AtomPrayer Sermon
Luke 11:1-13
Grace to you and peace, from God our Father, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who comes to us through His Holy Spirit. Amen.
I’ve been asking around this week…not intending to induce guilt or be accusatory, or even to be presumptuous, but simply as an evaluative question, “how is it with your prayer life??”
The responses that have been received:
when I suggested a scale…most said it was around a 4-5-6…with a target of 10.
Many simply suggested that theirs “needs improvement”…
And, several did say they felt good about their life in prayer with the Lord God.
Specific responses that I did enjoy…
The person who commented with a twinkle and a laugh: “I hate to say that it’s pretty much a 4…unless I’m in a crisis…then it’s immediately a 10!!
And the one who said, “it goes up and down…and it’s really up when I’m riding behind my husband on the motorcycle!!”
Note that, for those who are looking to improve their prayer life, we’re in good company…with the first disciples who, after witnessing Jesus praying to the Father, came to him and asked him to, “Teach us to pray!!” And Jesus did. And, as our Gospel today, we have Luke’s version of his teaching, along with a parable or two as part of the teaching.
In the order of Worship…you’ll notice prayer is spelled out…and I invite you to be thinking of words that reflect what Jesus is teaching us about prayer in the Gospel. I’ll share the ones that came to me in my reflections and prayers this week…write down others…
P – Involves a Pause in life – an intentional time (and place) set aside in the day, each day.
I shared in my newsletter article this month an article in the July 23 issue of Newsweek a commentary by Robert J, Samuelson…with the title “The Sad Fate of the Comma”.
After bemoaning the dwindling of the comma, he writes:
If all this involved only grammar, I might let it lie. But the comma’s sad fate is, I think, a metaphor for something larger: how we deal with the frantic, can’t-wait-a-minute nature of modern life. The comma is, after all, a small sign that flashes PAUSE. It tells the reader to slow down, think a bit, and then move on. We don’t have time for that. No pauses allowed. In this sense, the comma’s fading popularity is also social commentary.
Every relationship need TIME…in order to grow…
I suggest that The P in prayer is the need for God’s people to make time to PAUSE in life to grow in relationship with Almighty God Himself. Remember, Jesus PAUSED and took time out!! What did we read in the Gospel, “Jesus was praying in a certain place…that is, he PAUSED in life to pray!! It is OK to turn off the cell-phone, take the cricket off of the ear…shut down the TV…tune out the demands of the children…and PAUSE…
R – Relational (and note…along with PAUSE, this sets the stage for all the rest…)
On a website this week a Pastor Sally wrote:
Sadly so much of the time, our prayers are perfunctory. That, so often, when committee chairs lead prayer before the meeting, it has the attitude of checking prayer off the list so we can get to the real business of the meeting.
Rather, Prayer reflects faith. If we have faith in God, we pray as if we really believe God is in charge and we’re ready to listen to his voice.
Jesus teaches that prayer is relationship…our Father is the way we are invited to pray. Martin Luther, in his small catechism asks “what does this mean?”
Here God encourages us to believe that he is truly our Father and we are his children. We therefore are to pray to him with complete confidence just as children speak to their loving father.
A Roman War hero was returning home. Soldiers were lined along the streets to keep the masses from getting in the way of the parade. A little boy tried to break through. A soldier grabbed him and said: “Don’t get in the way of the emperor.” To which the boy replied, “He may be the emperor to you, but to me, he is my Father!!”
Jesus reminds us that Prayer is RELATIONAL…it’s conversation with God himself and it’s not simply perfunctory or routine or repetitious. AND…in his prayers, especially in the Garden we realize how true this is for Jesus, and for us.
Now, within this relationship with Jesus…come the others today…
A – Asking
Is Asking involved in prayer?? Of course asking is involved in prayer…
AGAIN, let’s remember that this asking takes place in the midst of a relationship, just like children speak to their loving fathers. And every parent today knows that in a parent/child relationship, there is a lot of asking…about everything under the sun!! My children ask for dozens of things everyday…
And my response as a “loving parent” – to some I have said yes, to others no…and in most cases…”Ask your Mother”!!!
In the same way, this also means our “loving father” has the ability to say NO in his response…just as loving parents need to say NO to their children many, many times because they have a much better sense about what’s best for them.
This being said, Unanswered prayer continues to bug me…as a child of God!! And unanswered prayer is known to be a stumbling block for many, many people!!
Two thoughts here…
The first…Sometimes the answer is given in a way that is different that I expect and I miss it.
You’ve heard many times about the family in a flood, trapped on the roof of their house praying to God to rescue them. And when a boat stops by and offers them a rescue, they turn it down claiming God will rescue us. And when a helicopter offers a rescue…again, this offer is turned down again because they prayed that God will rescue them. When the flood waters finally take their lives and they end up talking with God, they take issue with him…asking him, “God, why didn’t you answer our prayers and rescue us??” To which God is said to have replied, “I did…2 times. First I sent a boat and then I sent a helicopter!!
My first thought of unanswered prayer is that sometimes, God answers prayer in ways far different that we expect and our eyes and ears are closed to that possibility.
There’s a gentleman at First Lutheran who, in telling his story, reflects on this saying, “As I look back on my life, I wondered if God was answering prayers. However, now, as I have the ability to look backwards and reflect…only now I’m able to see how God did answer prayers; in ways I didn’t comprehend at the time!”
The second thought about unanswered prayer is that sometimes I sense that people’s asking is simply treating God like a vending machine God rather than a God we live in relationship with. James Moore in his sermon “You Do Have A Prayer” wrote:
Prayer is far more than an emergency magical lamp rubbed in a crisis. The truth is that many people give up on prayer because they never understand what prayer is. Much that passes for prayer is irrational, superstitious, and self-centered, and is therefore unworthy of the pattern of the prayer that Jesus offered to us his disciples.
Jesus prayed with intelligent common sense. He did not use prayer as some magical device to get some selfish wishes. How easy it is to blunt out a desperate pray “O Lord, make the brakes hold”, when we’re going 90 miles an hour and suddenly face a need for a quick stop. Not much intelligence in such a prayer, not much common sense.
He continued:
Some years ago I was reading an article in Sports Illustrated about a major league baseball pitcher who prays that God will help him “get ‘em out”…and a player on an opposing team who says he prayer that God will help him “get a hit.” With tongue in cheek, the sportswriter wrote, “How confusing this much be to God when they face each other!!”
Of course, prayer involves asking…yet it’s asking WITHIN a loving relationship and this makes all the difference. Consider Jesus’ prayer, “Father, take this cup from me; HOWEVER, not my will but YOUR WILL BE DONE!!!”
And here, we discover that God answered Jesus prayer with a NO…because it was not God’s will to answer with a YES!! This brings us to the Y of prayer…
Y – Your Will
In Jesus teaching about prayer today…and in the garden…and in many other places, over and over again, we discover that the ultimate purpose of prayer is to bring OUR MINDS into alignment with GOD’S MIND…with the end purpose of God transforming us to be HIS INSTRUMENTS of HIS WILL in the world!!! As we’ve just seen, Jesus modeled this for us in the Garden. “Father, TAKE THIS CUP FROM ME!!! I don’t want it!! Yet, may your will be done…and not mine!!!”
AND…THIS IS HARD…you know it and I do…in both the small things and in the big issues of life!!!
I’ll forever remember Gene’s struggle in the hospital at Rochester…
Gene had been battling cancer…was at Mayo for more treatments…and we were praying that these treatments would work…and, right in the middle of our praying the Lord’s Prayer, as we got to that part about “Thy will be done…” Gene stopped us and said,
“What about Gene’s Will…Gene wants to live!! He wants the cancer to be gone and for him to be out of this hospital. What about GENE’s will!!”
You know and I know the depth of this struggle…yet, Jesus in his prayer in the garden and in this prayer…that he taught us to pray…teaches us that God does know us better than we know ourselves…and the ultimate purpose of prayer is to bring our minds into alignment with God’s Mind…and not the other way around!! Prayer is relational!!!
E – Utilize your EARS…
If prayer is relational…which it is…then LISTENING needs to be just as much a part of prayer as speaking and asking, is it not?? One commentator wrote:
Isn’t part of asking to wait for the answer? I think Jesus did as much listening to God as he did talking to God. Our prayers tend to be laundry lists of what we want God to do, then we say AMEN and we close down the conversation.
Rather…Ask, and it shall be given to you (if you will quit talking and listen), knock and it shall be opened to you (if you quit banging long enough for the door to open up for a more intimate encounter), seek and you will find (if you’ll really pay attention to where I’m directing you to find what it is you are looking for).
We learn little when we’re doing all the talking. The better part of learning comes from active listening. We minimize the power of prayer when we think of it as a one way conversation with us at the speaker’s podium and our headsets turned off.
How do we do this?? – Visualization is one way…many utilize it. For example:
The story is told about a man who was quite ill. The minister came to see the dying man and noticed an empty chair in the opposite side of the bed…pulled up especially close to the bed. The older man said, “Let me tell you about this chair. Many years ago I found it quite difficult to pray, so I shared this with my pastor.
He told me not to worry about kneeling or about placing myself in some pious position or about speaking in high-sounding words. Instead, he said, ‘Just sit down, put a chair in front of you, and know that God himself is sitting there in that chair… and then just talk to Him as you would talk to a friend.’” The older man said, “I’ve been doing that ever since.”
Some days later, the daughter of the older man called the minister to tell him that her father had died peacefully. And then she said this: “For some reason, his hand was on that empty chair on the other side of the bed. Isn’t that strange?” “O no, it’s not strange at all. He had learned that prayer is relationship…it’s two way conversation…and at death, he was holding the hand of his best friend.’”
R – Persistence…(yes it fits…just do away with the small little line on the right!!!)
This is the teaching the parable that follows. If a man who doesn’t even like you is willing to come to the door to give you some bread…how much more will your loving father give to those who ask him…as we live and breath and pray in a loving relationship with him??
Let’s again remember the persistence of the child…and remember that we are the ones who in prayer speak to our God, “just as children speak to their Loving Father!!”
People of God, which of these best speaks of what YOU need to put into action in your prayer life with the Lord Jesus? Now, WRITE IT DOWN as YOUR ACTION step today!! This is how growth takes place…to make a decision to START…just start in one small way.
MAYBE YOUR ACTION STEP #1 is:
To PAUSE…make time to PAUSE
To stop treating God like a vending machine, and place that chair in front of you…entering into a relationship with him…
To yield your will to God’s will
To learn to listen with your ears and senses to God’s Voice for you…
This Gospel teaches what is it to pray ... really pray!! It teaches us what is it like to live in relationship with God Himself…knowing the love and care of the Living God even in the midst of the storms of life that are always present.
There is an old Calvin and Hobbes cartoon in which Calvin is getting undressed for bed, and he says to Hobbes, “Any time when you don’t finish the day with grass stains on your knees, you ought to seriously re examine your priorities.”
So it is with the follower of Christ. Anytime you don’t finish a day without time spent on your knees connecting with God Himself…acknowledging who God is and what God wants, making your petitions known and asking his forgiveness and blessing on your life, is a day that you ought to seriously examine your priorities.
Jesus, teach us to pray...and He did!!!
Thanks be to God for the gift of Prayer…AMEN!!
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