Jesus' teaches prayer

Sermon Notes, Proper 12, July 24, 2022 And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Luke 11:9-11 Little 4 year old Sylvia knelt by her bedside for bed-time prayers. Her mother knelt beside her, to encourage her and hear what her child had to say. Sylvia prayed for her Mom and Dad and her sister and brother. Then she went straight to the matter most on her heart. "And Dear God I really want a puppy," she prayed. She looked up at her smiling Mom and remembered what Mom had been taught about prayer, that God gives us what he wants us to have. So she added, "If you really want to have a puppy too." Sylvia instinctively understood that it is good to have God on your side when you pray to him. If God really wants a puppy, then her chances of getting one also go up. Behind her thinking lies a fundamental theological truth, that the efficacy of prayer is dependent upon aligning our wills with God's will. That takes us outside of prayer time, the time we spend on our knees, and into ordinary time when we work to live more Christlike lives. Or maybe that makes our ordinary non-prayer time more prayerlike, and we approach the goal of incessant prayer Paul held up to the Thessalonians. In our reading from Luke today we find Jesus instructing his disciples about prayer. He shows them what to pray, in the now familiar words of the Lord's prayer, and he tells them about the faith needed for prayer. Prayer is borne on the faith of the believer. He wants them to pray with a high level of expectation. He paints them a picture of God receiving their prayers based on familiar family life. He wants them to know that the God they pray to is not an unknown and distant entity, but their father who answers based on his love for his children. The first thing to notice in our passage is that Jesus himself is in prayer to his Father. It's obvious from the story that Jesus is with the disciples, yet being in prayer isolates him from them. We get a sense of their wondering. What does Jesus say when he prays? How is his prayer different from then ones we pray? Their curiosity leads one of them to ask Jesus, "Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples." Prayer is something to be learned. It is not full born at our baptism. Prayer is something that grows with time and experience. Just as our ability to converse grows as we mature in thought and use of language, so should our prayer. The disciple is right in asking Jesus to teach them because he is their rabbi and rabbis teach their disciples. And we are right in studying Jesus' instructions to them as though he were teaching us. First, the words to pray: "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 who is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation." Common words speak to a united Church. Jesus' words are a formulary in every branch of Christianity, repeated in every language. Catholics, Calvinists and Coptics all pray this prayer and in so doing witness to the One, Holy, and Catholic church. The Lord's Prayer is like a creed that fences out false prayers to false gods while protecting the pray-er from attack by the dark forces of evil surrounding him. Luke's version is the essential frame of praise and petition that forms the core of every prayer we pray. Luke's abbreviated version of the Lord's Prayer in Matthew takes us to a place only hinted at in Matthew's Gospel. Jesus sets a condition in front of us; we are expected to forgive everyone indebted to us. This is not something we ask of God, it is an offering we submit to God. It takes us outside the prayer and into our lives where we must do that which we confess to doing. But just saying the right words is not enough. The words need to be borne on a foundation of faith, and that is what Jesus next addresses. Jesus wants us to have a vivid picture in our minds and hearts of who it is that we are praying to. Who is this someone we name Father? In our earthly experience, the closest tangible is a good and loving earthly father, head of his household. The aspect of fatherhood that Jesus invites us to consider is the good father's intimacy with his children. Paul Miller in his book, "A Praying Life" evokes a family of children gathered around a warm fireplace at the end of the day eagerly waiting for Dad to come home from work to spend cherished time with them. To hear the stories of their day, express sorrow for their disappointments and celebrate their good moments. And to bless them before sending them off to bed with his love. This is the Father we pray to in the Lord's Prayer, and yet he is so much more than that. The best we can imagine falls far short of the goodness of God. For example, we can impose upon our earthly fathers, but we can never impose upon God. There are times when our earthly fathers are not going to be lovingly attentive to our needs. Jesus uses the example of someone coming to a friend at midnight to beg for some bread to feed an unexpected guest. The rules of hospitality say he must respond, but the man has no bread at his disposal. So he goes to his neighbor, already in bed with his children, and wakes him with his need. The neighbor will get up and fetch the bread not out of sudden and overwhelming love for his distressed neighbor, but because he's annoyed by his neighbor's impudence. The neighbor is making his life miserable and he wants it to stop. We need to think about this example in terms of prayer. The God to whom we pray will never regard our prayer as an imposition. The God who never sleeps is also never distracted or otherwise preoccupied. His love for his children is such that he is always ready to listen and always eager to hear from us. And no request we make of him is too trivial to answer. Jesus says if we believe in this God, if our faith is built upon this God, our prayer is going to be different. We never have to grab his attention because he is always attentive to us. That gives us confidence to pray in the full expectation that we are heard and we are valued. "And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened." Jesus summarizes his prayer lesson with a trinitarian acclamation. "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 supreme gift that the supreme Father can give his children is himself. Jesus says the Holy Spirit is God's answer to our prayer. Whatever our request may be, it is most fully answered in the gift of the Holy Spirit. If we let the Lord's Prayer be the model for our own prayers, and if we pray in the confidence that God who hears our prayers is ready and able to give us what we need, then let us with joy pray: "Our Father who art in heaven..."