Luke
11:1-13
July
24, 2016
William G. Carter
Jesus was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished,
one of his disciples said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray."
To
be a disciple is to be a student. So it’s good to hear that the twelve
disciples of Jesus were still teachable. They see Jesus praying, wait for him
to say Amen, and then say, “Lord, teach us to do that. Teach us to pray!”
It’s
a striking request, for a couple of reasons. According to the Gospel of Luke,
Jesus was always praying. On the day of his baptism, he was praying when the
heavens opened and the dove came down (3:21). It was his custom to slip away
from the crowds to pray (5:16). The night before he selected the first twelve
disciples, he went up on a mountain and spent all night praying (6:12).
Another
time, in the middle of a prayer, he looked up at the twelve and asked, “Who do
people say that I am?” And then he told them how he would suffer, die, and be
raised (9:13). Shortly after that, he took three of them up a high mountain
where his appearance changed – his clothes were dazzling white, his face was
transfigured – and it happened, says Luke, while Jesus was praying (9:29).
His
was a vital prayer life. Jesus was always praying – and the twelve said, “Teach
us to pray.” They wanted something of what he had. They knew he could teach
them.
But
it’s a striking request, because every one of them was a Jew. They had a book
of prayers called the Psalms. They committed these prayers to memory. With the
prayers inscribed in their liturgies, the Jewish disciples had prayers for
every occasion: when you rise to begin your day, when you lie down to hand over
the night to God. If you need help with an enemy, the Psalms offered the
prayers. If you wished to thank God for safe passage through the mountains, or
an abundant harvest, or the success of a child birth, the Jews already had the
prayers. They knew the life of faith is filled with prayers, prayers for every
possible occasion.
But
these twelve were looking for something even deeper. “Teach us,” they said to
the Master. “Teach us to pray.”
So
he gave them the words. “Father…Abba, Daddy…” He addresses God with affection.
“Hallowed be your name.” Hallowed is Holy, apart from us, guarded and distinct.
God can be addressed with affection, but God stands apart from you, holy and
completely Other.
“Your
kingdom come . . .” This is the heart of the prayer, a request that the God who
rules over the solar systems and the barn swallows would also come to rule over
the situations that we know: the broken bones, the wounded hearts, the fierce
injustices. We want the God who rules over everything to rule over us.
Then
it gets specific: “Give us each day the bread we need for today.” That is a
request as old as the story of manna in the wilderness.[1]
(Exodus 16). God sends food from heaven for the Israelites as they wander in
the wilderness. It comes every day, twice on the day before the Sabbath. But it
cannot be hoarded or else it rots. It is only bread for today. We need it. We
don’t have it. We ask God for it.
“And
forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.” Luke
takes the edge off of Matthew’s version of the prayer. In Matthew, the
forgiveness we request sounds conditional on our ability to forgive. Recall:
“forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” But in Luke, Jesus assumes
that we are already forgiving others, in the name of a God we wish to forgive
us.
“And
do not bring us to the time of trial.” That sounds ominous, as if the Father to
whom we pray is the One who can also test us. It’s like that story in the first
chapter of Mark’s Gospel. After Jesus is baptized, the Spirit of God hurls him
into the wild places to be tested by the Devil. God sends him to confront evil
on its own turf. That is going to be a decisive test! Do you want God to test
you? Jesus says, “Pray that you are delivered from this.”
Here
is how to pray, says Jesus. With simple words, with direct speech, focusing on
the life and death issues before us every day, always praying for God to come
and rule over us and our lives.
Yet
the instruction is not complete. It’s not enough to merely write down the words,
to recite them every day, and to mumble them when prayer becomes a habit. Jesus
goes on to say some more.
Suppose
you find yourself in need of daily bread, he says. A friend has come to stay
with you, and both of you need the food. Now, suppose you went to a neighbor,
knocked on the door, and said, “Can I get borrow some food for my guest and my
family?” The neighbor is not going to turn you down. He’s a Middle Easterner.
Generous hospitality is the name of the game. He’s not going to yell, “Go away,
I’ve already gone to bed for the night” – especially if you persist in asking.
With
this, Jesus leans over the pulpit to wink and say, “And how much more generous
is God than your sleepy hospitable neighbor?”
He
is still talking about prayer. Prayer is something more than saying the words.
We have to stay at it, we have to persist. We have to make it real. Prayer is
asking for bread, not cake. It is staying at matters of great urgency, not
flaying at thin superficialities. It is swimming from the shallow end of our
need to the depths of God’s great mystery. To a great extent, when we pray, we
are always in over our heads.
Even
the apostle Paul - schooled as a rabbi, trained in scripture, well experienced
in the grace of God – could exclaim in one of his letters, “We don’t know how
to pray as we ought” (Romans 8:26). He’s
clear about that. We don’t know how to do it perfectly. We ask for small needs
to be met by a God who directs the comets and plants the giant sequoia trees.
We ask for justice when we are busy perpetuating injustice.
Sometimes
life is so confusing. At the peak of the Civil War, with North against South,
gray against blue, brother against brother, President Lincoln stood to say,
“Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid
against the other… The prayers of both could not be answered, that of neither
has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes.”[2] Or
as the prophet Isaiah speaks truth, “God’s ways are not our ways.”
We
don’t know how to pray perfectly, because we often make it all about us. “Lord, give me this. Lord, give me that.”
Prayer is not about getting what we want – it is about opening ourselves
to what God wishes to give us. God desires to rule over us: thy kingdom come! God creates us to live
in peace: forgive us our sins,
including the sin of being incapable of forgiving others, much less ourselves.
God calls us to live holy lives: Lead us
not to the test, Lord.
We
pray for God to provide what God has already desired to provide. Prayer is so
much more than reciting a little formula or asking for magic. It is
participating in the holy life of God, staying with the divine joy that carries
us even when life looks bleak and the road ahead is foggy. Prayer is daring to
go into the deep end, where the mysterious waters of grace are way over your
head, and trusting that whatever happens, you are met – you are loved – and
there will be daily bread upon your table. Not because you put it there, but
because God is behind it, giving it to all who ask.
“Teach
us to pray.” To learn about prayer is to learn all over again about God. God is generous, providing everything that the
world needs to flourish. God is creative, planting dandelions in the cracks of
concrete, giving life where no one expects to find.
And
God is inclined to love us. “What father,” asks Jesus, “will give a snake to
the son who asks for a fish? Or a scorpion to the daughter who asks for an
omelet?” No father would do that, no mother could do that. Not if the parent
loves the child.
Now
we are getting to the heart of it. To pray is to participate in a relationship.
It is entering and re-entering the dominion of God’s Love that lies at the center
of all things. It is drawing near a Table we did not set, to appreciate a
sacrifice that we did not make, to receive a mercy that we did not imagine, to
welcome the Breath that filled the lungs of Christ into our lungs, into our
bloodstream, into our very lives. Prayer is communion with God, the verbal
sacrament before all other sacraments. We ask God to fill our silences and inhabit
our words, until God’s desires for us are greater than our own desires for
ourselves.
Want
to learn how to pray? Do you really want to learn? Stay at it. Ask, knock, keep
asking and knocking. Search for God until God finds you. Be willing for
God to change you. Know in advance that, as you pray, God’s Spirit will work in
you. This is the essence of the relationship.
So
here is a parable from the early Christians who went to the desert. There were
two leaders, Lot and Joseph. Both were honored as spiritual leaders, and given
the name “Abba” – Abba Lot and Abba Joseph.
Abba Lot came to Abba Joseph and said: Father, according as I
am able, I keep my little rule, and my little fast, my prayer, meditation and
contemplative silence; and, according as I am able, I strive to cleanse my
heart of thoughts: now what more should I do?
The elder rose up in reply and stretched out his hands to
heaven, and his fingers became like ten lamps of fire. He said: Why not become
fire?[3]
Now that is where prayer promises to take us: to fill us
afresh with the Spirit of God.
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