Master, Teach Us to Pray
Hosea 1:2-10 Luke 11:1-13
NO 7/29/07 MW

Scene

Jesus often prayed.  It seems that in all the Gospel accounts we find Jesus praying before or after every special event.  Prayer was a regular part of his life.  Whether the disciples prayed along with Jesus or just watched him pray we don’t know.  On this occasion, the disciples apparently watched Jesus pray and following his praying they asked to be taught how to pray as John had taught his disciples.

The custom was to have groups that followed rabbis and each group would have their own particular prayer style.  John had taught his followers a way to pray and now the disciples are asking Jesus how they should pray.  As one reference noted, we call this the Lord’s Prayer and it is actually the Disciples’ Prayer.

Jesus teaches his disciples how to pray and in a sense I’m going to teach you how to pray as my followers because how I understand what Jesus said to his disciples is going to let you know about how I pray.  One could pray the Lord’s Prayer and nothing else and I believe one would build a relationship with God that might be very surprising.

Following a severe bout with depression and very bitter struggle in life in the early 90s, my prayer, my only prayer, for almost a decade was, “God, help me do your will today.”  I prayed it a number of times each day.  I knew that I needed to learn to do God’s will rather than my own and so that was my prayer.  It was a tremendous help to me in those years of recovering my life.

I think the prayer taught the disciples has great depth and meaning and would be the prayer for us to pray as well.  I am thankful that one of the disciples asked Jesus for this lesson.  Let’s pray the Lord’s Prayer as we listen to my interpretation.

“Our Father”

When Jesus uses the word “Abba” that we interpret as “Father” I don’t believe he was using it as we think of Father.  He would not have said, “Yahweh,” the word meaning God because you did not use that word easily or casually as we often do in our culture.  His use of Abba, in this prayer, was much more than some kind of male identification but was to say that you are praying to the Beginning and the End; you are praying to the Word; you are praying to the One who creates and sustains all that is visible and invisible. 

            “Hallowed Be Thy Name”

The year before Carol and I moved to New Oregon, I rode my Sportster to Colorado and back.  I went out through Kansas and back through part of Oklahoma.  Somewhere out in the middle of nowhere Oklahoma, I see these giant windmills.  The blades on each one looked to be over a hundred feel long and the towers that held them must have been a couple hundred feet high.  These giant windmills, like the turbines inside a dam, were the source, the beginning point, of electricity for some number of homes and businesses.  These were the source of lighting the lamp when the switch is thrown.

Heaven is not a place to Jesus but a Source.  It is the Abba in heaven that is the source for all that will be contained in the prayer he is teaching his then and now disciples.  He is calling for his followers to go directly to the source and to know as well as trust that the source is capable of providing all that is needed.

This was also a way of saying, “When you are praying you are on sacred ground.”  Jesus seemed to always walk on sacred ground whether praying or talking to another person.  You and I need to be more aware of being on sacred ground as we walk through our daily life and when we pray.

“Thy Kingdom Come”

Jesus has a thing about God’s Kingdom.  He is always referring to the Kingdom of God and how near it is or how hard it is to enter.  Here he is once again calling for his disciples to pray that God’s Kingdom would come.  How can one bring these sayings of the kingdom together since they seem to say the Kingdom is far away and yet right here right now?

I believe that Jesus is saying that we are to pray that God will not only open the door to the Kingdom inviting all to come into it but that God will also transform our lives so that we are actually living in God’s Kingdom.  It seems clear to me that Jesus teaches the Kingdom is here as well as there.  It is equally clear to me that we are not capable of entering the Kingdom on our own – it’s as easy as a camel going through the eye of a needle.  Once again, we are given a way that we do not know and we don’t have what it takes to follow.

We are told, however, that what is impossible for us is possible for God.  We are to call upon God, the Source, to take the scales from our eyes so that we can see God’s Kingdom.  To remove the wax from our ears so we can hear the Kingdom.  To remove from our hearts anything that would block us from walking through the door and living in God’s kingdom.  Jesus is telling us to plead with God to make us fit for the Kingdom.  He tells us to keep knocking at the door asking for this until God, perhaps irritated, will finally give us what we are asking.  You see, this is asking for what God wants.

“Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread”

No doubt this is reference to those coming to Moses and saying, “Why did you bring us out here in the desert where we are going to starve to death.  We may have been slaves in Egypt but at least we had plenty of food.”

We too are wandering in the desert where all sorts of demands for survival are made upon us.  We have to guard against terrorists.  We have to become successful.  We have to compete with one another constantly.  We have others telling us what will make us happy as if we are not capable of knowing.  We are bombarded with the message that we have to have more toys than our neighbor in order to be acceptable and appreciated.  We are as much in a desert today as those early Jews were as they wandered all those years in the desert.

We desperately need what Yahweh has for us in our attempt to survive in our desert.  Jesus is telling those original disciples and us that the source for our needs is God.  Ask for what we need and it will be given.  Ask for contemporary manna and it will be provided just as it was for those escaping slavery in Egypt.  We have a different form of slavery but slavery just the same.

“Forgive Us Our Sins; for We Ourselves Also Forgive Everyone Indebted to Us”

Jesus is clear with his disciples that we cannot treat others badly and expect to be treated kindly by God.  It just isn’t possible to be forgiven if we do not forgive.  Jesus is telling us that being mistreated by another person does not mean that we can hold a grudge, get revenge, or wish them badly and then go to God and say, “Forgive me.” and all is well.  Jesus is reminding us that we cannot mistreat others even though they mistreat us.

Jesus wanted his disciples to know they are sinners and need forgiveness.  We are sinners in need of forgiveness.  Jesus wanted his disciples to know they are to forgive others.  We need to forgive others.  I don’t know how many times I’ve had good folks say to me, “Bro. Ben, so-in-so hurt me so bad that I’ll never be able to forgive them.”  And I ask, “How long to you want to carry that hurt with you everywhere you go?”  You can forgive anyone for anything.  Forgiveness begins with the decision to forgive and is followed and grown by living that very forgiveness.  You can forgive whether or not the other person asks forgiveness.

Jesus, hanging on the tree, says, “Forgive them” and he says this before anyone asked for forgiveness.  Jesus asks for everyone to be forgiven even before they realized any need for being forgiven.  Just as he said to the disciples as he washed their feet, “You have seen me do it so do it yourself.”

“And Bring Us Not Into Temptation”

I’ve used the American Standard Version of the Bible for this sermon but for this sentence I want to use The Message:  Luke 11:4b  “Keep us safe from ourselves and the Devil."   Eugene Peterson’s interpretation here may be the summary of the entire Lord’s Prayer as Luke records it.  “Abba, keep me safe from myself” for I have met the enemy and it is I.”   I can say, “I have met the Tempter and it looks just like me!”

Some years ago, following many years of therapy with a number of excellent therapists, I sat in a psychiatrist’s office not knowing what to say.  For most of the allotted time I was silent even as my mind was working overtime.  Finally, I looked at the doctor and said, “For all this time, I’ve been recalling life situations or misery and hurt that I want to blame on others and I have been unable to find any where I was not a participant.”  He looked me in the eye and said, “Ben, it has been good working with you and now we have reached a place where it is appropriate for us to part ways.  You have reached a level of healthiness that I celebrate with you and even though perfection is not in our grasp, you have everything you need to go out and take on the struggles of life.”  I left.

I understand that even when it is the Devil who is tempting me – I’m still right there.  When others do not meet my expectations or I perceive they have hurt me – I’m right there.  When others participate in forgiving me, encouraging me, celebrating with me – I right there.  There is no situation in my life where I’m not a participant.  I believe that is true for each one of us.

Conclusion

We have agreed, or at least some have agreed, that we will pray every day, “God, give this church Your vision.”  This is a very similar prayer to the one Jesus taught us by teaching his disciples.  It is a prayer that recognizes that the Story is about God rather than us.  We recognize that God’s vision may be different from our own and we desire to have it God’s way even though we don’t know what that means.  Let’s keep praying that prayer.

We pray the Lord’s Prayer nearly every Sunday as part of our extemporaneous prayer.  Some fear that this makes it rote and something that we are just saying.  I believe that even if you are just saying it to let the person next to you know that you know it, or whatever your motivation may be, it is transforming your life.  Keep saying it.  If you keep saying the Lord’s Prayer it will come alive because you are connecting to the Source – Yahweh.