Full service can be viewed HERE.
Pentecost 7C/Proper 12C
July 24, 2022
Luke 11:1-13
INTRODUCTION:
Last week, in the story of Mary and Martha, we talked about the need for Martha, and also for us, to reorient a distracted and worried heart toward God, in order to find the peace that we crave. One way to do that is through prayer. And today, we will hear lots about prayer! Directly following his encounter with the sisters, 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.
A couple months back, I invited you to think about your spiritual needs. I hope you did – only a couple people got back to me, but I hope you all thought about it on your own! The council shared some of their own reflections at our next meeting. One spiritual need that came up in various ways was around prayer. A couple folks mentioned that the prayers were their favorite part of worship, and a handful said they wished their personal prayer life was stronger than it is.
Well, they are in good company. Even Jesus’ closest companions had the same desire! I imagine the disciples watching Jesus go off to pray by himself (something that, according to Luke, he did often), and then coming back looking like he has found everything one hopes for in prayer: peace, connection, guidance, intimacy with God. I feel with them the ache of envy that Jesus has found what is to them all too elusive. I sense in them a longing to find this same connection in prayer. And then they ask, “Lord, teach us to pray.” Can you hear the yearning in that request? I can hear it, because I have felt it myself. Like those members of our council who expressed a desire for a deeper, or more intentional prayer life, I also have tried in many and various ways to find this for myself. But it comes and goes. I’m good at praying for or with others, not so good at the sort of prayer that is simply focused on my relationship with God. Practices that used to work well for me have stopped working in my current circumstances, and so I’m always searching for other practices that will work. It feels like I’m on a constant mission to find ways to connect with God. Lord, teach me to pray!
And here is a passage that can teach us! And there is much to like about this passage. The Lord’s Prayer – I like that part. Here, Jesus gives us a formula, so that when we don’t know how or what to pray, we have somewhere to turn: Recognize God’s name and power. Ask God’s vision to come about. Request daily needs for life and sustenance – and only daily, lest we begin to rely too much on ourselves and forget to return to God each day. Admit the need for help with forgiveness, both asking and offering. And plead for safety from danger. It’s got everything! It’s a good and faithful prayer. Thanks, Jesus!
But the stuff after that… that, I find discouraging. Jesus insists that if we just ask with enough persistence, if we “ask, search and knock,” then we will get what we asked for – not scorpions or snakes, but the good stuff! In theory, I like it. But is it true? Has that been your lived experience? The way we talk about prayer, I’m not so sure. Ever notice that when we pray, and we get the outcome we prayed for (the person is healed, the relationship is saved, the conflict is resolved), we say, “God answered my prayers!” And yet, when things don’t go the way we requested, we are less inclined to claim that God answered.
Apparently, we have told ourselves, largely because of texts like this, that unless God gives us what we asked for, God either didn’t listen, or didn’t answer, or answered but the answer was “no,” or “not yet.” I am guilty of offering that last response in a desperate attempt to understand the ways of God, but honestly, it doesn’t bring me much comfort. Why would God say no to my perfectly faithful requests? Does God not want the hungry filled, justice realized, our loved ones back at church, a fulfilling vocation that also pays the bills, our diseases healed? I thought these were things God is about, so why would God say “no,” or even “not yet”? Is God so cruel that God wants us to suffer a little longer? Is God saying we’re not praying faithfully enough, or in the right way? Ugh, to say that is getting painfully close to spiritual abuse! It’s your fault, your shortcoming, that is keeping God from responding in the way you want. What happened to a God of grace??
So how, then, are we to understand prayer – both our part, and God’s part?
First, our part. I love that this exchange starts with the disciples asking for help. They admit that their prayer life is not as it should be. We would do well to start there, too! To be willing to admit, with self-awareness and vulnerability, “I need some help with this one, Lord. Would you teach me?” In fact, let this be our first prayer! Lord, teach us to pray!
Then Jesus’ response, which begins: “when you pray…” He’s made a big assumption there already, that it is “when” and not “if”! Because let’s admit it: many of us only come to God in prayer when we have a particular need we would like God to address, like some cosmic gumball machine. Insert prayer, receive sweet return.
But here Jesus assumes that prayer for a disciple is a given, a practice as natural and readily exercised as breathing or blinking. And what if it was? What if we did see every breath, every action, no matter how mundane, as a prayer? Chopping vegetables becomes a prayer of thanks for providence, perhaps a prayer for those who hunger. An agitated sigh reading the news becomes a prayer of lament. What if we trained ourselves to do that, to see every breath and action of our day as a prayer, by setting a reminder maybe 5 times throughout the day, and whenever it goes off, we stop for one minute – just one! – and simply breathe, understanding each breath as a prayer, a communion with God. How might that change our outlook on the rest of our day?
Next, a return to that challenging part of the text: “Ask, seek, knock.” Yes, I know there may be some resentment or discouragement here that what Jesus says will happen doesn’t always happen. We have been knocking on that door, seeking and asking for an answer, for years, and our kid still hasn’t come back to church, or the disease has only worsened, or gun violence keeps getting more prevalent, or the planet continues to warm. What gives, Jesus?
But that perspective is focused on the outcome of prayer. And while of course we want a certain outcome, I’m not convinced that’s the main point of prayer. The point here is in the asking, the seeking, the longing, and the imperative to come to God with it all. It is an invitation to wrestle and yearn with God as our companion, to trust that God can hold our deepest desires, to trust indeed that in our audacious asking, we draw closer to God, and God draws closer to us.
And that is the most important point of all. Jesus offers one promise in this text, and only one, and it is not, “You will get the outcome you desire if you pray hard enough or faithfully enough.” It is this: “If 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!” Did you catch that? His promise is that, when we come to God in fervent yearning, when we voice our needs and desires to God, and then voice them again, God will give us the Holy Spirit. God will give God’s own self, as our companion and comforter. It may be that the power of Spirit then guides us to a solution, or empowers us to be a part of the answer to our own request, or it may simply be the promise of presence. Whatever the case, in this promise, God will never fail.
Is that enough for us? Is the promise of God’s Spirit sufficient for us, when we come to God in prayer with our deepest desires? Or do want stuff from God, a fix from God, more than we want God’s own self? I admit sometimes the latter is exactly what I want! It’s a lot easier, after all, for God just to take care of it – to change other people’s hearts and other situations until I get the outcome I yearn for – than for God’s Spirit to transform me, and empower me to be a productive answer to my own prayer. It would be easier, yet who said a life of faith was easy?
And so here is my prayer this week: That I could trust that God’s presence with me in the brokenness of this world would be sufficient for me. That my trust would allow for enough vulnerability and humility to be transformed. That my transformation would be such that I feel empowered to bring about God’s kingdom. And that I would see God’s promised presence through it all, even in things that didn’t have the outcome I had in mind. Will you join me in that prayer?
Let us pray… Lord, teach us to pray, even through every mundane moment of our day. Make us bold in our asking. And focus our attention not so much on the desired outcome, but on the ways you are present throughout it all. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment