How Do I Pray?

Here is my message from Sunday. The text was Luke 11:1-13:

I remember sitting next to my mother one day during worship. I don’t remember how old I was, but I think I was pretty young, and everyone started saying the Lord’s Prayer and I asked her how she knew it, and she responded with something like “it’s just something you learn.” That memory stands out for me for a couple of reasons. One being that it taught me that there were things that happened in church and you just had to pick them up, through repetition I was guessing. And the second is that it is probably my earliest memory having anything to do with prayer, and in this case a prayer that everyone says together, which is not always what we think about when we talk about prayer. Of course, we do have communal prayers that we do in worship, and then there is the Lord’s Prayer, which we say together each week. But normally when we talk about prayer its about the personal kind, or of someone else saying a prayer that we are listening to. And in that, I’m sure that most of us have probably heard someone praying out loud, and we’ve said “I wish I could pray like that.”

And probably not surprisingly, Jesus was like that. In hearing him praying, which seems to indicate that he was praying out loud, not silently, the disciples come to ask Jesus to teach them to pray. That is, whatever Jesus is doing doesn’t match their own prayer lives, and so they hope to learn something in order to be better. And while we are told many times that Jesus is teaching people things, and he is even called teacher in numerous stories, this is the only time in the gospels in which Jesus is asked to give a specific teaching about how to do something, not just to answer a question. And so that seems to be one of the clues to us not only about the importance of prayer, but also that prayer can be taught, and perhaps that prayer should be taught. That while it may seem to come natural to some people, that if you are not good at praying, or don’t feel comfortable praying, that there is some good news for you, that help, through teaching is available. And because it’s a learned activity that means that you can try new things, question, experiment and even fail and all of that is okay. And so, as we continue in our series entitled How do I…? today that is the topic that we move on to, prayer.

For Thine Is the Kingdom and the Power and the Glory Forever. Amen.

Here is my message from Sunday. The text was Acts 2:1-21 and Matthew 6:5-13:

Today is Pentecost Sunday which represents the beginning and end of many things. The first is that it represents the end of the season of Easter and the celebration of the resurrection and the beginning of what is known as ordinary time. ordinary in this sense not meaning common, but from the word ordinal, or number, and so next Sunday is the first Sunday after Pentecost, and so on all the way until we reach Christ the King Sunday and the beginning of Advent in November. It also represents that end of Jesus’ in person ministry on Earth and the beginning of the mission and teaching of the disciples through the formation of the church. It is the end of one way of the disciples experiencing God, through the person of Christ, and a new way of experiencing and knowing God through the gift of the Spirit, because Jesus said that when he ascended to the Father that he would not leave us alone, but would send the Spirit, the advocate to be with us. And so the gift of the Spirit represents a new beginning, and when we receive the Spirit what did Jesus say we would also receive? Power. And that will become even more important in a moment. And as we celebrate our graduates today we recognize that graduation is the end of one phase of life, whether high school or college, and the beginning of something entirely new. Something different. And so these beginnings and ends are also seen as we complete our series on the Lord’s Prayer, not only because we end the series, but because the last part of the prayer leads us from prayer into the world.

As I’ve been saying the Lord’s prayer is typically seen as having six petitions, after the opening of our Father, or literally the Father of us. There are three petitions about God, for God’s name to be hallowed, for God’s Kingdom to come and for God’s will to be done. And then there are three petitions about us, for our daily bread, for forgiveness and for God to lead us and deliver us. And then we close with what is known as the doxology, “for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever” or sometimes “forever and ever. Amen.” And I’m hoping that you all noticed that this part of the prayer was not included in the prayer as we have heard it from Matthew’s version every week for the past six weeks. Nor is it included in Luke’s version of the prayer found in chapter 11. And why it’s not in the gospels but is found as we say it as Protestants begins to be encapsulated in why it’s called the doxology.

For us know, when we hear the term doxology, many of us think immediately of the song that gets sung after the offering, and it sort of has the same purpose. A doxology is a hymn or phrase added to the end of a psalm, canticle or hymn in praise of God. This has roots in Jewish practice, and so would have been very familiar to Jesus and the disciples. And for most of us, hearing the Lord’s Prayer without the doxology just seems rather strange, and it’s a rather abrupt end. This has led some scholars to speculate that it probably didn’t originally end this way, that because doxologies were used in Jewish prayer that the Lord’s Prayer probably included something similar, even if it wasn’t these exact words, but that his ending wasn’t known to either Matthew or Luke, or more likely to the source from which they got their material. And yet, for those of you who were raised Roman Catholic, it doesn’t sound strange at all because you were used to praying it without the doxology being there.

And so then the question becomes, if Matthew and Mark didn’t know these words, or potentially didn’t know them, then where did they come from and where they originally a part of the prayer? And the answer is we simply don’t know. The majority of the early church fathers who wrote commentaries on the Lord’s Prayer, do not have anything about this ending, nor is it contained in the Vulgate, which is the Latin translation of the Bible. But, we do know that the doxology was known and can be dated to the early church because of a book that is known as the Didache, or sometimes also called the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles. As the second title indicates, it is a collection of teachings about the early church and it is broken into three parts. One is on ethics, the second is on the rituals of the church including baptism and the Eucharist, and the third is on the organization of the church. There is much debate about the dating of the document, with some speculating that at least parts of it date to as early as the council of Jerusalem in 49-50, which would make it one of the earliest documents we have. Others date it towards the end of the 2nd century, with a general consensus of most scholars now dating it the 1st century, but probably towards the end, or at least that being when it was compiled. But, the point is, the Didache also contains a version of the Lord’s Prayer, which it instructs people to pray three times a day, although the times for the prayer are not given. And the Didache says that we are to pray thus: “Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy Name, thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, as in Heaven so also upon earth; give us today our daily bread, and forgive us our debt as we forgive our debtors, and lead us not into trial, but deliver us from the Evil One, for thine is the power and the glory forever."

This passage is important then for several reasons. One is because even though the doxology is not found in our earliest and best manuscripts of Matthew and Luke, it is found here, and so we know that it probably dates to the earliest days of the church. Second, because this version is a little different than Matthew and Luke’s versions, which are different from each other, we also know that this prayer was circulating amongst many different Christian communities, adding credence to its probable origin with Christ himself. Which leads into the third point which is that we know that this prayer is not just important to us today, or it didn’t gain in importance over time, that it was important to the earliest church because the Didache instructs praying it three times a day. It doesn’t explain why Mark and John don’t include the prayer, at least not in the form we have it and pray it, but it clearly shows that the Lord’s Prayer was widely known and important to the church. And the doxology was also know. In the Orthodox Church, the doxology is offered just before communion. In the Protestant tradition, Luther included the doxology in his translation of the New Testament into German, and so he was obviously aware of it, as did William Tyndale in his English translation, which I have referred to several times on translation issues of why we pray it the way we do in English.

But let’s get to the rub of what this means for the prayer and for us, and to do that we return to what we also discussed last week in the petition about temptation and the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness. In either the second or third temptation, depending on which gospel we are reading, Jesus is taken up to the highest point in Jerusalem, and in Luke’s version says, “And the devil said to him, ‘To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.’ Jesus answered him, ‘It is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’” And so, what the devil says here are all the kingdoms that could be yours, and we should ask what it means that here the devil says that they are his, and with them comes glory and authority, which I think we could also see as power. 

And so we should be seeing again a direct connection here between the Kingdom of God and the kingdoms of the world that we talked about when we petitioned for God’s Kingdom to come, and also remembering that I said that one of the reasons I think Reign of God is a better term is because we instantly think about geographical boundaries when we think Kingdom. That’s what the devil is offering. But the reign of God is not just about geography, it’s also about hearts and minds and lives. That we are going to be a part of the reign of God. We are participating in it through everything that we do; in seeking to do God’s will and seeking to bring glory to God’s name. And so what the doxology to this prayer reminds us of is that it’s not about us, or the Kingdoms of this world, it’s about God. Because it’s about God’s Kingdom and God’s power and God’s authority, and to know that those are different than the world.

And that should become clear because of what comes immediately before this right? Because what have we just prayed for? Bread, and forgiveness and leadership and delivery from temptations and evil. And again as we touched on, the kingdoms of the world, and in particular for the first hearers of this prayer the Kingdom of Rome. And Rome wants you to think they will do all of these things for you, but who do they bring that about? The same way that all kingdoms of the world bring it about through violence and repression. But God’s reign is different, and we are saying that whereas Rome may promise these things, they don’t and won’t always deliver and some days you may be on their good side, and some days you may not, and more importantly their promises are not forever. But God’s promises are forever. And so we read in 1 Chronicles, which may be where the doxology originated, or is at least inspired by, which has David proclaiming, “Blessed are you, O Lord, the God of our ancestor Israel, for ever and ever. Yours, O Lord, are the greatness, the power, the glory, the victory, and the majesty; for all that is in the heavens and on the earth is yours; yours is the kingdom, O Lord, and you are exalted as head above all.”  (1 Chron 29:10b-11) That is this has been a prayer of celebration for a 1000 years, and it continues not just in the prayer but we even hear a similar claim in Revelation.

And what God is also willing and able to do is to share and call us to participate in that Kingdom, because what do we receive when the Spirit comes upon us? Power. The power of the Spirit comes upon us to do God’s work in the world, to bring God’s kingdom to the world, to do God’s will in the world, to bring glory to God’s name, by feeding the hungry and giving forgiveness and seeking to live always in God’s righteousness. And so what God’s Kingdom and power and authority remind us is that it’s not about us, and I know that’s really hard for many people to hear and so let me say it again. It’s not about you, it’s not about me, it’s not about us, it’s about God and seeing the world the way that God sees it and not just calling for the Kingdom of God to come, but seeking to bring it about, and we see that in the story of Pentecost.

Because Jesus has already told the disciples that when the Spirit comes upon them they will receive what? Power. And so tongues as of fire come upon them, and this is not destructive fire, this is the fire of life and the disciples are driven from the room in which they have been locked up in and go out into the world to preach the good news, to, quoting from the prophet Joel, dream dreams and see visions and prophesy about God. These are not their dreams and not their visions and not their words, these are the words of God that they are proclaiming, inspired by the Spirit and guided by the Spirit and empowered by the Spirit. And that word for power here is dynamis, from which we get words like dynamic and dynamite. This is to live into boldness of God. it’s like having the boldness of a child who has not eaten their dinner but just ten minutes later comes up and asks if they can have dessert or a snack. That’s bold. And so this is an engaged and active and explosive thing that we are called to, to participate in. And so Jesus says, when you receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, here’s what you are going to do. The power of the Spirit we have is not for us. It’s for furthering the work of the Kingdom. So when you receive this power, Jesus says, you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all of Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.

So let’s break that down just a little bit. They are to be witnesses to the Kingdom and power and authority of God, to proclaim the good news, first in Jerusalem, and where are the disciples when told this? In Jerusalem, so witness where you are at the moment. Then be witnesses in Judea, which is the territory in which Jerusalem is located, so go out to the surrounding areas, and then comes a harder one. Be witnesses in Samaria. Samaria is to the north of Judea and south of Galilee, in the in-between, which might be good in itself, witness in the in-between places. Except Samaritans and Jews hate each other. And so Jesus is saying go to those people that you don’t like, who don’t look like you, or think like you or act like you. God and be witnesses amongst those people. Sure they might be Red Sox fans and therefore have made bad choices in their lives, but offer them the good news. Offer them bread and offer them forgiveness and offer them love and offer them the Kingdom. In fact, offer them the power of the Spirit so that they too can be witnesses and work beside each other. And then, finally as if to make it even clearer, Jesus then says and be my witnesses to the ends of the earth. Witness to everyone, because that’s what the Spirit will give you the power to do.

Many years ago, someone gave me a poem, and I don’t know who wrote it, not for lack of trying to find out, but it says:

You cannot pray the Lord's Prayer and even once say "I."
You cannot pray the Lord's Prayer and even once say "My."
Nor can you pray the Lord's Prayer and not pray for one another,
And when you ask for daily bread, you must include your brother.
For others are included ... in each and every plea,
From the beginning to the end of it, it does not once say "Me." 

The Lord’s prayer is not about me or you, it’s about us as creatures made in the image of God seeking to turn our lives, all that we are and all that we have, over to God. to humble ourselves before God, in order to do not what we want, but what God wants, even taking the cup from which Jesus drinks and the baptism into which Jesus was baptized. It’s about that call to love God with all that we are and to love our neighbors as ourselves. It’s not our power, it’s not for our glory and it’s definitely not our Kingdom, because all those things are God. and to make that very clear, not only do we say those words, but then we close with Amen, which means something like this is the truth or may it be so. These are not just words that we day because we are taught to say them, or because it’s just what we’ve always done. These are the words of life. These are the words of discipleship.

Who is called to hallow God’s name? We are. Who is called to bring God’s Kingdom here and now? We are. Who is called to do God’s will on earth as it is in heaven? We are. Who is to bring everyone this day their daily bread? We are. Who is to seek forgiveness and give forgiveness? We are. Who is called to resist evil, injustice and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves, our baptismal vows? We are. But we don’t do it alone, because we have the power of the Holy Spirit guiding us and leading us, supporting us and pushing us, lifting us up and calling us to go forth even to the ends of the earth to not just spread the good news but to be the good news. We have heard that passage from Isaiah several times that the Spirit of the Lord is upon him. And the Spirit of the Lord is upon us, for we too have been anointed, and when we accept that Spirit, when we claim that Spirit, when we live in that Spirit, we receive what? Power. The Spirit of the Lord is upon us, and we have been empowered us to be God’s words and hands and feet in Jerusalem, where we are in all, Judea and Samaria, to friends and foes alike, and to the ends of the earth, so that one day every tongue will confess and ever knee shall bow down at the call of our Lord and savior Jesus’ Christ’s name so that God’s Kingdom will indeed come and God’s will will be done on earth as it is in heaven. I pray that it will be so my brothers and sisters. Amen.

And Lead Us Not Into Temptation, But Deliver Us From Evil

Here is my message from Sunday. The texts were James 1:12-16  and Matthew 6:5-13:

After I came out with my call to the ministry, I began to be asked to do ministerial things, like filling in for the pastor when they were on vacation, which was fine and I enjoyed doing it. But, after one such Sunday, as I got in my car and started driving home I had this nagging feeling like I had forgotten something, but I couldn’t figure out what it was. I mean I had delivered the message and we had taken the offering, so I had covered the biggest thing. I was pretty sure we had sung all the songs, and I have skipped over a song before, but the whole week I just couldn’t get rid of that feeling that something had been missed. And then the next Sunday the minister was back and in his message, which I couldn’t tell you at all what it was about, but he said something about the Lord’s Prayer, and he then said “which we pray every single week in worship,” and then it hit me, that’s what I had forgotten. When I did the prayer the week before I forgot to lead the Lord’s Prayer. 

But you know what? No one said a thing to me about it. No one asked, “Did you forget something?” or even just be blunt and say, “Hey, you forgot the Lord’s Prayer.” Perhaps they didn’t notice, although that seems unlikely, because as I said when we started this series, the Lord’s Prayer is a constant in worship. And not just for us, but for all Christians. You could go to any Christian church anywhere in the world, no matter what language they might be speaking, no matter what their worship service or style may be, they are going to be saying the Lord’s Prayer, because it’s part of who we are and what we do. And yet of all those Christians praying this prayer, probably the part that is most confusing or concerning, or perhaps both, is the petition that we look at today which is, “and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil…” or from “the evil one,” which we’ll talk about the difference in a little while.

Forgive Us Our Debts As We Also Have Forgiven Our Debtors

Here is my message from Sunday. The text was Colossians 3:12-17  and Matthew 6:5-15:

The Lord’s Prayer, which we have been looking at for the past four weeks, consists of a series of petitions. The first of those petitions are really about God, although about things we might be doing, like hallowing God’s name, which means making it holy, and then it turns to personal petitions, things we are asking God to do for us. And as a reminder that is the plural us, not the individual us. And so last week we began with the first of those personal petitions asking God to give us, and everyone, this day our daily bread. This image is from a freeze from the Roman Senate House which was originally constructed by Julius Caesar in 44 BCE. It was updated over time, and this carving represents the emperor Trajan who ruled from 98 to 117 CE. We actually know some really interesting things about the early Christian church because of a series correspondence that Trajan has with Pliny, who was the imperial governor of what is now modern day turkey. Although it’s hard to see now due to age and destruction, Trajan is sitting on his throne, with some of his advisors behind him, and standing in front of him is a woman who was originally holding a child, although the child has been broken off, and Trajan is extending out his hand and giving the woman and her child bread. This is to show his magnificence as through his generosity, and through the generosity of the kingdom of Rome, Trajan is making sure that this family does not starve to death.

Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread

Here is my message from Sunday. The scripture passages were Isaiah 55:1-12 and Matthew 6:5-13:

Bread is not as much of a staple in our diets as it used to be, especially if you, like me, have a doctor who is constantly telling you to cut out the cards, or perhaps you’ve even eliminated bread altogether from your diet, either because of allergies or for dieting reasons. And so for us, asking for our daily bread, which is the petition we move onto today in our look at the Lord’s Prayer, might seem just a little out of touch, not part of our daily reality. Although when you go to a restaurant and they bring good bread to the table, and I’m not talking about the artisanal stuff or those that are so hard on the outside that a turtle could use it as a shell. I’m talking soft, warm bread, melting with butter, and if it has pasta accompanying it, which my doctor also says I should be avoiding, that can be like heaven. And since I see some of you shaking your heads and salivating like Pavlov has just rung his famous bell, I know that you know what I’m talking about. But, that’s more often the exception to the rule these days.

It’s not like we don’t consider bread important, after all when we are talking about amazing inventions, we don’t compare it to the invention of fire or the wheel or even the printing press. Instead what do we say? It’s the greatest thing since? Sliced bread. Apparently sliced bread is the high point of human existence. But, unlike today, bread was a staple in the ancient world. It would have been found in every meal, and it wasn’t just a side, it would have been the main course. It would have been accompanied by fruits and vegetables, and occasionally, but rarely, especially for the poor, meat would have been present. In fact, because of its ubiquity the word bread could be used for food in general, not just bread. But, bread was also more than just about bread, because it also represented hospitality. When strangers or friends appear, bread is brought out as part of the table. We even still say the same thing, as we talk about breaking bread together. Which means sharing a meal, and there’s something special that happens over a meal. When we share a meal together, or with someone else, there’s a bond that comes into place that few other things can do, and I think that’s a portion of what Jesus is talking about here. And yet, of course there is so much more to it as well, because there is a direct practicality to it.

Thy Kingdom Come, Thy Will Be Done, On Earth As It Is In Heaven

Here is my message from Sunday. The text was Isaiah 61:1-12 and Matthew 6:5-13:

Like many colleges and universities, especially on the East coast, Boston University, where I went to seminary, was originally founded in order to train clergy. They were known as the School of the Prophets, and at some point, the passage we heard from Isaiah this morning, or at least the first 2 verses, became the unofficial scripture passage of the school. And so in one of the stained glass windows, which is in the stairway between the first floor of the theology building and the library on the second floor, it says “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach good news.” But, at some point, someone edited the window by taping up a piece of paper that added the words, “to the poor.” The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because I have been anointed to preach good news to the poor.

That is the proclamation that Isaiah makes, and then it is also the proclamation that Jesus makes, because when he gives his first sermon in Luke, which happens immediately after the temptation story, when Jesus is offered all the kingdoms of the world if he will worship Satan, which he refuses, this is the passage that Jesus reads when he picks up the scroll from Isaiah. And I should also note this is the only time that Jesus quotes directly from scripture with it in front of him, it is the only time he gives what we would consider a regular sermon, and he doesn’t do it again because he learns his lesson as the people rise up against him because he says “today this passage has been fulfilled in your hearing” and so they attempt to kill him, but he escapes. I don’t think it is just coincidental that this is the message that Jesus reads, and we should pay special attention to what it means, because it is also in Luke that Jesus says just a few verses later, “I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God… for I was sent for this purpose.”

Our Father Who Art in Heaven, Hallowed Be Thy Name

Here is my message from Sunday. The texts were Exodus 3:1-15 and Matthew 6:5-13:

Most of you know by now the importance that I place on prayer, including our expectation that everyone will engage in prayer at least once a day, although doing it even more than that is even better. That expectation is based not just on our membership vows that we will pray, but also that we have said that prayer is one of our core values as a congregation. Richard Rohr, who is a Franciscan priest and author, takes it a bit farther and has said that “The church that does not teach its people to pray has virtually lost its reason for existence.” And so when I recently asked for ideas that I might preach about, it wasn’t surprising that I had some people ask me to talk about prayer. Indeed, that is a perennial request from people, because although it appears to be easy to do, the fact is that praying can be hard. Now some of that, I think, is because we sometimes make prayer harder than it needs to be, or, worse, we compare our prayer lives or what we say against others and we find ourselves lacking. But, that’s nothing new, because the disciples have the same problem. And so in the gospel of Luke, we have an account in the 11th chapter that Jesus has gone off to pray, and when he is done, the disciples say to him “Lord, teach us to pray.” Apparently what they are doing in prayer doesn’t look like what Jesus is doing, and the result of that question is Jesus giving what has become known as the Lord’s prayer. And so we are going to be spending the next six weeks looking at the Lord’s prayer and what it teaches us not just about prayer, but also about God and what we are called to as disciples.

The Lord’s Prayer appears only in the gospels of Matthew and Luke, and we are going to be primarily using Matthew’s version because it is closer to the prayer that we say at least once a week. In Matthew’s version, as we just heard, it is part of the Sermon on the Mount which is sort of a summation of Jesus’ teachings as well as instruction about the Kingdom of God, which, of course, plays a role in what we pray in the Lord’s Prayer. And because it’s only found in Matthew and Luke, and not included in Mark and John, scholars believe that this prayer was originally recorded in a source known as Q, from the first letter of the German word for source, which is a document that we no longer have but which Matthew and Luke had access to. And because Matthew and Luke give different settings for where the Lord’s Prayer was taught, we don’t know how and where Jesus originally taught the prayer, and perhaps he even taught it multiple times in multiple places.

Core Values: Prayerful

Here is my message from Sunday. The text was 1 Timothy 2:1-7  and Matthew 6:5-15:

A Pastor had a kitten that climbed up a tree in his backyard and was afraid to come down. The Pastor coaxed, offered warm milk, etc. but nothing worked – the kitten wouldn't come down. The tree was not sturdy enough to climb, so the Pastor decided that if he tied a rope to his car and drove away so that the tree bent down, he could reach up and get the kitten. That's what he did, all the while checking the progress of his car. He then figured if he went just a bit further, the tree would be bent sufficiently for him to reach the kitten. But, as he moved the car forward, the rope broke. The tree went "boing!!!" and the kitten instantly sailed through the air---out of sight. The Pastor felt terrible. He walked all over the neighborhood asking people if they'd seen a little kitten. No. Nobody had seen a stray kitten. So he prayed, "Lord, I just commit this kitten to your keeping," then went about his business.  Later that day he was at the grocery store and met one of his church members. He happened to look in her shopping cart and was amazed to see cat food. This woman was a cat hater and everyone knew it so he asked her, "Why are you buying cat food when you hate cats so much??" She replied, "You won't believe this," and told him how her little girl had been begging her for a cat, but she kept refusing. Then, a few days earlier, the child had begged again, so she finally told her little girl, "Well, if God gives you a cat, I'll let you keep it." She told the Pastor, "I watched my child go out in the yard, get on her knees, and ask for a cat. And really, Pastor, you won't believe this, but I saw it with my own eyes. A kitten suddenly came flying out of the blue sky, with its paws outspread....and landed right in front of her!!!"  Never underestimate the power of prayer or of God’s unique sense of humor.

For the past two weeks as we’ve been working our way through the core values that we have articulated as a congregation, we’ve been talking about our baptism and what happens as a result of being a baptized people. Now, if we had gone a little farther in the baptismal liturgy when we renewed our baptismal vows, we would have come to the membership vows which are that we will support this congregation with our prayers, presence, gifts, service and witness. As I have said before, I believe that prayer is at the top of that list because it is the most important, and start of all of the other vows. It is key to the development of our faith and our relationship with God, and it’s definitely important for it to be a core value for the congregation. But, before we get into that, let’s say our values together again. We are Christ-centered, prayerful, inclusive, growing spiritually, compassionate and caring and in service and mission. Now, just as prayer comes first for the membership vows, Christ-centered comes first for our values because it centers and directs everything else that we do. Buddhists pray, but their prayers are obviously not about Christ, or through Christ, and so when we talk about prayer it’s a particular type of prayer that we are discussing. It is Christ-centered prayer, and it’s not just individual prayer but also corporate prayer, what we do alone and what we do together, and all of those things are what make us prayerful. As we were talking about this as a core value it was that sense that we are going to bathe everything in prayer. That prayer will be a part of every gathering, that when we are seeking to make decisions that it will have prayer involved, that nearly everything we do will have prayer as a part of it.

The Lord's Prayer

Here is my sermon from Sunday.  The text was Matthew 6:5-15:

Just 58 words, or 69 words as we say it every week, comprise the Lord’s Prayer, probably the most famous prayer of all time.  A prayer that most of us learned as children.  A prayer that is so familiar to us that most of us can say it without even thinking about it.  And that is part of its problem.  Because we say it every Sunday, at the very least, it’s one we often don’t really spend a lot of time thinking about what we are actually saying or why, it just becomes sort of a rote activity, and we don’t really think about what it is that we are saying or praying for, and so as we look through prayer in the season of lent, we are going to take a brief overhead view of  the Lord’s Prayer

Last week we heard Luke’s version, which can be found in Luke 11which was given after the disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to pray.  Luke’s version is an abbreviated version of the prayer.  The one we pray is from Matthew, which is given right in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount.  We should note that this is a thoroughly Jewish prayer.  It is rooted in Jewish prayers and tradition that Jesus and the disciples with which they would have been familiar.  And   I think that based on both versions of the prayer that we shouldn’t really call this the Lord’s Prayer.  Although it was certainly given to us by Jesus, it was given to the disciples, to us, to prayer and therefore might more appropriately be called the disciple’s prayer, and so when we pray, we should pray like this:

Our father…  Based on this tradition, this is how many of us begin our prayers, but as familiar as this is, the term here is not actually father.  The word Jesus uses here is the Aramaic word Abba, spelled like the disco band, which more properly should be translated as daddy or papa.  It’s a word of endearment and of closeness.  Now father in and of itself implies relationship, and potentially close relationship, which is important to note here, because Jesus does not say pray O God of the universe, or Great and guiding light, instead he prays father.  Those other terms can be useful in prayer, but praying to father implies a God who is present and in relationship with us, and praying daddy, implies a God who is close to us.  It’s sort of like the old card that says that while any man can be a father it takes someone special to be a dad, but many of us feel uncomfortable praying to God as daddy, and so we use father.  I should also note that there are some people who have problems with using the term father for God, for lots of different reasons, and we’ll talk about that next week when we talk about the metaphors we use for God and how those impact our prayers.  But we pray to a God who is like a parent to us, who is close to us, who is in relationship with us.

Lord, Teach Us To Pray

Here is my sermon from Sunday.  The text was Luke 11:1-13:

Prayer is at the heart of Christianity.  Martin Luther said “to be a Christian without prayer is no more possible than to be alive without breathing.”  When you join the United Methodist Church, you pledge your prayers, your presence, your gifts, your service and your witness.  The order is not insignificant.  I do believe that prayer is first because it is the most important.  But, prayer is one of those difficult things for many Christians.  I suspect that even with the quote I just read that few of us have actually ever been taught how to pray, at least formally.  Even though prayer is vital to who we are, to what we do, and to deepening our relationship with God we don’t spend a lot of time learning how to do it, but for the weeks of Lent, we are going to be looking at prayer in many different forms, and we won’t even begin to touch the surface of everything that might be said.

by Carrie Grant, behance.net

Prayer is very important for Luke.  He talks more about prayer than any of the other gospel writers, and he has Jesus praying all over the place for lots of different things, but apparently to the disciples, whatever it is that Jesus is doing does not look like or feel like what they have been doing.  Jesus seems to be like the old EF Hutton commercial, “when Jesus talks, God listens.”   Comparing themselves to Jesus, they must have been feeling a little inadequate, so they begin to think that maybe they are not praying correctly, or maybe that they don’t know anyone about prayer at all, and so they go to Jesus and say, “Lord teach us how to pray.”  This is the only time they ask Jesus to teach them how to do something, and that should give us some comfort I think, because like the disciple, it feels like we should know what you are supposed to be doing and you don’t, and you want to say to Jesus, just like the disciples did, “Lord teach me how to pray.”

I remember as a child sitting in worship one day with my mother, and we got to the point in time in the service when we all recited the Lord’s prayer, and this was the time in which everyone was assumed to know it and so it wasn’t printed in the bulletin, a standard we can no longer expect, and so I turned to my mother and asked her how she knew the prayer, and she told me it was just something you learned by going to church.  That is my earliest memory about prayer, and being taught about prayer and what it meant to pray.  But, how I really learned how to pray was by sort of being pushed into the deep end and being told to swim, which is what happened as soon as I said that I was going to enter the ministry, then I became the designated prayer at seemingly every event, from family meals to church meetings.