July 25, 2010

Scripture: Luke 11:1-13

¹[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.” ²He said to them, “When you pray, say:
 Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. 
³Give us each day our daily bread. 
⁴And forgive us our sins,
for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us. And do not bring us to the time of trial.”

⁵And 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; ⁶for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.’ ⁷And 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.’ ⁸I 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. ⁹ “So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. ¹⁰For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. ¹¹Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish? ¹²Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion? ¹³If 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!”

Sermon: “Why Pray?”

When I was a little kid, I remember my father teaching me to pray. Every night before I’d go to bed, we’d get down on our knees and pray the “Now I lay me down to sleep…” prayer that some of you also may have said when you were growing up. After that prayer, my father taught me to pray for the people who were important in my life, for our country, for the world. After a while, he let me come up with my own list of people and things to pray for, and he did not edit it too much.

So, in 1969, for example, when I was seven, one of my typical childhood prayers would have sounded something like this:

Now I lay me down to sleep;

I pray the Lord my soul to keep;

If I should die before I wake;

I pray the Lord my soul to take.

God bless: - Mommy, Daddy, Grandmother,

- Igor (our dachshund),

- Everyone in Massachusetts (where I lived),

- Everyone in Tennessee and Kansas (where my relatives lived),

- President Nixon (though I’m not sure my prayers helped him…)

- Children in India (where I had heard there was a food shortage.)

- And, God, help me to get an “A” on my spelling test. Amen.

When I was a child learning to pray, I thought prayer was primarily about asking God for things—and hoping for a particular answer. When I was a child, my prayers were about trying to find the right words to say to God that hopefully would lead to the answer I wanted. When I think back on my childhood prayers, it was almost like I thought there were some magic words I could say that would lead God to act in a certain way! Thankfully, as I have gotten older, my prayers have changed. My prayers have become much less about asking and answering. I am no longer looking for magic words. Rather, my prayers now mostly involve seeking a relationship with God.

I think it is this switch in the understanding of prayer—from looking for magic words to seeking a relationship—that Jesus is trying to teach the disciples in today’s Scripture reading.

When the disciples say to Jesus, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples,” they still seem to think prayer is primarily about finding the right words. Back in that day and age, in the Jewish religion practiced by Jesus and his disciples, prayers were just starting to become formalized. By the first century A.D., there was a particular set of prayers that a devout person would repeat every morning and evening. John the Baptist came out of this tradition and taught his disciples a similar type of prayer. So, when Jesus’ disciples ask him to teach them how to pray, they are focused primarily on learning “the right words” to say to God, but that’s not primarily what Jesus teaches them. He does give them words to say, but that’s not his main focus. His main focus is to remind them of “nature of the one they are praying to.” (New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary, Volume IX, p. 238.)

Jesus begins, “When you pray, say, “Father…” The word “Father” used here is the Aramaic word “Abba.” (Aramaic being the common Semitic language that Jesus and the disciples spoke.) The word “Abba” is an interesting word. It really could be more accurately translated, “Daddy,” as it conveys the intimate, loving relationship that a child ideally has with his or her father. One commentator says that starting a prayer with the word “Daddy,” “…establishes the relationship that makes the rest of the prayer possible.” (New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary, Volume IX, p. 234.)

In other words, Jesus is saying: It’s not the words that we say to God that are most important; what’s most important is relishing the relationship with God, who loves us as a daddy loves his precious little children. Just as human daddies care about their children and work to provide for their physical and emotional needs, such as bread, forgiveness, protection, so our Heavenly Daddy cares for us all and wants us all to be healthy and whole and safe and happy. (Just an aside here: Jesus was teaching 2000 years ago in a patriarchal culture where the daddies were the ones primarily responsible for these things. It is my belief that if Jesus were teaching today, he might well use the words “Daddy” and “Mommy” interchangeably in his prayers…)

Okay, then, let’s stop here for a moment. If prayer is more about a relationship with our Heavenly parent than it is about words, then how do we live that relationship out?

For me, it’s helpful to think back to when I was a little child and how I related to my parents. If I needed something, I’d go to them first. If I happened to be the first one up in the morning, I’d go jump on their bed in pure joy. If I wanted to go over to a friend’s house, I’d ask their permission. If I had learned something new, like standing on my hands underwater in my grandmother’s pool, I couldn’t wait to show my parents, excitedly saying, “Mommy, Daddy, watch me!” If I had to travel anywhere, I’d depend on them to drive. Although there were times when I would get cranky or act up, like any kid, I’d have to say that my main motivation in life as a child was to earn my parents’ approval. And having them say to me, “I’m proud of you,” was the best thing imaginable, better even than a boatload of candy.

What if we related to God like that? What if, whenever we needed anything, we went to God first? What if, right after we got up in the morning, before we did anything, we greeted God with joy? What if, before we interacted with our friends or family, we prayed that those relationships would be what God wanted, not just what we wanted. What if, every time we learned something new, our first thought was, “Hey, God, watch me!” What if, every time we got in the car, we pictured God sitting in the passenger seat next to us? (That image, actually, was thought up by one of the deacons at their last meeting. Who said church meetings couldn’t be fun? J) What if our main motivation in life was to make God proud of us, living according to the grace and gifts we have received?

Now I don’t mean to presume that you aren’t already relating to God like this. In fact, my guess is that you are, as this is a congregation with a great deal of spiritual depth. But probably most of us, like the disciples, could use a reminder from time to time that prayer is more about living out our relationship with God than it is about finding the right words to say.

Speaking of the right words to say, let me make one final comment. Notice that nowhere in his teaching on prayer does Jesus say that God will always give us the particular thing we ask for. No. What Jesus promises is this: answers will be given to our prayers, searching will be rewarded, doors will be open. But Jesus doesn’t promise what the particular answers, rewards, and doors will be. Like the sleepy neighbor in our Scripture reading, God gives us what we “need,” not necessarily what we want or ask for. As one commentator beautifully puts it, “Prayer opens the blocked channels between the soul and God, and God’s richest answer to any prayer is the gift of [God’s self.]” (In Quest of a Kingdom, Leslie D. Weatherhead, p. 193.)

Building on that quote, I’d like to close by reading a paragraph by that commentator, Rev. Leslie Weatherhead, who was a pastor in England during World War II:

You imagine, no doubt, that if you could have an hour or two with Jesus Christ in the flesh, in your room where you say your prayers, you would ask him many questions, and try to get him to solve many problems. You think now that if you could have him to yourself like that, you would ask for explanations of all the things that seem difficult to you. But, my dear reader, you would not.

When he came into your room, you would kneel down and kiss the hem of his garment, and I think he would put his hands upon your head in loving forgiveness, and a strange, secret strength would rush through your body, and an ineffable peace would fall upon your spirit. And then, I think, you would lift your eyes to his, and you would not ask him anything. You would only want to look into his face. When you saw his face, you would feel that there was nothing left to ask. You would be in the kingdom of heaven, in the kind of wordless fellowship which true lovers know, in which to ask for things would be unthinkable, a breaking of the spell, in which the presence of the Beloved, realized and rested in, is all the heaven one seeks, the answer to all prayers, the end of all journeying, and the goal of all holy desire.” Amen. (In Quest of a Kingdom, Leslie D. Weatherhead, p. 193.)