especially painful for loved ones who feel like God wasn’t listening when they asked for healing for someone with a serious illness or near death.
Some wise words that I’ve held onto and tried to share as gently as I could in some of these circumstances was wonderfully phrased in Barbara Brown Taylor’s book that we used for a study over a decade ago.
In it she cites a friend who desperately prayed for their very sick partner and the way the friend explained how they could keep on praying when they didn’t get the outcome they were hoping for is, “I tell God what I want and I trust God to sort it out.”
Another way to consider what God’s answer to our prayers where we are asking for something or someone is that there are three possible responses on God’s part.
Yes – No – and Not Now.
Prayer is a powerful reminder that we, ultimately are not in control or as Barbara Brown Taylor puts it “We are players but we do not direct the play.” (An Altar In the World, 184)
Here Jesus is helping his disciples learn how to pray with what is the widest known and used prayer in Christianity.
He starts out with a way of addressing God that people could imagine and relate to and hopefully hold dear – Father.
The next two phrases of “Hallowed be your name” and “Thy kingdom come” beckon God to be God and recognizes our need for all that God is and does.
After that this prayer points to three of the most basic human needs.
The first is food (“Give us each day our daily bread”) – what our very existence demands.
The next is forgiveness – (“And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us”- which we here usually use the word trespass).
And the third is faithfulness (and do not bring us to the time of trial).
Matthew’s Gospel has Jesus expanding the prayer a bit with the opening including words similar to what we say now – “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” and Matthew has Jesus ending the prayer with “but rescue us from the evil one.”
There have been many versions of The Lord’s Prayer written that reflect the understanding and culture of various groups around the world, but the gist is the same.
Jesus ends with a parable about not giving up on prayer just because we don’t get the exact answer in the exact form we are looking for.
As we seek to be at one with God, prayer is waking up to the presence of God.
God is in and around all of life.
Prayer is that acknowledgment which means it isn’t restricted to just our thoughts and specific words – it is so much more.
How we live our life in connection with God and all God’s creation is prayer.
My prayer for each of us is for an ever -deepening connection with God, from this day forward. Pray on.
Amen.