Teach Us To Pray Luke 11:1-13 Rev. Jason Alspaugh First Baptist Church of Dayton Sunday, July 24, 2016 In the Gospel of Luke, we often find Jesus withdrawing to deserted places to pray, with his disciples not far off. i And we might assume that the disciples have also been praying while Jesus has been praying, but today s episode makes me wonder. Jesus rejoins them, and they ask, Lord, teach us to pray and I have to wonder what they were doing all the other times he was out praying. Were they praying, too, or were they just waiting around for him to come back? Or were they pretending to pray, too embarrassed to admit they didn t have a clue? Whatever the case may be, one of them finally musters the courage to ask Jesus to teach them to pray. And it dawns on me that few, if any, are asking this question today. As far as I know, no one is asking us to teach them how to pray. Perhaps no one is asking because it s considered an absurd question. Everyone seems to think prayer is as easy and natural as breathing. Who needs to be taught how to pray? You just talk to God, right? In her poem, Praying, Mary Oliver says: It doesn t have to be the blue iris, it could be weeds in a vacant lot, or a few small stones; just pay attention, then patch a few words together and don t try to make them elaborate, this isn t a contest but the doorway into thanks, and a silence in which another voice may speak. Even in the church we assume that people know how to pray. We say, Let us pray, or pray with me, and everyone is supposed to know what to do. Those of us who have been around 1
church for a while can forget that knowing how to pray is not a given. I have to remind myself that praying was something I had to learn. It really began for me with the Lord s Prayer. In the fourth grade I started attending worship at First Baptist in Springfield with my friend, Phil. And I remember the strangeness of it all, especially when everyone, including Phil, started saying the same words at the same time. No one said that this was something I should do. And no one made an attempt to teach me the words. I was too embarrassed to admit that I was clueless. So I just mouthed the words I could catch, and Sunday after Sunday I picked up more and more of the words. It was like learning the lyrics from a song. And eventually I learned all the words, and have prayed it every Sunday since. A good part of wanting to learn it at first was wanting to for in with everyone else--i didn't want to be the only one who didn't know the prayer--but since then my understanding of the importance of that prayer, and of prayer in general, has deepened. Prayer is a discipline, a spiritual practice, and as such it must be taught, learned, and practiced. So much of our focus is on practice, with little thought given to teaching and learning, but it s all necessary. Now I m not trying to be elitist about praying. And I m not here to critique your prayer life. But I do think we should pay more attention to it. Maybe it is easy to do prayer, but I don t think it's easy to understand prayer. After all, what are we doing when we pray? What do we think is happening or will happen when we pray? What does our praying have to say about how we think of God? Are we addressing God as some genie-like wish-granter who is just waiting for us to call? And what does it mean when our demands are not met, our wishes unfulfilled? Learning to pray means wrestling with these kinds of questions. I think this is what it means to persevere in prayer. ii Persevering in prayer means praying like a psalmist. If you ve never prayed like a psalmist, you should try it. It s disturbing. Psalmists cried out, questioned, and challenged God. Like Job, they wondered why the wicked prospered while the righteous suffered. They poured out there anger and agony to God, even as they sought to trust and praise God. Jesus prayed like a psalmist, crying out from the cross, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me! iii To persevere in prayer is to continue praying even if it does not resolve all of the complexities and contradictions of our existence. If we do not persevere, prayer becomes trivial. These days whenever something tragic happens many people go to social media and post comments like: "you're in my thoughts and prayers," praying for you, or just praying. Statements like these are now trivialized and 2
mocked. They seem like patented responses to anything bad that happens. And some have claimed that it's a way of absolving oneself of the responsibility to actually do something. Prayer is seen as a cop out that doesn't really change anything. You think you ve done something, but to some you really haven t done anything. No one is asking us to teach them to pray, because prayer is seen as a pious waste of time. After the mass shooting at PULSE, a gay nightclub in Orlando, I saw posts of people saying they would not pray, they would not attend one more vigil. These are people exhausted and fed up with all of the seemingly ineffectual calls for prayer--#prayfororlando, #PrayForTurkey, #PrayForNice, #PrayForMunich, etc. Instead of praying, they said they would act, they would actually do something. Others called for prayer and action, but even in that there is the subtle message that prayer is not action, it doesn t do anything. In one respect, this is a valid critique. If prayer causes you to stop short of acting, then maybe you should stop praying. The Prophet Isaiah declared the word of the LORD, saying: I cannot endure solemn assemblies with iniquity. Your new moons and your appointed festivals my soul hates; they have become a burden to me, I am weary of bearing them. When you stretch out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow. iv Likewise, the word of the LORD came to the Prophet Amos, saying: 3
I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt-offerings and grain-offerings, I will not accept them; and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals I will not look upon. Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. v The prophets made it clear that evil action or inaction in the face of oppression is not consonant with prayer. Praying i.e., conversing with God should do something to us. There is not meant to be a line of separation between prayer and action. Rather, prayer is to be a continuous action that gets us involved with God and God s reign of justice and love and peace here on earth. When LGBT people suffer discrimination and violence, and we pray, but then do nothing to welcome and affirm; when African Americans are incarcerated and killed at disproportionately higher rates, and we pray, but then do nothing to address racism, poverty, and police misconduct; when dozens of innocent people men, women, and children are gunned down, and we pray, but then do nothing to prevent future attacks I have to ask: Who is unmoved by our prayers, God or us? Given all of the evil we encounter in the world, we may think that God is not for us, that God does not have our best interest in mind, but Jesus said that if we know how to give good gifts, how much more does God?! Is it possible that God has given us what we need and is trusting us to work things out? Could it be that God has gifted us in some way to be God s answer to someone s prayers? God offers us God s very self, the Spirit, to empower us for good works. Do we have as much confidence in ourselves, as God seems to have in us? If not, if our confidence is wavering, then pray as Jesus taught. Jesus orients our prayer life with the astounding instruction to address God as Father. Now whether you call God Father, Mother, Parent, Love, Life, LORD, Jesus taught us to pray as those who are children of God. This is the source of our confidence, and the guide to our conduct. The writer of 1 John said, See what love the Father has given us, that we should be 4
called children of God; and that is what we are [ therefore] Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action. vi As God s children we are to pray for God's kingdom, above every other desire. In our asking, may we be given the kingdom. In our searching, may we find the kingdom. In our knocking may the doors of the kingdom be opened to us. There are lots of convincing messages out there telling us that there is a lot that we need, but Jesus said, Seek first the kingdom of God and the rest will follow. vii Ask only for enough, for daily bread. When we seek more than what we truly need, we ensure that someone else will not have enough. Be on your guard, Jesus said, against all kinds of greed viii And as children of God who seek the kingdom, we ought to pray for forgiveness; and pray to give it. Our life with God is inextricably linked to our life with one another. Again, in 1 John, we are told that those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. ix So how can we expect to be reconciled with God, but not with our brothers and sisters? How can we ask for ourselves that which we would withhold from others? So pray for forgiveness. And pray that [we] may not come into the time of trial. x Jesus told his disciples this twice on the Mount of Olives, when violence and death were very real possibilities. And where the threat of violence and death exist, fear can be found as well. Today there may be nothing that tempts us more, nothing that tries us more, than fear. Fear would tempt us to abandon the peace of Christ and justify violent means. Fear would tempt us to build barriers between us and others who are different from us. Fear would tempt us to abandon prayer and God altogether, leading us to believe that we re alone and that it all depends on us. Do not give into the peddlers of fear. Instead, let us give ourselves to prayer. Let us continually learn to pray. Let us persevere in prayer. Ask. Search. Knock. Pray like a psalmist. Pray the kind of prayer that flows seamlessly into acts of love and justice. Be moved. And to God be the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen. i Lk. 4:42; 5:16; 6:12; 9:18 ii Romans 12:12 iii Psalm 22:1 iv Isaiah 1:13b-17 5
v Amos 5:21-24 vi 1 John 3:1, 18 vii Luke 12:31 viii Luke 12:15 ix 1 John x Luke 22:40, 46 6