Let US Pray Sermon by Pastor Kristen Larsen-Schmidt Jan 20, 2013 Traditional and Blended Services for the people of Calvary Lutheran Church James 5:13-19 Are any among you suffering? They should pray. Are any cheerful? They should sing songs of praise. [14] Are any among you sick? They should call for the elders of the church and have them pray over them, anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord. [15] The prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise them up; and anyone who has committed sins will be forgiven. [16] Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective. Psalm 100:1-5 A Psalm of thanksgiving. Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth. [2] Worship the Lord with gladness; come into his presence with singing. [3] Know that the Lord is God. It is he that made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. [4] Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise. Give thanks to him, bless his name. [5] For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations. Ephesians 6:18-20 Pray in the Spirit at all times in every prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert and always persevere in supplication for all the saints. [19] Pray also for me, so that when I speak, a message may be given to me to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, [20] for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it boldly, as I must speak. Matthew 18:19-20 Again, truly I tell you, if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. [20] For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them."
Dear Friends in Christ, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. How do you feel about praying in public? Does the thought of being asked to pray before Thanksgiving dinner give you the shakes? Or how do you react when football stars take a knee after scoring a touchdown? Great show of faith, but just that, kind of a show? When Jesus taught people how to pray in his Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew 6,he started with a warning, saying, don t be like the hypocrites, who love to stand in public places and be seen praying, who heap up empty phrases with lots of words. They ve already gotten their reward looking big in the eyes of the world. Don t be like that. We don t want to be like that! No! Especially not in these parts! There is something about the culture of the upper-midwest that makes us particularly stoic and reticent about out-loud prayer. We seem to have taken Jesus warning very much to heart. Praying out loud, with other people, well, it just doesn t come naturally to many of us. We don t want people to think we re Holy Rollers! In fact, we are so afraid of seeming showy and disingenuous that many would rather not say anything about faith at all. I am reminded of a conversation I had with a former parishioner once, a good man who I considered a friend. I was visiting with him about his 98 year old dad, and even doing some pre-planning for his funeral. He was saying, My dad was never one to talk much about God. But you know, he never missed church, and he made sure we didn t either. He said, I guess I m like that too. Not one to talk about religion, but I guess God knows what I believe. And then he pulled out his wallet, and showed me a worn card, with a cross and a poem on it, a poem named A cross in my pocket. It s by a woman named Mrs. Verna Mae Thomas. Maybe you ve heard of it. Here are a few of the stanzas: I carry a cross in my pocket A simple reminder to me Of the fact that I am a Christian No matter where I may be. It's not for identification For all the world to see It's simply an understanding Between my Savior and me. When I put my hand in my pocket To bring out a coin or a key The cross is there to remind me Of the price He paid for me. So, I carry a cross in my pocket Reminding no one but me That Jesus Christ is the Lord of my life If only I'll let Him be. As I handed the card back to my friend, he looked at me expectantly, Isn t that nice, he said? And I said, yeah, it s nice to be reminded we belong to Jesus, but does it need to be such a secret? How will your kids know how much your savior means to you if you never talk about it? He said, Oh, they know how I feel. I don t need to go blowing any trumpets. Well, he might be right. After all, he never missed church either. I m guessing He took it to heart, what Jesus says in Matthew 6:6, When you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
Some of you might agree with him about this. But, listen, Do you think Jesus mean that we should never pray out loud or with others? If that s what Jesus meant, then he did not follow his own rule very well. True, the gospels do record that Jesus had a practice of going off by himself to pray. And we all need to follow his example of making our one on one time with God a priority. But there are other times when he clearly prays in public. He prayed silently, but publicly after his baptism, he prayed out loud before he raised Lazarus. He is seen and heard praying before he fed the 5000 and before handing out the bread and wine during his last supper. That night, John records that he prayed a long beautiful prayer out loud for his disciples, and even for those who would come to believe because of them (that is, he prayed for US!). He prayed in anguish in front of his disciples at Gethsemane, and asked them to pray for him. In his dying breaths, three of his last seven spoken words were prayers. Jesus was not private about his faith, and he did not intend us to be either. After all, he said, Go and make disciples of all nations, teaching them everything that I have taught you and baptizing them. How can we do this teaching and discipling and baptizing without praying together? No, I don t believe that Jesus ever intended to forbid us from praying in community, for this was as natural to him as breathing. Jesus concern in Matthew 6 is that our prayers are real and genuinely directed to God, and not just for showing off to others how great we are. Part of the reason I read this Matthew 6 text this way is that after giving all these admonishments about how not to pray for show and use fancy phrases, Jesus teaches the people a prayer we call The Lord s prayer. Now think about this--what is the very first word of the Lord s prayer? OUR. Jesus does Not say My FATHER, though he is the only one who by rights can say this. Instead, Jesus taught us to pray Our Father. He taught us that through him, we are adopted into God s own family and that we have total, personal access to God, every day! But Jesus address also reminds us that through our adoption into Jesus family, we are also brothers and sisters with one another. This faith thing was never meant to be about just me and Jesus, it necessarily includes my relationship and responsibility to every Christian. Jesus taught us to pray in plural terms. He taught us to pray in community, and this teaching is followed throughout all of the New Testament. Read Acts, and every time you turn the page the believers are said to be together praying. All of Paul s letters contains one or more prayers for the believers and requests to the believers to offer prayers from them. And James tells us outright that we should be praying for each other, especially for the sick. This is why we always include the sick and recovering in our prayers of the people of Sunday morning. In fact, if you count the hymns which are really prayers, a good portion of our Sunday service is prayer. Corporate prayer is nothing more than us coming together as sons and daughters into God s presence, laying claim to the throne of grace. But today I really want to think beyond Sunday morning, because I believe we are called to be a praying people Monday through Saturday too, and not just in our prayer closet, all alone with God, but together with our family and friends. Now, I realize this is a stretch for many of us, because it has not been taught to many of us. I know this because in preparation for this sermon today, I have asked a lot of people, How did you learn to pray? You might want to ask someone that question today. It is an interesting conversation starter. I ve been asking folks, Did your parents pray out loud with you growing up, and I ve had a lot of people say, No, not really. You know, Come Lord Jesus before meals, that sort of thing. So
when did you learn to pray, I mean, really pray? I ask. Some have said, I never did learn to pray out loud. I just pray to myself. Others have said., I guess it was at Vacation Bible School. At camp. In a Baptist Bible study. My own dad said as much. Luther League taught him to pray. I m glad he learned to pray somewhere, but I can t help wondering, why do we need to leave home to lea to pray? Martin Luther was a huge pray-er in his home, along with his wife! Where did this Lutheran habit of silent prayer come from? Wouldn t it be better if we could learn prayer as the first language of faith at home? Wouldn t it be great if prayer was fed to us with our baby food and that it was wrapped around us at night with our covers? If kids can witness their parents listening to their worries and taking those worries straight to God, don t you think they will learn to do the same? Let s encircle our children s lives with prayer, and let them us at it before they are even out of the womb. Are you or someone you know expecting? Don t wait to pray for this child, now. If you are an expectant couple, why not take time to pray blessing over the nursery before the baby comes. Pray a prayer dedicating the baby to God before you go to the hospital. After all, our children are not really ours. They come God and they return to God, so we might as well acknowledge it now. hear start a from As our children grow, we teach them pray as a way of life, before meals and at bedtime] but we can also mark special moments and the days with ritual and prayer. Don t wait for the church to initiate this. We are all pastors in our own homes. Encircle your children with your prayer and blessings on the first day of school, when they lose their teeth, when they get their driver s licence, when they go to prom, when they graduate, get married, when you find out they are expecting. Take the time, find a way to let them know the power of your prayers. Pray over their beat up cars, their class rings, their friends Pray over victories and mistakes. I think parents feel nervous to do this, they are afraid they won t get it right. Listen, there is no wrong except not doing it. You will make lots of mistakes, I know we have. Your children will not always appreciate your efforts to pray with them, but keep at it. Prayer is the most powerful tool in our parenting and grandparenting arsenal. Don t lay it aside because it gets awkward. Keep at it. Maybe you think my kids or grandkids are past that stage, it s too late for me to be starting that now. No, it s not too late for them, and it s not too late for you either, no matter where you are on life s journey, to start praying with people you love. You don t even have to be there in person to pray for someone. My brother is godson to our son Micah. He lives in Chicago and we see him about once a year. Still, he is good about remembering Micah s baptismal birthday. In the past, he sent bible story books, which has been so kind. But I actually prefer what he has done the past two years. He has simply sent a card to Micah on his baptismal birthday, but inside the envelope, the cards aren t addressed to Micah, they are addressed to God. He sends Micah the prayer that he is praying for him, a blessing for his life. Think what this will mean to my son in the years to come? This method of praying for others in written form, this can be done with anyone. What greater gift could you give your grandchildren than your prayer?
I especially want to encourage husbands and wives if you don t regularly pray together, no matter how long you ve been married, it is not too late to start. Here is an e-mail I recently read on a blog about prayer: It comes from a woman named Carol, who is 64 years old and has been married for 45 years. She writes: Here s My #1 suggestion for strengthening a marriage: Pray together My husband and I pray together when we wake up in the morning and when we go to bed. One of our assistant ministers told us about this when we were taking a Bible Study course from her. We have been praying together like this for over ten years. My husband prays at night. If he has already gone to sleep before me, he turns over when I turn out my light, grabs my hand & starts praying. Now we hold hands when we pray be it in church, at meals or during our prayer time together. We do not miss very many days or nights of praying together, praying for each of our family members by name, but the sweetest part is when he mentions my name. I also learn what he is concerned about: work, health, friends, etc. when he mentions them in his prayers. This act of praying together for our children, grandchildren, aging parents and concerns about our life along with praises for what the Lord has done that day has strengthen our marriage in such a way that I cannot imagine. I have the morning shift. Sometimes it is still difficult to wake up and pray at 6 AM, but very much worth it. Did you notice they ve been married for 45 years, but they ve only been praying together for 10! It is never too late to start. I was talking with my parents about their pattern of praying together yesterday. They use the free devotional, Christ in our Home After reading the scripture and devotional, they pray for their loved ones and the concerns of the world. I know this because when I was a teenager, I was often up later than them, and I would hear them in their praying. I would hear them praying for me by name. Talking to her yesterday, my mom said, You know, Kristen, it s not always so inspiring. Your dad nods off right in the middle of a sentence and I have to nudge him to finish. But even so daily prayer together has really been the glue of our lives. Personally, I have to confess, I am far from a perfect pray-er. I often struggle to feel heard, and my attention tends to wanders. But when I pray with others, I feel like I am better able to concentrate, I am not quite so self-absorbed, and I am more able to feel heard by God, perhaps because I am being heard by other believers as well. I feel a weight lifted, praying with others.that I am not carrying my own burden alone. I feel blessed, to be able to pray with others. When I look back at 10 years in ministry, I believe that the most meaningful and powerful moments for me personally have happened during times of prayer with others. Like the day when my friend called me the one with the cross in his pocket and said his dad only had a little bit of time, and would I come and meet with all his brothers and sisters and their kids for a time of prayer and remembrance. It was a beautiful thing to hear them share their stories and gratitude with the old man, yelling in his ear because he was so deaf. It was beyond touching for me, when my friend offered a prayer of thanks for his dad, loud and clear, plainspoken and heart-felt in front of his entire family, as tears streamed down their faces. Priceless. This is what we were made for. We were created for community by a God who taught us to pray in plural. What could be more natural than this? Dare to pray with each other.