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10. Sunday after pentecost, 07/28/2013
Sermon on Luke 11:1-13, by Hubert Beck
Now Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples." And 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 who is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation."
And said to them, "Which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves, for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey, and I have nothing to set before him'; and he will answer from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed. I cannot get up and give you anything'? I tell you, though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his impudence he will rise and give him whatever he needs. 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. What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; or, if he asks for an egg, will give him 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!" English Standard Version
FORM FITTING GOD'S CHILDREN
Jesus: A Man of Prayer
It wasn't the first time they had seen Jesus praying. They had both known him to disappear into lonely places to pray and they had also seen him publicly and openly praying. Sometimes they knew what his prayers were, but far more often they did not have a clue. They just knew that he was a man of prayer. Luke accents this side of Jesus' life by reporting Jesus in prayer time after time.
Finally, though, this constant praying got to the disciples. They sensed that the man with whom they were walking was both formed by his praying and at the same time found himself compelled to never stop praying. They were more and more aware that he could not be who he was without praying. So they finally had to ask him for instructions as to how they could become more like him whom they respected so highly. John's disciples had evidently been fashioned by the kind of connection John had with God, and they were sure that, if they could get a better sense of what shaped the life of this man with whom they walked, they could become even more like him ... and his praying was part of who he was and what he was becoming. In short, anyone who wanted to even remotely resemble Jesus had to follow the example he was setting. So one day after Jesus had finished praying "in a certain place," as the text puts it, they appointed one of his disciples to ask him about this. "Lord, teach us to pray," they said.
The Disciples Seek To Be Like Jesus
It is of note that they did not ask him to give them a prayer. They did not ask him for formulae or phrases that constitute good praying. They had plenty of those kinds of things available to them, for there were innumerable prescriptive prayers and spiritual procedures of which they were well aware through their synagogues and from the many rabbis of their communities. When they asked Jesus to teach them to pray they wanted to know how Jesus had become the person he was and how he was continuing to structure his life in order to both maintain his consciousness of being so special under God's guidance and at the same to how he maintained a true sense of direction in the things he was doing and saying.
After all, praying is much more than just saying various words - right words, sacred words, words of praise or petition, pious words. Praying is a formative action as much or more than it is a meekly submissive bowing before God. It is more about trusting God enough that we dare to address him, that we are willing to unashamedly draw near to him because we trust him to care for us in spite of every reason for him to disregard us, to ignore us, to send us away from him.
In the process of such an audacious will to speak with God we find a strange thing happening: we, ourselves, are drawn up into a closer rapport with him to whom we pray. Our minds are changed more than God's mind is changed. We begin to sense in an ever deeper fashion that the way life is shaping up around us depends on God, not us. We become more and more aware that prayer is not a kind of tit-for-tat way of dealing with God as though praying hard enough, often enough, long enough, intensely enough, God's mind will be changed about what we are asking for. It has much more to do with discovering how God shapes and forms us into the kind of person for which he made us to be. We more and more pray in a fashion that trusts God enough that we dare to come before him with our deepest and most pressing needs as a child comes to the parent, trusting God to do what is best for us when all is said and done.
We no longer ask why we should come before a God who knows better than we what we need, why we should not just let him do his thing. We no longer need to ask why we should bother him with our petty requests - or even our most burning desires. We will not merely resign ourselves to a God who will do what he wants to do, no matter what. We will, rather, pray as though we are speaking with a God whom we can trust to take our prayers spoken out of our most urgent earthly wishes and necessities, who will weave out of them that which is best for us, and act in accord with that which will serve both him and us in the best possible way. In that process we will find ourselves changed from self-serving to God-serving, from people driven by earth-bound wants and desires to God-driven people seeking, above all, the kingdom of God.
An Example: The Lord's Prayer
Jesus' response was not so much intended to be a new form of liturgical prayer, then, which is how we commonly use it. It was, rather, and even more essentially, a skeleton of how praying with an intentional mindset transforms lives, modifies the hopes and goals of the one praying, and alters the direction of the lives of those who pray faithfully and steadily in accord with the outline it presents to us. He assured his disciples that this was what his praying was about - and how such praying would effect the same in the lives of those who asked him to teach them to pray.
This is not to say that using the prayer Jesus spoke in the form Jesus gave it to them is wrong or mistaken. Not at all. But it is noteworthy that Matthew's form of this prayer - the one we most ordinarily use - varies from Luke's version, found in our text, both in the framework within which each records it for us and also in some wording and length. Both forms, however, are in complete agreement about that which is essential to the way we come before God as his children asking for his blessing and direction.
In fact, the disciples found in this prayer that Jesus offered them nothing less than the very thing they were seeking - the formative underpinning of Jesus' life itself. How does your constant praying give guidance to and govern your life? The disciples asked Jesus about that - and, in essence, he said this:
Father
"When you speak with God, speak to him with all the confidence that you would speak to a loving, good, honorable father on this earth. ‘What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; or if he asks for an egg, will give him 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!' So let your entire bond with God be that of a child coming to his father asking him to watch over you, care for you, love you as only a father can.
Hallowed Be Your Name
"Let your prayer, then, be that your Father would grant you grace to recognize his presence in your life in everything that you do. This is absolutely vital to me," Jesus was saying through this instruction to his disciples. "My praying begins with the burning appeal that the Father would let the world know his intentions toward it through me, that he would show himself through my presence in every aspect of my life. That my name would become synonymous with his name. If you would learn about praying from me, you will ask God to show himself through your lives in like fashion as he does through me. You will pray that, if and when your life is more devoted to the honoring and furthering and setting forth of your name as that which is most honored among those with whom you walk, ask the Father to turn your name aside, even forcefully if necessary, lest it overshadow his name in some way. Pray that your life may be buried within his life so that the world may, above all, venerate the God whom you serve. You ask for instruction in how to live godly lives just as John's disciples asked for instruction. Let John's words about me be your guide, then, in all that you value when you stand before God: ‘He must increase, but I must decrease.' (John 3:30)
Your Kingdom Come
"When you do this, then you will be governed by him from whom all things come, to whom all things belong, and in whose hands the end of all things rests. God's kingdom is from everlasting to everlasting, and the one thing that you will most cherish is citizenship in his kingdom. What you see in me is nothing other than the royalty of God's claim on the earth! In putting your lives at my disposal you are putting your lives at the disposal of the Ruler of all things. Shortly after John baptized me the Spirit of God drove me out into the wilderness in order to let him who seeks to be the last word on this earth challenge me. He offered to resign from all claims to any rule over the earth if I would just play his game. He played a strong hand, to be sure, for he tried desperately to cause me to deviate from the path that the Father had set before me.
He will in like fashion do everything in his power to draw you into his kingdom, to turn your vision and your actions away from that for which God made you. It is so easy to establish your own kingdom on earth in your own name as though you could carve out a little piece of the world as your own. You must pray against yourself ever so powerfully, asking God to destroy all the kingdoms you try to establish in order that you may serve the one and only King of creation. In me you see his rule established already. I perform miracles so that you may have tiny eyeholes into the kingdom of God present in and through me. But many temptations lie before you to serve other kings and other kingdoms. That is why even I must constantly pray. The one who met me in the wilderness continues to haunt me at every turn, urging me to do his will. Pray always that you, whom I have called to be citizens in the kingdom of heaven, may maintain that citizenship pure and simple. God reigns already on this earth where you live. The kingdom of God has no boundaries. Rather, ‘The kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.' (Romans 14:17) Pray that your lives may be shaped and formed by the citizenship you hold in that kingdom in spite of all temptations to the contrary.
Give Us Each Day Our Daily Bread
"Yet, of course, you live in a world that requires daily bread. God provided such necessary bread for his children wandering in the wilderness for forty years after they left Egypt. Did they starve? Of course not! As manna was provided daily for them, so also pray God for those things necessary for the maintenance of your life that God calls into the service of his kingdom. Again I must remind you that Satan pressed that need on me very powerfully after my long stay in the wilderness that I called home after my baptism. It is a never-ending temptation to make the sustenance of this life in whatever form that most immediately appears to be essential for your welfare as the most all-consuming thing in life. If that shapes your life, it will, itself, be your downfall, for that for which you labor will consume you in turn. The bread of this earth sustains life only for so long before your heavenly Father calls for your departure from here.
There will be some times when you will need him more than at other times for things such as these. E.g., ‘which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and say to him, "Friend, lend me three loaves, for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey, and I have nothing to set before him," and he will answer from within, "Do not bother me; the door is now shut and my children are with me in bed. I cannot get up and give you anything"? I tell you, though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his impudence he will rise and give him whatever he needs'. Even in this world people will respond - at times reluctantly, to be sure - but finally in a manner that can only be called impudent or shameless because he doesn't want to become known as a piker when a friend calls on him for help. He will help simply because he is a friend even though it is inconvenient. Isn't your Father in heaven more willing by far to give you what you need than those who must be coerced by shame or embarrassment or some other such human motivation? Do you see me worried or concerned about where we will lay our heads tonight or where we will find food next week? I trust the Father to care for me - and I assure you he will supply you with what you need, whether maximally or minimally!
Forgive Us Our Sins, For We Ourselves Forgive Everyone Who Is Indebted To Us
"Dare one approach God with all these petitions without asking for his pity and clemency? Is it not imperative that you seek the Father's forgiveness, asking that it cover your failure of confidence in God that you exhibit in your own personal affairs, not to speak of the overwhelming failures of trust and humility you exhibit as you participate in the larger affairs of this earth? Do you not remember the paralytic who was so determined to see me that his friends bore him to me on his pallet? I knew, of course, what he wanted above all, but do you remember my first words to him? ‘Take heart, my son, your sins are forgiven.' They were not idle words, spoken to belittle the immediate wants that brought him to me. I addressed his real need first, though, and only then did I invite him to ‘Rise, pick up your bed and go home.' (Matthew 9:1-8)
Earthly needs so easily cover over the greatest needs of humans, but it is in order that the blanket of God's forgiveness might be thrown over the earth that I, myself, am committed to going the way of death. You do not see nor understand that now. You see neither the end to which I am traveling nor the means that will be used to attain it. But you shall neither see me where you want to see me nor will you understand what you are seeing. I tell you, however, that the Son of Man is about to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him, and he will be raised on the third day. (Matthew 17:22, 23) It is the Father's will that I should walk this road - and my constant prayer is that I may be kept faithful to the path he has laid before me. I know that I, like you, have been and will be tempted to deviate from that path, for forgiveness is not easily administered. It must be a daily prayer that God may be graciously merciful to you - accompanied by a prayer of the same sort that you may be graciously merciful to those who offend you. ‘Teach us to pray,' you say. Pray that this way of life may be your way of life - a life of forgiving because you have been forgiven.
And Lead Us Not Into Temptation
"Do you think that keeping my feet on the path the Father has set before me is either easy or without temptations to alter the direction my feet travel? Be assured it has not been up to this time, nor is it now, nor will it be in the future. I am fully aware of that, and I must regularly be restored to the confidence that I am walking this path rightly and faithfully - and that the Father walks with me on this way. I do not walk it alone. Nor will you. There will be obstacles of every sort along the way for you, just as there have been and remain obstacles for me. Life is filled with pitfalls and traps. The evil one knows very well how to capitalize on almost every turn of your life. He can turn what looks like the way of certainty, Peter, into a sinkhole of despair. He can take the moment in which any of you may feel closest to God and make it into a moment of self-righteousness that drives a wedge between you and the one you intend to serve. You must be relentlessly aware.
The Father himself, tempts no one, (James 1:13) but strangely enough the trials and testings that come from his hand can easily become stumbling blocks as you think that a good Father in heaven could never set such distress in your way. It is possible that you may fail to trust him at the most crucial times. Never consider yourselves beyond such thoughts and doubts and concerns. Your fathers who enjoyed the favor of God long before you are evidences of that. (1 Corinthians 10:1-13) Neither I nor the greatest of those who will follow in my footsteps will be given all for which we ask, (Luke 22:39-44; 2 Corinthians 12:5-10) but the confidence that God will remain faithful even when his testings become so great that we actually find them temptations to unbelief will be the work of the Holy Spirit. So let that, above all, be what you pray for. ‘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!'" It is against all such temptations that I have set my eyes squarely toward Jerusalem where I shall complete that for which I came. Pray that you may be preserved in all hours of trial in like fashion that you, too, may remain faithful to the end that God has in store for you.
Prayer Like That Changes You - Not God
"Do you want to know how to pray? Pray like that, " Jesus may have concluded. "Pray that your lives might have the proper focus, your lives might be set in the right direction, your very being might be prepared for all that lies before you as children of God, servants of the Most High, your Father in heaven! That is what it will be to pray as I pray, to go the way I go, to honor God in the way that he has set before me!"
Well, Jesus didn't say all that, of course - at least not in the words we find in our text. He simply spoke in shorthand, telling them that when they prayed, all this was to be caught up and summarized in words like, "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." One must remember that these words are about Jesus first of all - and through him and in his name they become ours also, for they point us in the direction that Jesus went.
Ask, Seek, Knock
We dare to pray and live like that because he, himself, has urged us to "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." Really? Yes, really!
At least we will realize the fullness of the truth Jesus sets before us here if we know the answer to the question "what is the ‘it' that shall be given to those who ask, seek, knock?" It is all too easy to make the "it" whatever we want, whatever we desire, whatever, for that matter, we see as most necessary in our lives. But two things are easily overlooked when we hear Jesus say this.
First of all, the word "believe" never occurs in this directive! He doesn't say, "If you ask, believing - if you seek, believing - if you knock, believing - then you will receive ‘it,' find ‘it,' ‘have the door opened for ‘it' to come in." He simply says that we should be so bold - so "impudently" or "shamelessly," in fact - not "meekly" or "mousily" or "timidly - we are to be BOLD in our asking, seeking and knocking. Why? Simply because it is God who listens, it is God who hears, it is, in fact, God the Lord who tells us to do this. And what will result from such asking, seeking and knocking? That which only God can give, that's what!
Anyone who has prayed after the fashion in which Jesus instructed his disciples to pray is asking God for that which is best - no, still more than that, for that which is necessary - for the one who prays. Such a person will seek that which is found only in God, will knock on the door that will open to God's treasury! God does not command us to pray to him as a giant vending machine in the sky, giving us, once we have punched the right buttons, things that we want according to our varying wishes and that which most pleases our eye, our ear, our taste, our wants. He commands us to pray with the confidence that the God who commands us so to pray also hears us, responds to us with that which, in his divine wisdom and providence, he sees as best for us.
One might ask, therefore, if our prayers all depend on what God decides to give us, why pray? Simply because he says to. It is the affirmation on our part that we need God. It is the way we tell God that we know he is there and that we trust him to love and care for us simply because he has promised to do so. The more we pray, the more we will be attuned to those things necessary for us and the more we pray the more we will find the courage to openly lay our thoughts and concerns before him who holds them all in his heart - long before we pray, in fact. But he wants us to dare to speak them to him anyway, for he delights in hearing how much we trust him.
Does God need to answer us? Yes - simply because he is God and he has instructed us to pray and has promised to hear us. He listens with the ear of a loving Father - and he responds in like fashion. As someone put it quite well, "I do not believe in prayer, but rather I believe in the God who listens and answers." I leave the "it" to God, but I am confident that if I ask, seek and knock, the "it" will be good!
Prayer: The Form That Determines The Character Of The Child Of God
And if we are confident that the "it" is good because we have prayed in accord with that which our Lord Jesus instructed us to pray, our lives will be conducted in the fashion that Jesus' life was conducted - hallowing God's name by faithfully hearing and trusting the very same word that invigorated the waters poured over us in our baptism - gathering at the table placed in his kingdom hall where bread and wine feed our hungering and thirsting soul - living in the peace of knowing both that God provides for our bodies with daily bread and for our spirits with daily forgiveness - living among all those around us with forgiven hearts forgiving in their turn - and walking in the confidence that, where temptations lurk on every hand, the Father will keep us safe even in the valley of the shadow of death - just as he did for Jesus who, crucified and buried, rose again as King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
One does well to pray as he did - and as he taught us - for such praying is the very way by which our lives are shaped into the form of the life he gave in order that we might have everlasting life.
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.