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June 4, 2016
"Prayer 101"
Matthew 6:5-15
5 “Whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they
love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that
they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 6 But whenever 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.
7 “When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the
Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard because of their many
words. 8 Do not be like
them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
9 “Pray then in this way:
Our
Father in heaven,
hallowed be your
name.
10 Your kingdom come.
Your will be
done,
on
earth as it is in heaven.
11 Give us this day our daily bread.
12 And
forgive us our debts,
as
we also have forgiven our debtors.
13 And do not bring
us to the time of trial,
but
rescue us from the evil one.
14 For if you
forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; 15 but if you do
not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
Sermon: Prayer 101
College is a wild time for many people. I had my own rebellion as a college student at Texas A&M, one I will share with you, because I trust and love you people.
My rebellious phase didn’t involve wild partying or skipping class. No, I rebelled by becoming what I would term militantly evangelical and fundamentalist in college! Thrilling, right? Now, what I mean by that is this: I forgot my Presbyterian grace-saturated, God-sovereign upbringing, and began to see everything and everyone harshly in black-and-white. I was on God’s team; most people weren’t. I’d suppose rock bottom was when I tried to find out whether my Presbyterian parents, who had raised me in the faith, we’re “really saved” or not. I also remember a conversation with my sister, who was venting about something bothering her, in which I told her that “if she really trusted God, it would all go away.” I didn’t listen to her, or try to feel what she felt. I just stuck a big Jesus sticker on her problem and walked away. I’m not proud of that.
But what John Calvin termed “irresistible grace” was still at work in my life, pulling me back to my roots. That grace pulled me back partly through a conversation about prayer.
A fellow fundamentalist friend told me that if you prayed for anything at all, Jesus would automatically give it to you. Cancer, gone. Success, wealth, granted. Worry, annihilated. “But what if you don’t get what you prayed for?” I asked, thinking particularly of my grandfather who died from cancer in my freshmen year.
I’m still haunted by her answer. “Then, you weren’t really praying in the right way.” Wow.
Would you ever tell someone who prays for their loved one’s suffering to end that they weren’t praying the right way? It’s actually a pretty hateful thing to say, never mind the fact that it entirely removes grace from the equation, as if God is some sort of legalistic grammar goon taunting us with, “but you didn’t say the magic words!”
I wish I’d had the presence of mind to think of Matthew 6 in that moment. Because Jesus does tell us how to pray, not just in the right words, but the right way to come before God.
I love the way The Message phrases Jesus’ teaching on prayer:
When you come
before God, don’t turn that into a theatrical production…All these people
making a regular show out of their prayers, hoping for stardom! Do you think
God sits in a box seat?
Once our focus is on God, then we pray the words, the words you may know by heart. Words that Isabel Thomas remembered even when dementia had its hold on her.
“Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name”
God, you made us all. You dwell in a perfect place; we don’t. You are holy, blessed, the truest good.
We have too much of our kingdoms, with
their power and greed and injustice. We
need yours, a peaceable kingdom where righteousness dwells. We have too many competing wills, and are
pulled in too many directions. Show us
your will. Come down, once more, and
make this place a bit more like heaven.
While we pray for the big picture – your
heavenly will dwelling with us – but we also pray for that to come in the most
ordinary of ways. Give us bread. But remind us that “us” means all, and teach
us to feed one another.
The first part of this is so much easier
than the second. We do need
forgiveness. We are a mess, Jesus. We hoard and we hate. Funny how you seem to think the key to us
accepting forgiveness from you is extending it to others. We will try to let go, with your help. We will try to forgive those who owe us
things, our debtors, because forgiveness loses its power if we hoard, and do
not share it. Grace loses its power if
we make people earn it.
You know, Spirit, what this looks like
for each of us. The need to be
right. The need to be important. Addiction to power, status, fear, even our
cell phones and tablets! When we go down
that all too familiar, all too destructive path of self-focus that keeps us
from truly seeing each other and you, turn us in a new direction.
“But deliver us
from evil.”
Evil exists, God. You know this. Not in the form of some little
red fella with a pointy tail, but in the form of our indifference to
suffering. Our systemic racism. The greed that threatens death to the
planet. The weaponized hatred of those
who do not understand us, and our own hatred of those we do not
understand. Take this evil from us, God.
Ah, finally some good news! You’re bringing a different sort of kingdom,
even now. Where the last are first, the
least are greatest, and there’s enough for everyone. It’s already coming, and we can’t wait for it
to fully arrive.
Power very unlike human power. Power to
do what we can’t: to help and to heal.
To redeem and renew. To love
without limit, or condition.
Radiant light, Creator. The glory we witness in sun through the
pines. In a familiar, beautiful
song. In a feeling of peace we can’t
explain. Your glory saturates this
place, every place, and we are so grateful.
Not just for a day. Not just until election day. Not just until you return. But for all time, you are all things. Amen.
N.T. Wright[1] captures this tension between God’s kingdom and ours, writing,
“If the kingdom is here, why is there still injustice? Why
is there still hunger? Why is there still guilt? Why is there still evil? The
[first followers of Jesus] didn't dodge this question. They didn't escape into
saying: Oh, we didn't mean that; we're talking about a new individual spiritual
experience, leading to our sharing God's kingdom in heaven, not on earth. No.
They went on praying and living the Lord's Prayer. And they would tell
us to do the same.
But
how? What Jesus did, he did uniquely, once and for all. That is essential to
the gospel. We don't have to go on repeating it again and again; and we
couldn't, even if we wanted to.
Rather,
think of it like this: Jesus is the medical genius who discovered penicillin;
we are doctors, ourselves being cured by the medicine, now applying it to those
who need it. Jesus is the musical genius who wrote the greatest oratorio of all
time; we are the musicians, captivated by his composition ourselves, who now
perform it in a world full of muzak and cacophony. The kingdom did indeed come
with Jesus; but it will fully come when the world is healed, when the world
finally joins in the song. But it must be Jesus' medicine; it must be Jesus'
music. And the only way to be sure of that is to pray his prayer.”
Our
Father, which art in heaven,
Hallowed
be thy Name.
Thy
Kingdom come.
Thy
will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.
Give
us this day our daily bread.
And
forgive us our debts,
As
we forgive our debtors.
And
lead us not into temptation,
But
deliver us from evil.
For
thine is the kingdom,
And
the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.
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