7th Sunday after Pentecost
July 28, 2019
Luke 11:1-13
One of the first sermons I can remember, if not the very
first, comes from around middle school, or maybe late elementary school. I’m a
little fuzzy on some of the details, except I know it was at the church we went
to when my family lived in Germantown, MD. And this wasn’t a sermon by the
pastor of the church; it was by one of the leaders of the church who’d been
asked to fill in while the pastor was out. Glenn had only recently begun
deepening his faith and walking closer with Jesus. I remember the concern other
adults had about how Glenn’s faith was growing, while his wife’s wasn’t. And I
don’t know the end of the story. What I know is that Glenn gave a message about
the Lord’s Prayer. He was a runner, and while he ran, he said the Lord’s
Prayer, and repeated it. The beginning of his message was about how one day he
set out running and started saying the Lord’s Prayer, and he heard God tell him
to slow down. God didn’t mean to slow down his running, God was telling him to
pray slower, to take time and savor each phrase, each word of that prayer. Pray
slower. Pay more attention to what you are praying. And then Glenn went through
each section of the Lord’s Prayer for the rest of his message, taking it slower
than we usually say it.
“One day Jesus was praying in a certain place.” Isn’t
that an interesting detail? We’re always praying in a certain place, in a pew,
from our bedside, in a car. Jesus had certain places where he liked to go pray.
Are there places or times you intentionally go to to pray? Glenn prayed while
running. I have one friend who has a prayer corner, with an easy chair, a lamp,
a notepad and pen, a bible, and an arrangement of crosses on the wall facing
the chair. Other folks have prayer closets. Do you have dedicated space for
prayer, or an activity when you dedicate that time to pray? If not, consider
starting one. Mine is the breakfast table. Usually. The kids have mostly
learned not to interrupt me when they see my prayer book out. The disciples
didn’t interrupt Jesus, either, but waited until he was done before asking, “Lord,
teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.” This is Jesus’ cousin
John, better known to us as John the Baptist, who also had disciples and a
following before Jesus showed up on the scene. Then some of John’s disciples
defected and started following Jesus![1]
Anyway, Jesus’ disciples know that John has taught his followers how to pray,
and they ask Jesus, “Lord, teach us to pray.”
Jesus’ answer is what we call the Lord’s Prayer. Or, at
least most of it. Okay, maybe just some of it. It’s been elaborated a little
bit over the years. The answer Jesus gives them is the basis for our Lord’s
Prayer. It’s short, sweet, and to the point. “‘Father, hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. Forgive us our sins, for
we also forgive everyone who sins against us. And lead us not into temptation.”
It’s quite the contrast to the standard Jewish prayers of the day, which were
quite long and complex. But Jesus is here saying, it doesn’t have to be long,
it doesn’t have to be clever, you don’t need a rhyme scheme or be a great
public speaker in order for your prayer to be efficacious and heard by God.
What you need, as we learn from the stories Jesus tells after this prayer, is
perseverance. Sometimes, persistence in prayer is where we must begin.[2]
Later in Luke, Jesus tells the story of the unjust judge and the widow. The
intro to this parable is that Jesus told it to his disciples “to show them that
they should always pray and not give up.” It’s the same thing with the person
knocking on their friend’s door at midnight. Pray constantly. Persist in praying. Keep praying!
Why? Why is prayer so important? Because prayer is the essence
of our relationship with God.[3]
Without prayer, you do not have a relationship with God. Without prayer, you cannot have a relationship with God. “Prayer
is the way we create and sustain our relationship with God.”[4]
It is the chief means of grace. A “means of grace” is a way you experience and
know God’s unconditional love. It could be as simple as a hug or a phone call
from a friend. It could be seeing God at work in creation. According to John
Wesley, there are five “instituted” means of grace, meaning that they are
“spiritual practices that were instituted in the New Testament and are binding
for all time and in all places.”[5]
He identified them as prayer, searching the Scriptures, the Lord’s Supper,
fasting, and Christian conferencing. These are all ways that we can receive
God’s love. The truth is that anything can be a means of grace “for those who
are always open to and seeking God.”[6]
Since prayer is communication with God, being open to God’s presence and love, connecting
us to who God is and what God is doing, then all the means of grace are a form
of prayer. Each means of grace is “a pathway for Christians to know and do
God’s will.”[7]
Praying without ceasing is also one of Wesley’s “Marks of
a Methodist.” As the Methodist movement got underway in the 18th
century, in 1747, Wesley published a little book called “The Character of a
Methodist.” The five distinguishing marks are that a Methodist loves God,
rejoices in God, gives thanks, prays without ceasing, and loves others. Under
his description of praying constantly, just like Jesus said we should, is that
this does not mean we are always in church, or always on our knees, or always
crying aloud to God, or always calling upon God in words. Instead, Wesley wrote
that true prayer is that “[our] hearts are ever lifted up to God, at all times
and in all places. In this [we are] never hindered, much less interrupted, by
any person or thing. In retirement or company, in leisure, business, or
conversation, [our] hearts are ever with the Lord. Whether [we] lie down or
rise up, God is in all [our] thoughts.”[8]
That’s what it means to pray continually. That’s why we have to be persistent
about it and not give up, or let ourselves be interrupted or hindered. Lift
your heart up to God, just as we say in our communion liturgy. When our hearts
are directed upward, then “whatever God wants to send our way will roll
directly into our minds and hearts,”[9]
because we’re already attuned to God, we’re already in a posture of listening;
we’re already paying attention to God. The most interesting thing I heard
Pastor Bob say at Jennings last week was the idea that God has a whole lot more
to say to us than we have to say to God. It’s not that what we say to God isn’t
important; it is, communication has to go two-ways. But what if, for all the
things we have to tell God about, our thoughts, our hurts and fears, our joys,
our concerns; what if, God has even more to tell us? It’s interesting to think
that “the key element to prayer isn’t what we say to God but rather what God
says to us.”[10] It’s
also reassuring and lets the pressure up about finding the right words or when
we don’t know what to pray. All you have to do is lift your heart up to God,
and God will do the rest. Romans 8:26 says, “The Spirit comes to help our
weakness. When we don’t know what we should pray, God’s very Spirit intercedes
with groans too deep for words.”
So, worry less. Pray more. Continue to ask, Lord, teach
me to pray. Talking to God should be like a “family conversation where you
express yourself unselfconsciously with the confidence that you will be heard
and understood.”[11]
Remember, Jesus says, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek
and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For
everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks,
the door will be opened.”[12] God hears our prayers, whether they’re prayers of praise or
confession or thanksgiving or supplication or intercession or lament, whether
they are spoken or sung, whether they have words or are silent, God hears our
prayers. God never promises to answer them exactly how we want. God is not a
vending machine and prayer doesn’t change God. Prayer changes you. When your heart is lifted up, when
you are resting in God’s presence, when you are always open to and seeking God
and asking how God is at work in the world around you, when you’re not focused
on yourself but on God, your demeanor is different. Your energy is different. The
way you interact with others is different.
Let us lift up our hearts. We lift them up to the Lord.
[1]
See John 1:35-42
[2] Feasting on the Word, Year C, Vol. 3, p.
288
[3] 5 Means of Grace by Elaine Heath, p. 5
[4] 5 Marks of a Methodist by Steve Harper,
p. 38
[5] 5 Means of Grace by Elaine Heath, p. ix
[6]
Ibid., p. viii
[7]
Ibid., p. 11
[8]
The Character of a Methodist in The Works
of John Wesley, Vol. VIII, p. 343
[9] 5 Marks of a Methodist by Steve Harper,
p. 41
[10]
Ibid.
[11] Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary,
Year C, After Pentecost, p. 103
[12]
Luke 11:9-10
