“Pray Like This” Vance L. Toivonen
READING Luke 11:1-13
He 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!"
READING Isaac of Ninevah (7th Century Eastern Orthodox Bishop)
When we trust God with our whole heart, we don’t fill our prayers with “Give me this” or “Take this from me.” We don’t even think of ourselves when we pray. At every moment we trust our Father in heaven, whose love infinitely surpasses the love of all earthly fathers and who gives us more than we ourselves could ask for or even imagine.
SERMON
By show of hands, how many of you here this morning would like to teach a course on prayer at Hope Church? Prayer is one of those topics we often feel ill equipped to discuss. I don’t hear a lot of talk about prayer at coffee hour, and am asked about the subject infrequently, if at all.
Maybe this is because prayer is a private matter, something between each individual and God. How many of us would feel uncomfortable praying out loud in a group? How many of us would even know what to say? Yet the truth is that we pray more often than we realize. Prayer is an expression of thought and desire aimed at the universe in which we live. Prayer is turning the heart inside out. Prayer is plumbing the depths of our souls. Prayer is passionate and uncompromising. Prayer is, as Jesus taught in the first reading today, the voice of the child within us all.
That first reading is one of the two gospels in the New Testament that contribute to what came to be called the Lord’s Prayer. This prayer exists in many different forms. The one we call the traditional version of the Lord’s Prayer, the one many of us were taught as children, dates back to the 17th century. As you can see, the version in Luke is brief by comparison.
Jesus did not say, “Pray this prayer exactly as I dictate it to you.” Nor did he say, “Write these words down for generations to come in order that they might be quite precise in their wording of this, my prayer.” The genesis of the Lord’s Prayer is the request of an unnamed disciple who said, “Lord, teach us to pray.” Jesus’ response is an effort to instruct his followers not how to pray, but what to pray. Matthew’s version actually says, “Pray like this.” Jesus does not tell them to kneel, sit, or stand. He does not tell them to close their eyes or fold their hands. Instead, he recommends a particular focus to the process of praying. Our attention needs to be on that focus.
So, let’s begin where Jesus begins, with the one to whom prayer is to be addressed…God, the Father. Matthew’s version of this text adds the word “our” so that the prayer begins as we begin it still – Our Father. God was always Father to Jesus, and a loving father at that. Jesus was a good Jew, and the culture in which he grew up insisted on the male gender for God. Jesus honored his tradition and taught his followers to address God as father. This was an intimate term for Jesus. God was not some great and mighty ruler on a throne in the sky, but a universal parent of the children of humankind who was accessible to everyone.
Today we can use whatever works for us. Perhaps you feel closer to your mother than your father. I would invite us to choose a parent from whom we felt most loved. If this is both parents equally, then you are doubly blessed. Our god image can be connected to our best and warmest image of parent when we pray. When we pray we are addressing a loving parent who will not judge, a parent who will hold us in her arms and listen, and a parent who will gently instruct us as needed.
The first word of our version of the Lord’s Prayer, the word “our,” sets the tone for our task of prayer by instructing us that the God we are addressing is the God of the universe, the God of everyone. It is absurd, therefore, to pray to this God at the beginning of a sporting event, since God is the God of both teams. It is even more profoundly ridiculous to pray to God for support in a time of war, since God is the God of both parties involved in said conflict. In fact, truth be told, it is more likely that God would prefer we live peacefully together without war; but it seems to be perpetually too late for that. We are a people who make war while praying to a loving parent who does not want her children to fight with each other.
The next piece of the prayer is about the hallowing of God’s name. To hallow is to make holy, to set apart as unique, as other than. It is important when we pray that we understand that we are addressing the God who is completely other than, totally unknowable and entirely indefinable. We can only dabble with images and metaphors when it comes to this universal God. But knowing this God with any certainty, or defining God with any exclusivity is not our business. Hallowing God’s name is a humbling process.
Inviting God’s kingdom to come is the next order of business in our prayer syllabus. Seeking God’s heart and God’s desire is a tricky business in a world that is full of folks who wish to dictate to us the parameters of God’s agenda. The process of seeking God’s heart and God’s will is in and of itself a kind of prayer. It is a prayer that is done with many things in hand; with attention to all of the great spiritual writings, including the Bible; with mindfulness about humanity and its core needs; and with a certain degree of attention to what is going on in the world.
I don’t recall who it was, but someone once suggested that prayer should be executed with a newspaper close at hand. We are to pray for God’s kingdom to come to this world, and among us, and in us. We are praying that we might embody this kingdom of God. We are praying for change and transformation, which Rabbi Brickman reminded us last week is hard work requiring a total commitment of the self.
Which reminds me. I wanted to share with you a little thing that happened here last week that I believe to be profound. Rabbi Brickman sat just to my left. When it came time for the praying of the Lord’s Prayer, I could hear his voice loud and strong. This said to me that this Lord’s Prayer is not intended to be an exclusively Christian Prayer. Jesus’ intent in teaching the disciples to pray was to emphasize the universality of the God whom we address in prayer. I will never again pray this prayer, now, without recalling that voice to my left saying, “yes” to every aspect of this prayer. What a gift simple moments like this can be when we are privileged to notice them.
The other part of this kingdom thing is to ask our selves as we pray if we are really willing to invite God’s kingdom into our reality. Do we really want a world without war? Are we willing to live in such a way that we will do everything in our power to live peacefully with others? The next piece of the prayer is about forgiveness and daily bread. We are asking this not only for ourselves, but also for all of humankind. The coming of God’s kingdom is about delivering on this prayer. Are we willing to live in such a way that everybody’s needs are met, and that forgiveness is tantamount to punishment?
I saw Michael Moore’s film Sicko recently. For a Christian nation whose churches are filled with people praying the Lord’s Prayer every Sunday, we do not seem to be in too big of a hurry to care for our people, to provide for basic human needs. Other countries, like Canada and France scratch their collective heads at how we can be so uncaring toward our own people. There is no doubt in my mind that praying the Lord’s Prayer and finding a path toward universal health care in this country go together. May it be so for many, if not all of us as we pray and live together into this next election cycle.
Deliverance from temptation and evil conclude both Matthew and Luke’s versions of the prayer. Traditionally this is the point at which Catholics shifted gears into their Hail Mary. Protestants tagged on the addendum, “For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.” When I say these words, in my own mind I place the emphasis on the word “Thine.” I say, “For THINE is the kingdom…” It is one last reminder to me that God is God, and that I am not; that I am praying for God’s kingdom to come, and not for the world to be recreated according to my personal specifications and preferences.
As a final reminder that this process of addressing God is awe-inspiring and humbling, and that no one of us can single-handedly consume the heart and will of God, I wish to close with these words from the anonymously written 14th century prayer classic The Cloud of Unknowing. Please understand that the male imagery for God resides in the source. This will be the last word on prayer for the moment.
Lift up your heart to God with a meek stirring of love; and intend God himself and none of his created things. And be sure not to think of anything but himself, so that nothing may work in your mind or in your will but only himself. And do whatever you can to forget all the creatures that God ever made and all their works…
When you first begin, you find just a darkness and, as it were, a cloud of unknowing, you do not know what, except that you feel in your will a naked intent toward God. This darkness and this cloud, no matter what you do, is between you and your God, and hinders you, so that you can neither see him clearly by the light of understanding in your reason nor feel him in the sweetness of love in your affection. Therefore, prepare to abide in this darkness as long as you must, evermore crying after him whom you love. For if ever you are to see him or feel him in this life, it must always be in this cloud and in this darkness…
But now you ask me, “How shall I think upon God himself, and what is he?” To this I cannot answer you, except to say, “I don’t know.”
For with your question you have brought me into that same darkness and into that same cloud of unknowing that I want you to be in. For of all other creatures and their works – yes, and of the works of God himself – a man may through grace have fullness of knowing, and he can well think upon them; but upon God himself, no man can think. And therefore I wish to leave everything I can think, and choose for my love that thing which I cannot think. Because he may well be loved, but not thought. By love he may be gotten and held; but by thinking, never.