If there is one thing
in the church today that most people know they should be doing more of and yet
find themselves struggling at it, it would most likely be prayer. We know we
should be praying, we know that we should be doing it more than just at dinner
time and before bed. We know all throughout scripture we are told to pray, we
even use some of these passages as catch phrases to remind us to pray such as
Paul’s “pray without ceasing.” We sing
songs about prayer exclaiming that we should take it to the Lord in prayer, and
yet prayer for so many of us is one of the hardest parts of being a Christian.
Most of us don’t really know how to pray. This is not an attack on any of us,
it is part of our human condition. In
fact Paul even says in Romans 8, “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do
not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us
through wordless groans. 27 And he who searches our hearts knows
the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in
accordance with the will of God.” Paul himself admits that we do not truly know
how to pray and that we need the Holy Spirit’s help. Maybe even more reassuring
than this is that in our passage for today, Jesus’ own disciples are unsure
about how to pray and so they ask Jesus the simple question, “Lord, teach us how to pray.” As we start to dive into
Jesus’ response on how to pray, it seems only fitting that we first stop now
and go to the Lord now asking him to teach us how to pray this morning.
( Time of prayer)
Lord teach us to pray. This is the request of the
disciples of Christ. Now we can assume that they had something in mind when
they asked Jesus this question, after all, prayer had been an important part of
their Jewish faith. At that time there
were customary times and places at which they would pray daily, and if for some
reason they were not able to get away to pray at that said time, there were
memorized prayers that they could recite whenever possible. The disciples were
most likely familiar and accustomed to these types of prayers and so in asking
Jesus to teach them how to pray, they were probably asking for some practices
particular to the teachings of Christ. Jesus’ reply was then probably not what
they expected because Jesus did not give them a practice, but instead he taught
them about the nature of prayer.
Jesus does start of his answer to the disciples by giving
the disciples examples of words to say. These words probably sound somewhat
familiar to us since they make up part of the Lord’s prayer that we say every
week. When we read it Luke it sounds strange, it sounds choppy, parts seem to
be missing. This is because the Lord’s prayer we say is more derived from
Matthew’s version which seems to be more eloquent. Could it be that the direct,
straightforward, even choppy sounding version that we here in Luke has more to
teach us than just words? Could Instead of just giving us a prayer to pray,
could it be that Jesus is teaching us how to pray?
I believe that this is the case, and that Jesus is
showing us that there are so many types of prayers, and so he helps us to
understand what types of things we should pray for. Jesus starts his prayer by
saying, “Father,
hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come.” This may be the most important lesson on prayer that Jesus gives. We
start our prayer addressing God, we do not start our prayer talking about
ourselves. This shows us that prayer first and foremost starts with God. It
also reminds us of the nature of God; that God’s name should be revered. It
reminds us of the omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent nature of our God. It
reminds us that this is not just a conversation with your best friend; this is
an experience, a relationship with the Almighty! Finally this beginning phrase reminds us that
the primary goal of our prayer is seeking for God’s will to be done. We pray so
that we may work with God in bringing forth the Kingdom of God. Bishop Cho uses
a short prayer that sums up the beginning of this prayer. He prays, “God, your
will, nothing more, nothing less, nothing else.” Jesus teaches us that prayer
first and foremost starts with seeking the will of God.
Next Jesus recognizes that
we do in fact pray for our own needs, and so he teaches the disciples, “Give us
each day our daily bread.” Jesus’ words here are clever and well thought
out. First it teaches us that God gives
what is necessary. Jews at the time would have heard this phrase, give us each
day our daily bread, and would have instantly thought back to the time of the
Israelites in the dessert. They would have remembered that the Israelites asked
the Lord for bread, and so manna came from heaven. The instructions from God were to gather only
what was needed for that day. Most listened to the instructions and found that
they had neither gathered too much nor too little, but others tried to keep and
hoard bread for the next day only to find that the next morning the bread was
bad and full of maggots. Remembering
this story, the disciples would have understood that when Jesus says give us
each day our daily bread that he means to ask for only that which is needed. At
the same it is a reminder that each day is a day that we should go to the Lord
in prayer.
Jesus’ words go much
deeper than this as well. The next question to ask is what does Jesus mean by
bread? The initial response would be
that Jesus is telling us to turn to God for our daily necessities: bread,
water, clothing, shelter and this is correct. Jesus has also taught however
many times about seeking the bread of heaven. By using the word bread Jesus is
telling us to seek the Lord in prayer for both our physical needs as well as
our spiritual needs as well.
Finally Jesus concludes
the prayer by telling the disciples to say, “And
forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us. And do
not bring us to the time of trial.” Jesus reminds us about one of the
most neglected forms of prayer, the prayer of confession. Jesus reminds us to
confess our sins before the Lord and to seek forgiveness, however he adds a
little caveat at the end. Not only is confession and pardon something between
God on us, but is something we should do with each other. After all we have
just learned about the commandment to love our neighbor as ourselves. This is
why prior to communion we confess our sins together, this is why we pass the
peace, and this is why together we hear the words of pardon, “In the name of
Jesus Christ you are forgiven.” This is something that should not be taken
lightly.
After teaching the
disciples the manner in how one should pray, Jesus changes gears quite quickly
and begins to tell stories. First he tells a story of a man who has an
unexpected guest arrive late at night, and has no bread to feed them. He goes
to his friend and neighbors house and asks for some bread. The friend
originally does not want to unbolt the door because it will awaken the whole
family, but the friend does it anyway. What is at play here is the idea of
hospitality. It’s great to live in the south because this idea of hospitality
still exists here, but imagine what you have learned and multiply it.
Hospitality was something that every person was expected to provide, and
failing to do such would not just end up having you labeled as rude, but it
would bring shame upon the whole family.
This hospitality is why the man having an unexpected guest was expected
to provide bread for him, and this fear of shame is why the neighbor gave
opened up his door and gave him
bread. Jesus uses this story to teach
the disciples about the nature of God and the nature of prayer. He explains that if a neighbor who doesn’t
want to help but does because of a sense of hospitality opens the door for you,
then why would you expect less from the host of hosts?
He then goes on to give
another example. He asks the disciples to imagine not a friend this time, but
rather an evil man. This evil man is asked by his children for fish and for
eggs, would the evil man try to trick
his own children by giving a snake whose scales may feel like a fish, or a
scorpion who when rolled up may briefly
look like an egg? The answer is of
course no. Jesus goes on to explain, if
even an evil man provides for his children and does not deceive, why would we expect anything different from
the good and loving God? Jesus uses
these two examples to teach the
disciples about the nature of God. That God is one who will hear our needs,
that God is one that will respond.
We then of course have
Jesus saying this famous phrase to the disciples, “So I
say to you, Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock,
and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and
everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be
opened. Many of us may even know
the song, “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all
these shall be added unto you, alleluia. Ask and it shall be given unto you,
seek and ye shall find, knock and the door shall be opened unto you, alleluia.”
It is a phrase, a song that some of us may treasure. I am afraid however, that
it is often treasured in the wrong ways.
So often we hear these
words ask and it will be given unto you,
seek and you will find, knock and it will be given unto you and we hear
these as words of entitlement. I am part of generation Y ( barely I must add)
or what is sometimes called the millennials. There is another nickname for this
generation, that is generation me. It is considered a generation of
narcissists, who don’t just strive to succeed but expect it. It is a generation
that expects to obtain everything that they desire, which is why there is the nickname generation
me, because everything focuses on the self.
As much as others like to look at our generation and agree with this
stereotype, I feel as though when look at how many people, from many
generations pray we find that others share many of these traits with my
generation. After all so often when we pray it is about us. If we are honest with ourselves, how often do
we pray for something specific to happen in our lives compared to how often we
pray for God’s will to be done?
When we read this section
of our scripture for today about asking and it shall be given to us, seeking
and we shall find; it often feeds into our own narcissism. It makes us think
that all I have to do is ask for something from God and God will grant my wish.
We begin to view God less like an Almighty deity in which we serve, and more like
a magic genie who is required to grant our wishes. So then what do we say when what we pray for
doesn’t come true. What happens when we pray to get accepted to a certain
school and get rejected? What happens when we pray to get offered a job, only
to find that they have hired someone else? What happens when we pray for the
healing of a loved one and they pass away?
I am not making light of these situations, and it is not that I am
taking prayer lightly, but these are honest questions that many of us will ask
sometimes in our lives. We pray to God asking for something, sometimes that
prayer comes true and we give all the glory to God for it, but what happens
when it doesn’t? Do we get angry at God?
We just read that God is not evil, that God hears us and answers; we
just read that ask and it shall be given unto us? Why then don’t we always get
what we want?
R. Alan Culpepper, dean of
the school of theology at Mercer University argues that we are often we do not
pay attention to the verbs, ask, seek, knock.[1]
Far too often we come to the door as those who feel entitled. Our prayers more
often than not take the form of demands rather than petitions. We come to God
as if we come to a server at the
restaurant, “May I get the house special” when in reality it is just a polite
way of saying I want it, give it to me. Culpepper argues that these words, ask,
seek, knock, are words that indicate that we who come before God are like
beggars. We have nothing, and ask for God’s generosity. We don’t demand God’s justice, we ask for
God’s mercy. When we come to prayer like a beggar, like one not even worthy to
ask for a crumb, then we start to understand the whole passage better. We
understand what it means that God will provide, we don’t try to gather and
store our heavenly bread, but celebrate each day for our blessings. When we
come to prayer as a beggar, we begin to see how truly dependent we are on God,
and how God truly does provide. And it
is for this reason that we like the disciples shall come to Christ and start by
saying, “Lord, teach us to pray.”
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