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| "Peace Week Vigil USMS-102"by Office of Public Affairs, on Flickr |
Luke 11:1-13
[Jesus] was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.”He said to them, “When you pray, say:
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 indebted to us.
And do not bring us to the time of trial.”
And he said to them, “Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.’ And he answers from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door has already been locked, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.’ I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, at least because of his persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs.
“So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish? Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion? 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!”
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This morning, I want to begin by giving you another glimpse of the glamorous behind-the-scenes life of pastoral ministry. And it has to do with prayer. Specifically, the prayers of intercession that we pray each week in worship.
Most seminary worship professors teach ELCA pastors that it is best practice for the prayers of intercession to be written locally each week, by an assisting minister or pastor. But the truth is that most ELCA pastors cheat at this task in a semi-sanctioned way by using and editing prayers that are written in Sundays and Seasons, our denominational worship resource. It's a handy resource - it gives hymn suggestions for each week of the church year, offers creative worship ideas, gives us words for special rites and blessings...and it also provides a set of prayers of intercession for each week.
Now, as it turns out, these prayers of intercession are not so much written by professional prayers or professional writers. They are written by a cadre of ordinary ELCA pastors. How do I know this? Because I'm part of the writing team for 2018, and have just submitted five weeks' worth of prayers for summer 2018.
It's been a fascinating process to write these prayers, and I noticed a few things while writing.
First, it feels strange and disconnected to be writing prayers that won't be spoken until summer 2018. How do I write prayers for the nations when I don't know what the nations will be doing in two years? And isn't it awful that I can assume there will still be wars, still be corrupt leaders, still be immigrants and refugees two years into the future?
Second, it is hard work to pray for the same categories of things in diverse ways each week. Every week we pray for the church universal, the health of creation, the nations of the world, those in need of healing, the life of our congregation and community, and those who have died. It's hard enough to keep from repeating yourself from one week to the next. But you also have to keep in mind that you are writing for a diverse audience: congregations in small towns and in cities, in the north and in the south, of varying races, classes, climates, and political affiliations. The process of writing these prayers has stretched my vocabulary and has forced me to stay aware of and connected to our brothers and sisters of faith across time and space.
And then third, and most important, as I wrote, I started thinking about how the words on the page are merely words until they are spoken into an assembly and given life by the intercession of the Holy Spirit. That words don't actually become prayers until we throw our faith and our hope behind them. And more than that, these words can never become answered prayers unless we ourselves are changed in the process of praying them.
In today's gospel, the disciples ask Jesus to teach them to pray as he prays. They see him pray and what what he has: a connected, active, intimate, powerful relationship with God the Father.
Jesus begins by giving them a few how-tos. He gives them sample words to pray, words that have evolved into our modern day Lord's Prayer. He gives them some technical advice about how to pray, telling them that persistence is important and that they should feel free to ask God, without shame, for whatever is needed.
But then, at the end, Jesus teaches them something far more important about prayer than simply how to do it. Jesus teaches the disciples about what makes prayer effective, what makes prayer worthwhile, and what makes prayer a vehicle toward intimacy with God.
Jesus gives the disciples an image of a parent giving good things to his children, and then says of God the Father, "How much more will the Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!" There are two things going on here. First, Jesus is teaching us that in prayer, we receive the fullness of the same parent-child relationship that Jesus quite literally has with God. And second, Jesus is teaching us that no matter what else we ask for in prayer, God will always give us back an abundant measure of the Holy Spirit, which is to say that in prayer, we receive an abundance of God himself.
Notice that Jesus doesn't say, "If even a wicked parent knows to give good things to his children, how much more will God the Father give his children an abundance of what they ask for." Jesus promises that God will give us an abundance of his Spirit. This is important, because otherwise this is one seriously problematic passage. If we stop before we get to that closing statement, it looks like Jesus is teaching us that with enough faith and persistence, God will always give us whatever we ask for: "Ask, and it will be given you;" Jesus says. "Search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened."
This is a lovely message...for anyone who has always gotten what they have prayed for in abundance. It's a painful message, however, for all of us who have ever prayed to God and not seen our prayers answered. For all of us who have not received with abundance the deepest desires of our hearts. Unanswered prayers for parents with cancer, for siblings in car accidents, for spouses seeking employment, for peace to reign on earth. "Ask, and it will be given to you," Jesus says, and it won't take any of us more than a few seconds to bring to mind a time when we have asked and it hasn't been given to us.
And this is why Jesus keeps talking. Ask, he says. And search. And knock. And, he says, use prayer as an entrance into a relationship with God, who will ways give more of the Spirit to you. God will always give you more of God's own self. See, Jesus doesn't teach us that prayer is all about getting what we ask for. Jesus teaches us that prayer is a vehicle for learning the desires of God's heart and receiving a measure of God's own self. The more we pray, the more of God that we receive. And the more of God that we receive, the more that we are transformed by faith into agents of transformation in the world. The more of God that we receive, the more that we become vehicles through which God answers prayer in the world.
With each subsequent national and international tragedy that comes our way, a first response of people is to say that they are praying for the situation. Hashtags show up on social media, posters are made, soundbytes are created: #prayformunich, #prayfordallas, #prayfororlando. It makes sense. Prayer is something we can do immediately and from afar.
But in recent months, a counter-voice has risen to this knee-jerk prayer response to tragedy. Activists and grieving people have started to get angry at those who are quick to lift up prayers but slow to do anything else. They denounce prayer when it becomes a substitute for action. They reject the idea that prayer somehow lets us off the hook from having to invest any more time, money, or emotional energy into pressing situations. The argument of these counter-voices is that we have an obligation to back up our prayers with action and advocacy.
I don't think that Jesus would disagree. He prays and he teaches the disciples to pray; but he also commissions them to do God's work in the world. Jesus begins today's gospel in prayer, but the very next thing that he will do in Luke's gospel is to cast out a demon. For Jesus, prayer and action go hand in hand. Prayer establishes our relationship with God; but then our relationship with God gives us power to act as God's representatives in the world.
When is the last time that you prayed for the hungry but then did not actually feed a hungry neighbor? When is the last time that you prayed for peace but then chose not to attend a rally or sign a petition or use your vote to help make that peace a reality? When is the last time you prayed for comfort for the grieving, but then did not call or send a card or pay a visit to someone in your life who has experienced a loss?
Because he point of prayer is not simply to pawn off the world's needs to God as a divine wish-granter. Jesus teaches us that prayer is more than that. Yes, we lift up concerns to God. Yes, we hope God will act in creation. Yes, we persist in faith and trust God to answer prayer. But more than all that, in prayer, we establish and strengthen our relationship with the God who gives us himself with abundance. And by this relationship our hearts are changed, and our dispositions refined, and our fervor for doing God's work emboldened.
We stand up and pray the intercessions each week in worship. We pray for the church and for creation, for the nations, for healing, for our congregation, for those who have died. And let's be honest. Sometimes we zone out during the prayers. Our minds wander, we get fidgety from having to stand for so long, we are tired of listening and can't keep focused. I get it. It takes a lot of energy and concentration to be fully present to the task of prayer, especially when somebody else is speaking. Especially when it seems like we are only cataloging the needs of the world for God's ears. Because it doesn't take a couple hundred people to do that. Just the one person who is talking.
But what if we started to reimagine this time of prayer? What if we stopped thinking about it as a long series of written words that are being prayed, and what if we started thinking about this time as a dedicated space in our worship to build and deepen our relationship with God and the world? What if we started listening to the prayers not as words spoken to God on behalf of the world, but words spoken to us by God as directives for where to take action in the world?
The philosopher Soren Kierkegaard is credited to have said, “The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather change the nature of the one who prays.” In other words, if we pray but are not changed by our prayers, than how can we expect that the world will be changed by our prayers? Or put even more bluntly, how can we trust that God will change the world if we do not also trust and expect that God will change us, too?
May God encourage our hearts to pray without ceasing. May God strengthen us to be persistent in lifting up the cause of the righteous before God, as did our ancestor Abraham. May God keep near our hearts the concerns of our world and make us diligent in praying for good to overcome evil. May God teach us to pray with unrelenting faith in God's power and mercy. May God bless us to know him more and more deeply as our loving parent.
And more than all that, may God transform our hearts through our prayers. May God's Spirit move among us as we lift up our supplications. May God speak to us with a holy calling. May God empower us to participate in the fulfillment of the prayers we offer. May we each follow the example of Christ, whose prayers and deeds were yoked together by a love that poured itself out for the sake of others.
In the name of Christ, we lift up all the cares for which we pray, all the people for whom we intercede, all the desires for which our hearts long. We raise our prayers like incense and receive back an abundance of Spirit, leading us into holy action, drawing us outside ourselves, making of us God's holy hands and feet by which he will bring hope and change to our world.
Amen.
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