Luke 11:1-13
March 24, 2019
First Presbyterian Church, Sterling, IL
Christina Berry
This third Sunday in Lent puts us at about the halfway mark of the season. In our series on Wholehearted Worship, we’ve talked about the call to worship and the prayer of confession, and we now come to the subject of prayer. If you look at a worship bulletin, you’ll see that every Sunday we have many opportunities for prayer, both spoken and silent, personal and corporate. There are many reasons to pray, and many ways to pray, and the practice of prayer is by no means limited to worship services and saying grace before a meal. Nor is the act of prayer something that is best left to preachers! Any of us can pray at any time.
And of course, sometimes the best prayers are the times when we sit in silence, listening for God. Of the four gospel writers, no one talks about Jesus praying more than the writer of Luke. Over and over again we see Jesus praying, or trying to get away to pray, or inviting others to pray. His was a life of prayer, so it is only natural that his disciples would ask, “Teach us to pray.”
In the verses that we’re about to hear, Jesus offers a model for prayer, tells a parable of prayer, and offers teaching about prayer. It’s unlikely that he said all of these things at once, in one speech, but all of them comport with the images in Luke of Jesus as a prayerful man, to whom prayer matters. Let’s listen for God’s word to us today in Luke 11:1-13
He was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished,
one of his disciples said to him,
“Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.”
He said to them, “When you pray, say:
Father, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
Give us each day our daily bread.
And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.
And do not bring us to the time of trial.”
And he said to them,
“Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight
and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread;
for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.’
And he answers from within, ‘Do not bother me;
the door has already been locked, and my children are with me in bed;
I cannot get up and give you anything.’
I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything
because he is his friend, at least because of his persistence
he will get up and give him whatever he needs.
“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.
Is there anyone among you who,
if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish?
Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion?
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!”
The word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.
Did you hear about the three preachers who went for coffee? On the way back to their churches, they were walking along arguing about the best way to pray. As they stood at the corner waiting for the light to change, there was a telephone repair crew working on the lines nearby.
The Episcopal priest said, "Kneeling is definitely more genuine!”
The Pentecostal preacher said, “I make the most heartfelt prayers
standing up with my hands outstretched to Heaven.”
The Presbyterian said, “You're both wrong.
The wholehearted way to pray is sitting down,
head bowed, hands folded, and eyes closed.”
Then one of the repair crew spoke up:
“Hey, pastors! The most fervent and sincere prayin' I ever did
was hangin' upside down from a telephone pole.”
Teach us to pray, Lord.
We know prayer matters,
but we have our own thoughts on matters of prayer.
Teach us to pray, but don’t expect us to do it all the time.
Teach us to pray but don’t ask us to pray for our enemies.
Teach us to pray, but we don’t really want to confess our sins.
Teach us to pray, but asking us to forgive others is a little much.
Teach us to pray, but please, oh please,
don’t make us pray out loud in front of other people!
Teach us to pray, but don’t expect to hear from us too often,
unless we are hanging upside down from a telephone pole!
The formal patterns of prayer were already in use by faithful Jews of the first century, and it’s apparent that John the Baptist had taught his disciples a prayer. For a faithful Jew of the first century, the day began with the Shema and the Amidah. The Shema you may have heard – hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one! The Amidah is a series of praise, petitions and thanksgivings, to be prayed daily, with a longer form for Sabbath prayers.
Probably Jesus’ listeners already knew how to pray.
Maybe they were asking for something more.
Maybe they wanted to know how to pray “successfully.”
Many of us already have active lives of prayer.
We give thanks to God for a new day each morning.
We give thanks for our food before we begin to eat.
We hold loved ones and strangers alike in prayer,
for their health, their well-being, their recovery after disasters.
We cry out to God from our hearts, asking for help.
We stand in awe and silent praise
before the astonishing beauty of the world.
Of course we pray in church:
every week we offer prayers of
confession, thanksgiving, intercession, dedication, celebration.
And of course, we are prone to ask, “does God answer prayers?”
We know the easy answer, “Yes, and sometimes God says no.”
March 24, 2019
First Presbyterian Church, Sterling, IL
Christina Berry
This third Sunday in Lent puts us at about the halfway mark of the season. In our series on Wholehearted Worship, we’ve talked about the call to worship and the prayer of confession, and we now come to the subject of prayer. If you look at a worship bulletin, you’ll see that every Sunday we have many opportunities for prayer, both spoken and silent, personal and corporate. There are many reasons to pray, and many ways to pray, and the practice of prayer is by no means limited to worship services and saying grace before a meal. Nor is the act of prayer something that is best left to preachers! Any of us can pray at any time.
And of course, sometimes the best prayers are the times when we sit in silence, listening for God. Of the four gospel writers, no one talks about Jesus praying more than the writer of Luke. Over and over again we see Jesus praying, or trying to get away to pray, or inviting others to pray. His was a life of prayer, so it is only natural that his disciples would ask, “Teach us to pray.”
In the verses that we’re about to hear, Jesus offers a model for prayer, tells a parable of prayer, and offers teaching about prayer. It’s unlikely that he said all of these things at once, in one speech, but all of them comport with the images in Luke of Jesus as a prayerful man, to whom prayer matters. Let’s listen for God’s word to us today in Luke 11:1-13
He was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished,
one of his disciples said to him,
“Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.”
He said to them, “When you pray, say:
Father, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
Give us each day our daily bread.
And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.
And do not bring us to the time of trial.”
And he said to them,
“Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight
and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread;
for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.’
And he answers from within, ‘Do not bother me;
the door has already been locked, and my children are with me in bed;
I cannot get up and give you anything.’
I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything
because he is his friend, at least because of his persistence
he will get up and give him whatever he needs.
“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.
Is there anyone among you who,
if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish?
Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion?
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!”
The word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.
Did you hear about the three preachers who went for coffee? On the way back to their churches, they were walking along arguing about the best way to pray. As they stood at the corner waiting for the light to change, there was a telephone repair crew working on the lines nearby.
The Episcopal priest said, "Kneeling is definitely more genuine!”
The Pentecostal preacher said, “I make the most heartfelt prayers
standing up with my hands outstretched to Heaven.”
The Presbyterian said, “You're both wrong.
The wholehearted way to pray is sitting down,
head bowed, hands folded, and eyes closed.”
Then one of the repair crew spoke up:
“Hey, pastors! The most fervent and sincere prayin' I ever did
was hangin' upside down from a telephone pole.”
Teach us to pray, Lord.
We know prayer matters,
but we have our own thoughts on matters of prayer.
Teach us to pray, but don’t expect us to do it all the time.
Teach us to pray but don’t ask us to pray for our enemies.
Teach us to pray, but we don’t really want to confess our sins.
Teach us to pray, but asking us to forgive others is a little much.
Teach us to pray, but please, oh please,
don’t make us pray out loud in front of other people!
Teach us to pray, but don’t expect to hear from us too often,
unless we are hanging upside down from a telephone pole!
The formal patterns of prayer were already in use by faithful Jews of the first century, and it’s apparent that John the Baptist had taught his disciples a prayer. For a faithful Jew of the first century, the day began with the Shema and the Amidah. The Shema you may have heard – hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one! The Amidah is a series of praise, petitions and thanksgivings, to be prayed daily, with a longer form for Sabbath prayers.
Probably Jesus’ listeners already knew how to pray.
Maybe they were asking for something more.
Maybe they wanted to know how to pray “successfully.”
Many of us already have active lives of prayer.
We give thanks to God for a new day each morning.
We give thanks for our food before we begin to eat.
We hold loved ones and strangers alike in prayer,
for their health, their well-being, their recovery after disasters.
We cry out to God from our hearts, asking for help.
We stand in awe and silent praise
before the astonishing beauty of the world.
Of course we pray in church:
every week we offer prayers of
confession, thanksgiving, intercession, dedication, celebration.
And of course, we are prone to ask, “does God answer prayers?”
We know the easy answer, “Yes, and sometimes God says no.”
But what if that is too easy?
Why would God say no to a fervent prayer for someone we love?
If your child asks you for a fish, will you give him a snake?
If your child asks for an egg, do you give her a scorpion?
For every story of miraculous cures,
there are five more of loss and grief, of people who did not get well.
Why is Jesus saying, “ask, seek, knock” as if that’s all we need to do?
Maybe we are asking the wrong question about prayer.
Maybe we’ve gotten it wrong, even asking if God answers prayer!
After all, God is not a vending machine
that sometimes malfunctions or runs out of peanut M&Ms.
Presbyterian writer Anne Lamott says that prayer is simply communication from your heart to God, from your life to the big love. She suggests that it doesn’t even matter what we call God – like the little kid who thinks God’s name is Howard – you know, “Howard be thy name…”
“Let's not get bogged down on whom or what we pray to,” she says. “Let's just say prayer is a communication from our hearts to the great mystery, or Goodness, or Howard; to the animating energy of love we are sometimes bold enough to believe in; to something unimaginably big, and not us. We could call this force Not Me, and Not Preachers Onstage with a Choir of 800. Or for convenience we could just say "God".”[1]
Lamott suggests we mostly need three prayers: help, thanks, and wow!
The other prayers, the nice ones that are written out on Sunday,
those are what she calls the dressier prayers,
like the good china that we don’t use every day!
Maybe a better question than if God answers prayer, is: why pray at all?
I mean, really? Why?
Lamott says ““Most good, honest prayers remind me that I am not in charge, that I cannot fix anything, and that I open myself to being helped by something, some force, some friends, some something.”[2]
Some something that is Not Me.
Suppose you live in a small village, where everyone knows everyone, and all the neighbors notice everything you are doing. Suppose you live in a culture where hospitality is highly valued. Suppose you would be mortified to turn away anyone from your door, particularly if they are asking for food.
Suppose you have a friend banging on your door at midnight, after you and your spouse and the children have all gone to bed. You wouldn’t turn them away – not because you are so good, but because they are so persistent, and you don’t want to be embarrassed!
Suppose there is a slow-motion disaster of poverty in your town, and you can’t just put on Wellington boots and wade in to rescue anyone, so you donate some extra money to the Food Bank, or you go and help with Buddy Bags, or you go wash dishes at the free breakfast at the Methodist church.
Suppose that’s a prayer?
Suppose you live in a small town in Illinois, and your neighbor asks you to pray for her cat, which is sick unto death. And suppose you don’t really quite know how to pray for a sick cat, but you do know how to care for your neighbor, so you stop over with some good bread or wine or tea or brownies, and you sit with her until it’s time to take the cat to the vet, and you stay with her while the cat breathes its last.
Suppose that’s your prayer.
Then suppose that one day it is you who is hungry, or thirsty,
hungry for something other than food,
thirsty for something other than drink.
Suppose you are feeling crushed and broken and beyond any help,
certain that your bad attitude or your bad breath or your bad choices
have made your life irredeemably bad,
and suppose you simply pray that one word, “Help!”
And supposing that’s your prayer,
suppose somebody shows up with a box of Kleenex
and a cup of tea and some Girl Scout cookies,
and suppose they don’t tell you what you should do
or where you went wrong,
or anything at all really.
Suppose they sit with you for a while and listen.
Or sit with you for a while in silence,
or pray for you right out loud,
right there beside you.
Suppose that’s your prayer, too.
Your next prayer might simply be “thanks,”
an expression of genuine gratitude for that help,
and that “thank you” might turn into daily, even hourly,
thanksgiving for all the blessings around you that you now can see.
Then with your eyes opened,
you will see the wonders around you
and breathe a one-word prayer of awe and wonder: WOW!
Wholehearted worship in daily life might mean that at some time,
all of these examples apply to you.
Why would God say no to a fervent prayer for someone we love?
If your child asks you for a fish, will you give him a snake?
If your child asks for an egg, do you give her a scorpion?
For every story of miraculous cures,
there are five more of loss and grief, of people who did not get well.
Why is Jesus saying, “ask, seek, knock” as if that’s all we need to do?
Maybe we are asking the wrong question about prayer.
Maybe we’ve gotten it wrong, even asking if God answers prayer!
After all, God is not a vending machine
that sometimes malfunctions or runs out of peanut M&Ms.
Presbyterian writer Anne Lamott says that prayer is simply communication from your heart to God, from your life to the big love. She suggests that it doesn’t even matter what we call God – like the little kid who thinks God’s name is Howard – you know, “Howard be thy name…”
“Let's not get bogged down on whom or what we pray to,” she says. “Let's just say prayer is a communication from our hearts to the great mystery, or Goodness, or Howard; to the animating energy of love we are sometimes bold enough to believe in; to something unimaginably big, and not us. We could call this force Not Me, and Not Preachers Onstage with a Choir of 800. Or for convenience we could just say "God".”[1]
Lamott suggests we mostly need three prayers: help, thanks, and wow!
The other prayers, the nice ones that are written out on Sunday,
those are what she calls the dressier prayers,
like the good china that we don’t use every day!
Maybe a better question than if God answers prayer, is: why pray at all?
I mean, really? Why?
Lamott says ““Most good, honest prayers remind me that I am not in charge, that I cannot fix anything, and that I open myself to being helped by something, some force, some friends, some something.”[2]
Some something that is Not Me.
Suppose you live in a small village, where everyone knows everyone, and all the neighbors notice everything you are doing. Suppose you live in a culture where hospitality is highly valued. Suppose you would be mortified to turn away anyone from your door, particularly if they are asking for food.
Suppose you have a friend banging on your door at midnight, after you and your spouse and the children have all gone to bed. You wouldn’t turn them away – not because you are so good, but because they are so persistent, and you don’t want to be embarrassed!
Suppose there is a slow-motion disaster of poverty in your town, and you can’t just put on Wellington boots and wade in to rescue anyone, so you donate some extra money to the Food Bank, or you go and help with Buddy Bags, or you go wash dishes at the free breakfast at the Methodist church.
Suppose that’s a prayer?
Suppose you live in a small town in Illinois, and your neighbor asks you to pray for her cat, which is sick unto death. And suppose you don’t really quite know how to pray for a sick cat, but you do know how to care for your neighbor, so you stop over with some good bread or wine or tea or brownies, and you sit with her until it’s time to take the cat to the vet, and you stay with her while the cat breathes its last.
Suppose that’s your prayer.
Then suppose that one day it is you who is hungry, or thirsty,
hungry for something other than food,
thirsty for something other than drink.
Suppose you are feeling crushed and broken and beyond any help,
certain that your bad attitude or your bad breath or your bad choices
have made your life irredeemably bad,
and suppose you simply pray that one word, “Help!”
And supposing that’s your prayer,
suppose somebody shows up with a box of Kleenex
and a cup of tea and some Girl Scout cookies,
and suppose they don’t tell you what you should do
or where you went wrong,
or anything at all really.
Suppose they sit with you for a while and listen.
Or sit with you for a while in silence,
or pray for you right out loud,
right there beside you.
Suppose that’s your prayer, too.
Your next prayer might simply be “thanks,”
an expression of genuine gratitude for that help,
and that “thank you” might turn into daily, even hourly,
thanksgiving for all the blessings around you that you now can see.
Then with your eyes opened,
you will see the wonders around you
and breathe a one-word prayer of awe and wonder: WOW!
Wholehearted worship in daily life might mean that at some time,
all of these examples apply to you.
Wholehearted worship embraces prayer throughout the day,
not just the dressier prayers of the worship service,
but the simple prayers of “HELP!” and “Thanks.” and “WOW!”
Perhaps the disciples understood, when they asked Jesus, “teach us to pray,”
that prayer changes things. Often, the circumstances around us as we pray
do not change at all.
The remission may not be permanent.
The relationship may not be restored.
The days may still seem bleak, as if winter will not end.
Still, we pray.
And prayer changes us.
In the wholehearted worship that is the Christian life,
prayer changes us.
Prayer matters – in Sunday worship, and in Monday worship,
and Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday,
and in all the moments of all the days that make up our lives.
Keep praying.
Ask. Seek. Knock.
Let your life be an act of prayer,
and let each day be wholehearted worship.
Amen.
[1] Anne Lamott, Help Thanks Wow: Three Essential Prayers, page 2
[2] ibid, page 33
not just the dressier prayers of the worship service,
but the simple prayers of “HELP!” and “Thanks.” and “WOW!”
Perhaps the disciples understood, when they asked Jesus, “teach us to pray,”
that prayer changes things. Often, the circumstances around us as we pray
do not change at all.
The remission may not be permanent.
The relationship may not be restored.
The days may still seem bleak, as if winter will not end.
Still, we pray.
And prayer changes us.
In the wholehearted worship that is the Christian life,
prayer changes us.
Prayer matters – in Sunday worship, and in Monday worship,
and Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday,
and in all the moments of all the days that make up our lives.
Keep praying.
Ask. Seek. Knock.
Let your life be an act of prayer,
and let each day be wholehearted worship.
Amen.
[1] Anne Lamott, Help Thanks Wow: Three Essential Prayers, page 2
[2] ibid, page 33
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