Readings: Psalm 138,
Luke
11:1-13
Prayer:
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be
acceptable in your sight, O God, our rock and our sustainer. Amen.
I want to begin today with a memory of
young adulthood – away from home but still seeing my parent’s prime role in
life as being there for me. And so when I
rang home, usually for something, and there was no reply, it was remarkably
unsettling – where were they, why had they moved away from the phone (landline
of course in those days) when I needed them.
Why had they turned their focus away from me? Silly now but an honest recollection for
then.
Rachel Remen in her book Kitchen Table
Wisdom tells a somewhat similar story from her childhood – this time about the
focus of God. She says that when she was
small God was still discussed in the public schools. She remembers one assembly in which the
principle, a fervent fundamentalist, delivered a fire and brimstone kind of
sermon to the entire school. She read a
passage from the bible and told them it was important that they all kneeled and
prayed three times a day because they needed to remind God that they were
there. Thinking back she may not have
said it in so many words, but this is what Rachel took away. You prayed because you had to make God look
at you. If God’s face was turned away
from you, she told the hushed assembly of children, you would wither up and
die, like an autumn leaf. And at this
time, Rachel recalls, she was sure she actually held up a large dry and
withered leaf. Even as a five year old
it seem that God had a lot of other things to think about besides her. And then she thought – what would happen if, when
she was praying, God blinked, what would become of her? And she spent several sleepless nights until
she was able to ask her Rabbi grandfather ‘what happens if God blinks?’ He was able to assure her that God just knows
she is there all of the time, in the same way she knows that her parents are
there even when she can’t see them. You
know how a child’s mind works here – literal truth.
How many other unhelpful, or downright
dangerous perceptions of the role that prayer plays are out there?
There are the ‘gimme’ prayers that are
encouraged by our ‘gimme’ culture. God I
pray for a lotto win or the designer clothing that will make me look cool or
the rain to go away because I had a sunshine event planned. I even know of someone who prayed that a
parking spot would appear for them because they didn’t want to walk too far. And when we add in the nagging prayer for
things we want– if I ask often enough, God will give it to me. If I ask on my knees even better and if I ask
in as many creatively different ways as I can think of, then how can God
resist. Prayer for me, by me, might as
well be to me as well.
Then there are the fix-it prayers discerned
from a distance, framed by our own solutions and guaranteed by our saying of
them. God do this and do that, heal
them, hush them up, sort them out, make them better people – maybe too thinking
that by the praying we need do no more.
Distance prayers you might call them.
There are what you might call the last
ditch prayers – you know ‘there’s not much else to do now but pray’ – we’ve all
done that I am sure. “I’ve done everything I can now it’s up to God” says a
health professional when she had no more answers. And whilst prayer in dire
situations is absolutely what we are to do, if that is the first and only time one
might pray, then there is a problem with understanding the meaning of prayer.
If this is what you think prayer is, says
Luke, then it’s time to think again. And one of the ways we are reminded to
think again is through the words of what we call the Lord’s Prayer. It’s time to think again about what we mean
when we say ‘hallowed by your name, your kingdom come....” When we set our praying, our conversations
with God within the context of that phrase, the coming of the kingdom, instead
of ourselves and our culture, our needs, our actions or inactions, we end up
with a very different focus for requests, our expectations and our
actions. We suddenly realise that, in seeking
God’s kingdom rather than our own, our prayers become part of bringing wholeness
and oneness to all. Remen says “at its
deepest, prayer is a statement about causality.
Turning toward prayer is a release from the arrogance and vulnerability
of an isolated and individual causality.
When we pray, we stop trying to control life and remember that we belong
to life. It is an opportunity to
experience humility and recognize grace.
Prayer is a powerful way of embracing life, all life..... End of quote.
It is in this way of prayer – praying for
the coming of the kingdom and not for our own ends, says Jesus, that we can
have all confidence in God’s response.
It’s worth taking a moment to revisit the
words of the prayer that Jesus taught or the shortened version found here in
Luke. It has been suggested that we have
lost some of the punch of this prayer in translation, that in the original
Aramaic the words used were seen as stronger than just the wishes they are
often interpreted as today – after acknowledging the sanctity of God, then they
actually seem to tell God what to do – make your kingdom come! And the rest of the prayer follows on from
this - if we are to be part of bringing this kingdom about then this is what
you need to do to support us: we need forgiveness, sustenance, guidance and
rescue from the things that overwhelm.
This prayer is from a community living in
the closeness of strong relationship with God, totally convicted of the need of
the kingdom they glimpse to be known to the world and recognising the power of praying
for and into and on behalf of the whole world.
That is why we can have confidence in our
approaching God in prayer, why we are told to have an attitude of perseverance,
even cheekiness in our prayers – for the coming of the kingdom, not for our own
‘gimmes’ and fix-ups and life insurances.
And then Jesus gives us this example of that attitude. We have the story of the man embarrassed by
the lack of hospitality he is able to offer an unexpected guest and his
shameless persistence in getting his next door neighbour out of bed to help. Prayer
on behalf of those who are in need should indeed be persistent and outrageous –
defying conventions of comfort, stretching our neighour’s reluctance so that
they can, despite their misgivings, be truly neighbours. The needs of the world
are met in the persistence and pushiness of prayer for the world.
And why are we so confident that prayer is
heard, let alone changes things.
Because, says Jesus, we are loved. God loves the world, and if as a loving
parent you will give only that which is good and caring for your child, how
much more so will God be wanting to give only that which is good to us. If you knock the door will be open, if you
search you will find what you look for – because we are seeking the good of the
kingdom.
There is much more we could say about
prayer, so many more truths and misunderstandings but for today can we hold
this thought – that prayer, undertaken in the care for the world invites us
into an place of power and presence,
holds us in a focus of care for ourselves and others and encourages us to act outrageously and persistently so
that God’s kingdom will come. Amen
Margaret Garland
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