Praying - An Act of God's Faith

Illustration: Lost at Toys R’Us

When I was about 5 years old our family made a special trip to Toys R’ Us in Springfield, Missouri. As far as I know, it was my first visit to the store and I was absolutely in awe as I saw row after row after row of shelves filled with toys. I had never before encountered a place as amazing as that store. And I remember that there was a particular toy that I absolutely fell in love with. It was a G.I. Joe command center complete with helicopters, tanks, and all of the tools required to withstand any assault from the dreaded Cobra assault forces.

July 28th - Sunday 6pm at the Church

I pleaded with my mom that maybe… just maybe I could get that toy and that if I did get the toy that I would never ask for anything ever again. Her response… well… it didn’t thrill me. Something about the price tag or some such nonsense. I didn’t care about that little yellow tag with a giraffe and some numbers… I cared about the toy. So, I did what any particularly enthused five year old might do… I hunted down my dad and asked him.

Unsurprisingly, I received the same response from my dad. At that point, I began to make my way back towards my mom… but that was the last that either of my parents saw of me—at least for awhile.

A few minutes later, my parents found one another again in the store an realize with horror that I was not with either one of them. Frantically, they began combing through the store in the hope of spotting me. An employee noticed my parents’ concerned expressions and checked in with them to make sure that everything was ok. My parents quickly explained any parents’ worst nightmare… their child could not be found.

With a quick word through the radio, the store immediately went into shutdown. Several employees quickly closed and locked down the doors while others scoured the aisles in search of a lone child. Several minutes passed.

The radio of the employee standing with my parents crackled to life again. I was no where to be found. Fear gripped my parents as the reality sunk in. Their 5-year-old was truly missing.

The employee began asking further questions to my parents. Would I have gone with anyone else? No… they didn’t think so. Was there any places I might have walked to in the area? No… we didn’t even live near there so it was doubtful I would try to go anywhere on my own. Would I have gone out to the car? No… I shouldn’t have… and it was locked anyway.

But my parents had no other leads. As the employees continued running scan after scan throughout the store, my dad decided to go out to the car and check just to be sure. And there he found me, leaning up against our car waiting impatiently for my parents to come out. I had decided that since I wasn’t going to get the toy that I wanted so badly, that I didn’t need to bother sticking around in the store any longer. I was safe—and, as you might imagine, in a bit of hot water for my decision making.

Sometimes, we can become so focused in on one thing in life that we can put up our blinders to the rest of the blessings we have in life.

Introduction and History of Prayer

I think sometimes our relationship with God can be like that. When we come to God in prayer, we often do so in times when we are feeling particularly vulnerable. We make observations about our lives and we express our hopes and implore God to act as we confess our faith. And sometimes, our prayers are not fulfilled the way we would hope them to be. Sometimes we feel as though our prayers go unanswered… and we seek to know why.

In part, I believe that is what inspired the question from the disciples about prayer. They wanted to know how prayer worked. What was the secret formula to inspire God to intercede in life’s issues?

They also wanted to be careful in their prayers to God. The understanding of prayer in Christ’s time was different than how you and I perhaps understand it today. To speak to the divine was somewhat of a risky business.

Most common folk rarely if ever prayed directly to God. Instead, they would bring their sacrifices to the temple and have the priests pray on their behalf. That was, perhaps, the safer route than trying to pray to God without formal teaching and perhaps messing the prayer up. Prayer was not a given in their time—the Jewish scriptures contain scarcely any instruction on the subject of prayer. It was only when personal piety began to develop along with individual conscience that the rabbis began to pay attention to prayer for the individual. And the religious teachers of the day, like John the Baptist and Jesus, would instruct their followers how to pray.

While we generally assume it natural to pray to God, that was not always the case. It is perhaps because of texts such as what we have today in Luke that we have been gifted the comfort in praying to God directly as we do today.

The Lord’s Prayer

So what exactly did Jesus have to say on the subject? Well, depending on whether you read Matthew or Luke, you will hear slightly different teachings. But in today’s text the words Jesus uses are thus:

Luke 11:2–4 NRSV

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.”

There are three things that are particularly important that Luke calls on us to notice within this prayer from Christ.

The first thing to notice is the structure of the prayer itself. This may seem a bit odd to us today, but in the ancient Jewish world, structure, rhythm, and content were key components of prayer were key components in understanding our relationship with God.

The structure that Jesus uses here is a pyramid structure with recognition of God as the very top of the pyramid followed by God’s two possessions… God’s name and God’s reign. And I want to point out just how radical Jesus’ use of Father as a name for God was.

Our Father

Jesus is teaching his disciples to recognize their connection to be so intense with God that they are to proclaim themselves to be God’s children and declare, in their most sacred prayer, that they belong to him.

As we speak the Lord’s Prayer and begin with the words, “Our Father” we too are making that extraordinary claim of who we are in relationship with God. Recognizing ourselves as children to the parental God figure is truly quite the claim and it should not be lost on us that Christ is the one who taught us to pray in such a way that makes that claim.

Further, it is important to note, that while in this instance we hear of God called Father, we also see God reflected in many mothering acts throughout scripture. All good motherly and fatherly understandings have their origin in God.

Level 2

So God is the first level of the pyramid of this prayer structure uses… the second level again is God’s possessions which are God’s reign and God’s name.

Luke 2: A Commentary on the Gospel of Luke 9:51–19:27 Commentary

Ἁγιάζω is “to hallow,” “to treat as holy,” “to reverence.”

And in this instance it is a reminder that Christ’s disciples were to praise God and give God glory. It’s important to note for us, however, that only God is able to truly make God’s name holy.

While we encourage not taking God’s name in vain, that’s not what Christ’s prayer is after here. Instead, Christ’s prayer is a petition that God continues to make God’s name holy to the people. That God continues to give the people reason to proclaim God’s greatness.

And the way that we see God doing that is by not condemning the people but instead by saving them… by saving us.

And we, in turn, respond to God’s saving love not only with prayer but with the practice of our faith in the world… with worship, with service, with care for our neighbor.

So after God’s name we hear Jesus say, “Your Kingdom come.” Which is to say that we recognize the Good News of what God is doing in the world… but that we are still waiting for the fullness of God’s kingdom to be revealed to the world. We seek the day that there is no longer pain and suffering, mistreatment and abandonment, sickness and death. But that we look to all being made whole again.

Level 3

The third level of the prayer pyramid that Christ presents to us as a model for prayer includes OUR three realities. That we seek good bread… we look for sins to be forgiven… and that we might escape temptation.

There are two things I want to lift up in particular as we think about this third level of the pyramid.

The first is the bread. Jesus does not say give me my bread today. No, he says “Give us each day our daily bread.” We are recognizing as we pray this prayer that we are in community with other fellow believers.

And not just believers that we are standing next to in worship or after a church meeting… but Christians from all over the world and from every age.

Further, Luke’s particular writing in the Greek asks that we receive this bread “each day.” In other words, we are looking for God’s help not just today but we are looking for God’s help for all future days as well with whatever might come. We are actually encouraged to look to the future… recognize that there will be struggles along the way, but also ask that we can trust that God will meet our needs in each and every struggle that we face.

This also links with the idea of lead us not into temptation. It is not that Jesus was saying that God is going to throw us under the bus and see how well we can get back out on our own. Rather, Jesus was saying that we will be challenged in our lives. We will experience events that will rattle our faith-and yet we ask that God will be with us to help u through those events.

Sharing of the Peace

Finally, my last word on the Lord’s prayer itself for today is this… I have occasionally been asked why do we say the Lord’s prayer so often. It’s not just a Lutheran thing or really even a Catholic thing. From the earliest days of the church, whenever a meal was shared in the church community and communion was observed, the Lord’s prayer was recited.

It would have been in Aramaic and Greek rather than English of course, but it was spoken regularly. Along with the Lord’s Prayer, members of the community would give what was known as the “kiss of peace.” It was a time of reconciliation with one’s brothers and sisters as we are reminded to forgive the sins of others.

We do something similar but with fewer germs as we do the sharing of the peace. As we share the peace, it is a reminder of this ancient practice wherein we say “Peace be with you” to forgive one another’s sins and to speak to one another the promise of God’s peace for them.

The sharing of the peace, then, is our living out the words of the Lord’s Prayer and also a way to practice living out that kind of faith in the world beyond the doors of the church.... that we might seek reconciliation with all those around us even as we seek forgiveness from God. It’s Christ’s encouragement that we might imitate God’s forgiving nature.

The Parable

Finally, I’ll close with the parable that is unique to the Gospel of Luke… it’s . And I’m going to fly through this so hang on to your seats.

Luke 11:5 NRSV

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;

Jesus sets up a hypothetical situation for those that he’s teaching… it’s a way to say “Put yourselves in this situation!”

So go ahead and put yourselves in the situation of this one as we think about our prayer life.

It’s the middle of the night and you go to a friend’s house… it is someone you know and care for and you expect that they also know you. There is a code of friendship between the two of you… and you dare to disturb your friend to ask for help because you trust that this person will at the very least not pull a shotgun on you and at the very best will answer your needs.

Luke 11:6-6

Luke 11:6–8 NRSV

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 here’s the rest of the story… the reason why you needed the bread was because why?

That’s right, ANOTHER friend arrived and you’re trying to care for that person. You’re looking for help not for yourself… but for another in order that you might serve better.

Your friend, understandably, is grumpy and doesn’t want to let you in. But, Jesus says, because of the persistence prayer your friend will get up and give you whatever you need.

Two important points here:

The greek word that is translated here as persistence has another meaning which I think is actually a better translation… shamelessness. Jesus is encouraging his disciples and us to speak to God with shamelessness. We don’t need to fear that God is going to give us a snake when we ask for a fish. Our relationship with God is one that we can put our trust in without fear of reprisal. If God were going to condemn you for your sins, God wouldn’t have sent Christ into the world to forgive them.

God doesn’t just give us anything and everything we want… not even G.I. Joe Command Centers. We all know this. What God does give us, however, is the promise that God will have the final word in ANY and EVERY situation. Even when the worst case falls upon us and we lose someone we love or we ourselves are given the news that nothing more can be done… we are reminded of God’s promise that we receive the bread that lasts not just for the day that we live here on earth but for eternity.

Conclusion

While there is much more that could be said on the Lord’s prayer, I believe it to be sufficient to say that Christ is concerned that we feel comfortable in our relationship with God and with one another. That’s partly why, in my belief, why Christ was sent here to begin with. God could have just snapped those eternal fingers and all of our sins would have been forgiven.

Instead, Christ was sent into this world in order that we might be able to relate with God and understand that God relates with us. Christ was sent that we might know what it is to be in a relationship… a friendship… a family bond with our creator.

Blessings to you as you go out into the world as Christ’s disciples… and peace be with you.