LUKE 11:1-13
1Jesus 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." 2Jesus said to them, "When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be your
name. Your kingdom come. 3Give us each day our daily bread. 4And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to
us. And do not bring us to the time of trial."
5And 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; 6for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.'
7And 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.' 8I 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.
9"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. 10For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for
everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.
11Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give
a snake instead of a fish? 12Or if the child asks for an egg, will
give a scorpion? 13If 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!"
***
There are a lot of ways to pray, and a lot of ways we are told not to
pray. So when my former husband, Will’s old school, uber-Catholic, grandmother
asked me to say grace at our first meal together, I freaked out.
Now let me tell you some back story. It was my first time meeting the
family, which comes with its own intimidation, which I was feeling fully. This
was intensified by having been warned some things by Will’s sister. One being,
that their grandmother was the type of old fashioned, that didn’t think women
should wear pants, only long skirts. I wondered what she thought of me wearing
the pants in ministry as I studied to become a pastor, a male role in her
Catholic Church. Yet, without even knowing me, she was open enough to ask me to
pray grace around the breakfast table in her home.
I must also tell you, as a
pastor, being asked to say grace in someone’s else’s home is hard. It can feel
like usurping the host’s place, like the guest walking in and sitting at the
head of the table. Praying in someone else’s home can also be like being asked
to talk politics in mixed company. A pastor has to balance the respect for
beliefs of the household, and their own conscience’s obedience to God. The
mealtime prayer in other people’s homes is a careful, and often cliche prayer.
It is a prayer on which everyone can agree. ‘We are thankful to be fed, for the
cook, we pray for those who have none, thank you for the hospitality, etc.
Amen.’ I know how to this and many other types of prayer now, but there at the
kitchen table with Will and his grandmother, everything I ever knew about
prayer ran fleetingly away. I was like actress who had forgotten not only her
lines, but the plot of the entire story.
I am not sure what I said. I don’t even think my grammar or context,
much less theology, made any sense. I knew it was especially bad when Will,
who normally was unfazed by religiosity, kidded me about it afterward.
So that night, I went to bed and I prepared. I prepared the perfect
prayer in my head. It was eloquent, and gracious, and concise, and
theologically correct, and everything else a mealtime prayer should be. I was
not going to get caught paralyzed and unable to pray in front of Will’s
grandmother again. Breakfast the next morning would be a triumph for women in
pants, in ministry, and for my introduction to Will’s family.
The next morning,
I went downstairs prepared, prayer memorized, and ready to go.
We sat down, and I waited for my moment, and then Will’s grandmother
prayed. “Bless us, O Lord! and these Thy gifts, which we are about to receive
from Thy bounty, through Christ our Lord. Amen.”
I felt cheated, not only of my
moment of glory and of the opportunity for redemption, but I felt cheated of a
real prayer. She had asked me to pray, and then when it was her turn, she
recited a a rote prayer, a memorized prayer someone else had given her to pray.
I both thought, that is not fair, and that is so smart.
The third morning we all went Will’s mom’s house for breakfast. It was
filled with Will’s extremely diverse family, all there to meet me, another
intimidating situation. We sat down, and
unexpectedly, as if it was an afterthought, Will’s mom asked me to say grace.
Will looked at me with sheer terror. I smiled back, and in front of Will’s
entire family, including his grandmother, I said that perfect prayer, the one I
had memorized two days before.
Yes!
If the same situation happened again today, I am sure I would still be
nervous meeting the family, but hopefully my prayer would go better, because
I have learned a lot since then. You might be thinking that I learned to pray
the right way; that like the disciples asking Jesus to teach them to pray,
that seminary teaches you all the prayer tricks. While I did learn some tricks
and formulas, none of them would have helped me through that first
breakfast prayer.
What would have helped through would have been all the prayer
rules have now I unlearned.
I had believed rules like:
You sit quietly. You bow your head. You close your eyes. You fold your
hands in one of two ways. You need to focus. You don’t disturb God too much,
but you also pray regularly. You do not pray for yourself. You don’t pray for
material items. Your prayer must end in Christ’s name. etc. etc. and I am sure
you can add your own.
Looking back, I realize, it was an unfortunate and sad way to pray. It
was sad because it limited God to a judgmental authority. It limited
communication with God to only prayers which followed all the rules, and I
remind you, I have never been good at following all the rules. Therefore, the
rules of prayer made me feel unable and unworthy to pray.
I imagine this is how the disciples felt in today’s scripture. John had
taught others how to pray, and the disciples wanted to know that formula. So
Jesus gave them one, he repeated what we now know as the Lord’s Prayer, which
was an ancient Jewish prayer they would have known.
Perhaps the rule followers among the disciples, and the people like Will’s grandmother, would have felt
relief after this prescription. Yet, Jesus didn’t leave prayer only as simple
formula. Jesus didn’t leave prayer merely as a rote, memorized, often repeated,
eyes closed, head bowed, hands folded, directive. Jesus opened up what prayer
was, and who God was, and whom the disciples were to God.
And that’s what one of my friends at seminary did for me. She told me that when she prayed, she laid down on the floor, with her arms wide open, and
spoke to God of her heart's desires.
I tried it and I tried many other ways,
until finally, I found out I pray best looking out a window. I focus on a leaf,
or an expanse of sky, or sunlight on a patch of grass, and out loud I pray. I
pray to God, “Help me to be a word to your people, let this not be about me,
but about you, and what you would have me say.”
Other times, just walking
around I say little thank you prayers, or God your awesome prayers, or Lord
help me prayers. Sometimes I sing a waking song, or a lullaby, to God.
Sometimes I cry my prayers. Other times, while I run, and my body is busy, my
heart and my head have a conversation with God. In the past, I have journaled,
finding its slowness allows God to speak back through nudges of thoughts I
could not have come up with on my own. These myriad ways of praying speak to me
of God’s boundlessness, of God’s creativity, and welcoming acceptance, of God’s
desire to hear God’s people.
I think this what Jesus was trying to tell the disciples. He said to
them, “Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the
door will be opened for you.” From the confines of a simple formula, such a The
Lord’s Prayer, Jesus opened up prayer to also be in the asking, the searching,
and the knocking, in the hands above our heads, in the songs from our lips, and
words scratched into a journal. That there is no way too ordinary, nor
extraordinary to seek God, and there is no way of looking for God that is
unacceptable.
Jesus also tells them that
prayer is not only the disciples reaching to God, but God reaching out to them; that God is giving, helping them find, and opening doors. This speaks of a God
who is constantly responding, through the ordinary and extraordinary. This
speaks of a God for whom no prayer is outside of God’s yearning to give. There
even a silent prayer that beckons God’s response to give.
Jesus likens God to a parent who wants to give to their children. Jesus
says, “1Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give
a snake instead of a fish?... how much more will the heavenly Father give the
Holy Spirit to those who ask him!" I think this parental image of God
seeking to provide for God’s children with gifts is helpful, and I want you to
notice that God does not return the child who asks for a fish a fish, God does
not return the child who asks for an egg, an egg. Instead God responds by
giving the Holy Spirit, who feeds the children of God beyond a loaf of bread,
beyond a fish, and an egg.
Today we will come to table. It will be set with bread and juice, but it
will also be a gift of the Holy Spirit. A gift from God, a gift beyond rules,
beyond bounds, a gift to us. Let it be our prayer to God, and let us feel God’s
response to us this day, and always, and in all ways. Amen.
