Pentecost 7C
Proper 12
July 28, 2019
Luke 11:1-11
INTRODUCTION:
Last week, in
the story of Mary and Martha, we compared Martha, the eager to serve,
distracted busy-body, to Mary, who sat at Jesus’ feet, ready to listen and take
to heart whatever it was Jesus had to say to her. We talked about Mary’s action
as a sort of discernment, even a prayer, as she comes to the Lord with a heart
open and ready to hear Jesus’ voice.
This week, we
get to delve more into prayer. Directly following this encounter, Jesus himself
will go to pray (something, incidentally, that he does more in Luke’s Gospel
than all of the other Gospels combined!). The disciples will be so interested
in that, that they will ask him, “Lord, teach us to pray.” They are hungry to
be close to God, as Jesus is.
Our other texts today are also about
prayer. In Genesis, Abraham will bargain with God, asking him again and again
to save rather than condemn the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. “Come on, Lord,
you don’t want to hurt innocent people,” he says. “Please, rethink your plan!” A
classic prayer, right? “God, do this thing that I think would be better! Please
and thank you!” And the Psalm gives thanks for the times when God has heard our
plea, and responded. It’s a pretty strong theme today! So, as you listen to the
readings, consider what your own prayers are like. Do you spend more time in
prayer asking God for help with things, or thanking God, or confessing, or
applauding God’s good work, or simply listening for guidance? What does it look
or sound like when God responds (whether that response is a yes, or a no)?
Where is your own prayer life strong, or where could it be stronger? Let’s
listen.
[READ]
Grace to you and peace from God our
Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Some years ago,
I put together a Lenten series on prayer. Each week, we learned about a
different way to pray – through art, yoga, coloring, and more. I bought and
read a bunch of books about prayer, and tried out some ways of praying that
were new to me. The congregation worked together to create a prayer book with
some of our favorite prayers and ways of praying. Those who participated, and I
especially, finished the series with a whole bunch of new and exciting ways of
engaging in prayer, many of which I have since put into practice.
And yet still,
I hear this plea from the disciples, “Lord, teach us to pray,” and my heart
leaps in agreement. I know the techniques. I can recite prayers or come up with
one off the top of my head. I can pray with my mind, body, or spirit. Yet there
is still some longing there that makes me resonate with this simple request:
“Lord, teach us to pray.”
I wonder if it
is because there is some part of me that wonders if I’m doing it right. Have
you ever wondered that? “If I’m praying right,” we may wonder, “Then why didn’t
God give me the answer I was looking for? Did God even hear me? Did I pray hard
enough, or faithfully enough? Or did God hear me, and the answer was no?” And
then, if we get there, we wonder, “Why would God say no to such a loving and
faithful request? Why wouldn’t God want to feed the hungry, or end violence, or
heal my loved one, or bring my adult child back to the church? Why would the
answer to these things be no?”
I think we
often see prayer as transactional – we ask, and we get something in return. And
texts like today’s, with Jesus saying, “Ask, and you shall receive!” serve to
solidify that image. As one preacher observes, this text invites us “to believe
that God is a cosmic gumball machine into which we can insert our prayers like
so many shiny quarters.” But then we grow up, and we discover that “ask and you
shall receive” doesn’t really work out as often as we’d like it to, at least
not in the way we had in mind. And maybe we get to the point eventually of
throwing up our hands and thinking, “Why bother?? Are my prayers really making
a difference? Do my measly prayers really have the power to change God’s mind
about what’s going to happen?”
Of course,
there is a lot more to prayer than simply asking God for something, though I
suspect prayers asking for help are the most common sort of prayers we utter.
There is some part of us that does want God as our cosmic gumball machine,
there to provide whatever we request. But I wonder if the disciples who watched
Jesus pray that day saw that prayer could be something more than that. What is
it that they saw in Jesus’ prayer that they were not experiencing themselves?
Well, I wasn’t there, of course, and
Luke doesn’t tell us much, but I could venture a guess, based on my own
experience with prayer, and my knowledge of Jesus. I suspect when they saw
Jesus pray, they saw peace. Communion. Intimacy. Belonging. Trust. The sort of
connection that leads to growth and transformation. Renewed vision. Perspective
on life’s challenges. These are all things I long to experience in prayer! And
so I can understand why the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray. Teach
ME these things, too, Lord! Teach me to be patient, when prayer does not result
in immediately gratifying results. Teach me not to see prayer as a mere
transaction, where I ask and God provides, like God is some sort of cosmic
gumball machine. Teach me to confess being greedy for simple answers and quick
gains. Teach me to see prayer not as a place to bring my laundry list of
requests, but as a place to sit and rest and get to know God, and to be known
by God. Teach me to pray!
Jesus’ response
to their request has been fodder for thousands upon thousands of books,
sermons, workshops, you name it. It’s almost as if prayer is something that has
been both gift and challenge to 2000 years worth of Christians, not to mention
people of other praying faiths! I can barely scratch the surface in the next
few minutes, so let me just say a couple things.
First, in his
answer, Jesus gives them permission to be bold in their prayer. “Seek!” he
says. “Knock! Ask!” Don’t be shy! Tell God what it is for which you yearn,
hunger, and passionately want. You may find that the mere act of asking may
already be a part of the answer you seek. You see, when we can admit our needs
to God, we can admit them to ourselves. And once they are named, we are one
step closer to finding the peace, trust, communion, and transformation we
crave. Jesus’ lesson here is a lesson of permission: permission to name our
deepest longings, and acknowledge the desires that drive us.
Of course sometimes, we don’t even
know what those longings and desires are. So how shall we discover them? Jesus
accounted for that, too. That’s why he gave us the Lord’s Prayer, which is a
lovely prayer just as written, but even more powerful when used as a tool and
guide for deeper reflection. Each petition offers a window into our hearts. For
example, “Give us each day our daily bread.” As Luther asks in the Small
Catechism, “What does this mean for us?” It is a request for whatever we need
each day to survive and be sustained. I think most or all of us here have our
literal daily bread, but this petition invites us to go deeper and ask, “Where
do I not feel sustained? What do I need that I am not getting? Where do I not
feel full? Where in my heart am I feeling more diminished than full, like I’m
barely pulling through each day?” Let these questions then guide your prayer.
If you’re looking to spice up your prayer life, you could do this with all the
petitions of the Lord’s Prayer – they are each rich in different ways. Use Luther’s
Small Catechism as a guide to spur some questions, and then use those questions
to guide your prayer. As you reflect on these questions, you can begin putting
words to your longings, and can come to God asking, seeking, knocking
persistently at the door for these things. When we start by acknowledging to
God what those things are, we are better prepared to hear where God might be
leading us toward an answer.
Yet that answer might not, finally,
be the answer we were looking for, nor some sort of quick fix. Then again, God
never promised to give us the answer we were looking for. Ask and you’ll
receive – not, you’ll receive what you asked for. But you’ll receive what you
need. Because Jesus does make a powerful promise in this passage – did you
notice what it was? It’s right there in the last line: “how much more will the
heavenly Father give… the Holy Spirit
to those who ask him!” God may not give physical healing, or answers, or
wealth, but what God gives is far better and all that we could ever need: God
gives his own self, his own loving, comforting, empowering, healing,
life-giving self, to accompany us in our pain, and grief, and longing. God’s
promise is not to fix it all, but rather, to be there with us in it.
Is that enough for us? Or are we more
interested in getting stuff from God, rather than God himself? Do we want God
the Great Fixer more than we want God to accompany us so that we would be
strengthened and empowered to do our part to heal the world? I’ll be honest,
sometimes I do. Yet even still I know, that the answers I think I want will
never be as sustaining or life-giving as God’s presence with me will be. As
long as God is with us, we will know love. As long as we recognize God’s
presence with us, we will know peace. As long as the Holy Spirit is with us, we
will see again and again how God turns our endings and sadness into joy and new
life. This is the only answer, the only promise we will ever need.
Let us pray… Holy Spirit, come to us. When we seek answers and resolution and
comfort and peace, come to us. When we are at our wit’s end with our problems,
come to us. Grant us your peace, your strength, your comfort, and your life. In
the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment