Göttinger Predigten
Göttinger Predigten im Internet hg. von U. Nembach
The tenth Sunday after Pentecost , 07/24/2016
Sermon on Luke 11:1-3, by David H. Brooks
There is almost nothing that will reveal the pagan DNA in our culture more than conversations about prayer. People who wonder about prayer typically focus on technique—did I do it right—or results—did I get that for which I prayed. We come to prayer unsure about what it is to accomplish, or how we might bend the process and the god at the other end of the tether to our will. These two questions about right technique and satisfactory results are a deep source of mischief for many, because both questions put the one who prays and the one who receives prayer in a quid pro quo situation. The ancients understood the whole of religion to be of this process—you do the right ritual in the right fashion and thereby bind both yourself and your god. The worshipper offers what the god wants, and the god provides what the worshipper wants.
Now, the disciples were no pagans, of course. They knew from the Psalmist and the prophet Isaiah that God, who had covenanted with Israel to be faithful, was ready to hear prayer and to answer, even before a word was uttered. Nevertheless, they come to Jesus with the question of technique on their lips. “John teaches his disciples how to pray;” and we might imagine for ourselves all the seminars and classes, all the good advice and helpful wisdom about prayer, addressing everything from the right posture and process to the right attitude and internal disposition.
And, it must be said, there is good advice out there. There is helpful wisdom. There are classes and instruction that can offer encouragement and growth in the practice of prayer.
So why did Jesus not conduct a seminar when the disciples asked? Why did his offered wisdom take them away from technique?
It is clear that Jesus’ response is because he sees that the problem is not so much a question of how, but a question of why. Here is where the problem of prayer becomes acute, and what might be called “pagan DNA” is in the end only a particular aspect of sin, because the best technique is for nothing if the heart is focused on the self. Just as the man who woos a woman with many gifts, with much attention and care is in fact doing great damage if such efforts arise from a predatory heart, so the one who prays focused on the self reduces the potential richness of the relationship with God to mere transaction, pure commerce. The so-called “prosperity gospel” is merely the most obvious outcome of such prayer; to follow such advice is to sound like an entire congregation of Janis Joplins, singing for Mercedes-Benz automobiles to stay equal with the neighbors in their Porsches.
Rather than teaching about prayer, Jesus gives a prayer to his disciples, its content meant to move the disciple away from focus on the self to focus on God and the work God is doing. Let your name be holy, in all times and places! Let your kingdom prevail everywhere! Be what you are—the provider of life and grant what is needed for today! In your mercy, let us be merciful! Keep us from falling when our faith is tested!
Jesus gives this prayer, with its content focused away from the self, to offer a vision where the one who prays loves God and what God loves. It is an antidote to the great spiritual disease of our time—we love ourselves, and we love God only to the degree that God (seems) to love us and love what we love. In short, for all of our talk about love in our world, the sad truth is that we do not know how to love rightly. Such a truth makes Jesus’ last comment all the more poignant and urgent—pray for the Holy Spirit! Pray that the Spirit, which searches and knows the depths of God, might be yours! In an echo of the Hosea reading, which ends with a note of hope that looks for the children of God to be revealed, so this teaching on prayer ends with the promise that God gives the one gift necessary—the Spirit of Truth which guides into all truth. And the core of that truth is that we can pray and be persistent because 1) there is Someone who is always ready to listen, and 2) it is far more likely that such a Someone will be at work on us than our prayers at work on him. Amen.