9th Sunday after Pentecost--Proper 12C sermon

9th Sunday after Pentecost—Proper 12C
July 25, 2010
Take a moment this morning and remember the person or people who taught you to pray…
For me it was my dad, saying prayers with me at bedtime every night; it was my grandfather, closeted in his study in prayer and sermon writing on Saturday afternoons while all his wild grandchildren tore around his house and standing in front of his congregation in his black robe, head bowed in prayer, on Sunday mornings; it was a woman named Jane Schutt, who treated me with such respect, even though she was an old woman and I a small child; it was countless number of Sunday school teachers, VBS leaders, EYC leaders, camp staff, and clergy. Even today, I continue to learn how to pray from people I read, people I pray with, the people of this church as we join in prayer and worship, and my own children and the children of this church.
In our gospel today, we have the first prayer lesson for all believers, the beginning of praying with and in Jesus. In this lesson, we see that preayer is so much more than just our own private conversation with God. It certainly does include that, (as Thomas Merton puts it, prayer is the communion of our freedom with God’s freedom.”). When we pray, and especially when we pray the Lord’s prayer, our freedom is not only in communion with God but also with all the other followers of Christ who have come before us and will come after us.
Let us look then with fresh eyes at our first prayer and our first teacher.
In the gospel of Luke as well as in Acts, prayer is an integral part of the life of Jesus and his followers. In Luke, Jesus frequently withdraws to places to pray (5:16, 6:12, 9:18). He prays before he chooses his disciples (6:13-16), when he feeds the 5,000 (9:16), the night before he dies (22:39-44), and even from the cross (23:34, 46). The book so Acts also emphasizes that through prayer, believers participate in God’s commitment to bring forth God’s reign.
The United Methodist bishop, William Willemon, has this insight into the Lord’s prayer. “[Jesus] has a definite, peculiar notion of what constitutes prayer. Prayer is not whenever I spill my guts to God: prayer is when I obey Jesus and pray for the things that he teaches me to pray for and when I pray the way he prays. Prayer is bending my feelings, my desires, my thoughts and yearnings toward Jesus and what he wants me to feel, desire and think. In most churches I visit, a time of prayer is often preceded by a time of “Joys and Concerns.” I notice that in every congregation, the only concerns expressed are concerns for people in the congregation who are going through various health crises. Prayer becomes what we used to refer to as “Sick Call” in the army. Where on earth did we get this idea of prayer? Not from Jesus. He healed a few people from time to time, but he doesn’t pray for that. He prays for the coming of God’s kingdom, for bread (but only on a daily basis, not for a surplus) and for forgiveness for our trespasses. It’s curious that physical deterioration has become the contemporary North American church’s main concern in prayer. Jesus is most notable for teaching that we are to pray—not for recent gall bladder surgery—but for our enemies! To be a Christian, a disciple of Jesus, is to pray like Jesus. … A Christian is someone who talks to God about what the Lord’s Prayer talks with God about…. A Christian is someone who is engaged in lifelong training in how to pray like Jesus.”[1]
Are we brave enough to do that? Are we brave enough to ask that God’s kingdom come into our world, into our lives? Are we brave enough to ask for only enough bread for today? Are we brave enough to ask for forgiveness of our trespasses? Are we brave enough to pray for our enemies?
The good news is this. Even if we are not brave enough today, Jesus does not leave us as orphans. He continues to teach us how to pray, when we pray the words of the Lord’s prayer, when we pray in worship and at the Eucharist, when we pray in private. Whenever our freedom reaches out to touch God’s freedom, whenever we ask, “Lord, teach us how to pray”…Jesus answers by sending the Holy Spirit, who whispers in our souls and says, “When you pray, say…”
[1] Theolog: Blogging toward Sunday; William H. Willemon; The Christian Century; July 23, 2007. http://theolog.org/2007/07/blogging-toward-sunday_23.html