SERMON July 28, 2013 “Lord, Teach Us to Pray” Luke 11:1-13 The Rev. Laura Adelia
In
the spring of 1995, I received a call and invitation from my sister to come and
visit her and her husband in Greece for a couple of weeks in the summer. My sister and her husband used to rent a condo
on one of the Greek islands during the summers.
Coincidentally, this was also my
first year of seminary. Needless to say, upon receiving my sister's call, I jumped at her invitation!
I flew to Athens and we visited the sites; the Acropolis, the Temples, Plato's Academy.... and then we flew out to the island where they stayed.
On the islands of Greece we visited, I noticed that many houses had their own little chapels in their backyards. Little tiny prayer chapels…they were everywhere, and each little chapel had its own charm, painted white with Mediterranean blue trim. Each one was about the size of a large garden shed, and could possibly hold up to about 6 or 8 people inside it.
I
was intrigued and asked one of the the locals about the tiny chapels in people’s backyards. She was a little old Greek lady, with just a hint of a bit of a mustache. She responded to me in English with her heavy Greek accent, “Well, one has to have a place to pray!”
Do you have a favorite place to
pray?
Notice in Luke’s gospel, it
says, ‘Jesus was praying in a certain place’. In fact, Jesus is always praying. The scriptures describe him going to the
desert, to places away from the crowds, to be alone, and pray.
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| Garden of Gethsemane |
I am sure for many of you
have found that a quiet, beautiful place in nature is a wonderful place to pray
and feel the presence of God.
Prayer… it is central to all
spiritualties and religions. There
probably have been more books written about prayer than any other topic. Needless to say, there are many different
ways and styles of prayer!
Prayer is a communication with
God, it can be both a thought and an act. Prayer can be a solemn request, or an
expression of gratitude. Prayer can be
done individually, or communally. It can
be done as a ritual, as in worship.
Notice too when we say, Let us pray, many pray with hands folded, heads bowed, or downward. But in Jesus' day, people prayed with hands raised upwards, and looking upward.
Prayer can be verbal or silent. Prayer can be listening…such as in a contemplative
meditation. Prayer can be done sitting,
kneeling or standing. We can pray as we
work, pray as we drive down the road, pray while doing chores, pray working in
the yard, and pray as we take a walk!
Prayer can really be done
just about anywhere!
Prayer can be danced and
prayer can be a sung! The book of
Psalms is actually an ancient prayer-song book.
“Psalm” means “song” in
Hebrew. So when we say or sing the
Psalms, we are singing / saying prayers and songs that were sung and chanted
3,000 years ago! We could say, these song-prayers are ‘time tested’! As St. Augustine once said about music and
prayer, “One who sings, prays twice!”
So when the disciples ask
Jesus to teach them to pray, Jesus teaches them what becomes, as we know, the
most well known and prayed prayer in all of Christianity, the “Lord’s
Prayer”.
We all know it well. Notice the prayer as we say it today begins
with the words, “Our Father”. In Luke’s gospel it starts out with “Father, hallowed be your name…” . It also is in the gospel of Matthew, and
begins, “Our Father in heaven…”
Have you ever heard the Lord’s
Prayer in other languages? “Our Father”,
is “Padre Nuestro” in Spanish. In Aramaic, “Abwoon”. In German, “Vater Unser”. Greek, “Pater
Hemon”. In Swahili, “Baba Yatu”. And on it goes!
In either version, or
whatever the language, Jesus teaches us to pray by at first
focusing
on God.
In many ways, the Lord’s
Prayer is similar to the Jewish prayer hymn, the the Kaddish that praises God,
“hallowed
be thy name”. ‘Kaddish’, by
the way, means ‘holy’ in Aramaic.
In fact, the Lord’s Prayer
has many similarities to Jewish prayer.
“Lead us not into sin (temptation)” is in the morning blessings
of Jewish prayer. And there are many
other parallels.
And go figure! Jesus was Jewish! So, it would probably help to better
understand Jewish prayer to go deeper with the Lord’s Prayer. Let’s take a look…
Rabbi Lawrence Kushner, author of many books on Jewish Spirituality, says of Jewish prayer….that a person is like a shofar, (the ram’s horn, blown on Jewish New Year as a ritual of awakening). A shofar sounds only when breath is blown thru it. When we pray, God moves thru us! God’s essence or energy needs hands and mouths to give prayers voice and melody. People are the instruments that transform prayers into music and words and movement. We become God’s instrument!
Prayer connects us to God and
joins us all to creation. And that, says
Rabbi Kushner, is the essence of Jewish prayer, to become closer to God…to awaken,
to see
the Holy everywhere…
I think this is what Jesus
was always trying to teach his disciples…and us.
Another thing Jesus teaches
is about persistence in prayer. To
ask, to search and to knock…and to persist.
Does this mean that Jesus telling us to
ask over and over until we get what we have asked for? To search until we find what we are looking
for? And to knock until a door has been
opened?
Authentic prayer is not about
getting everything we ask for. Rather,
persistence in prayer is perseverance in prayer. To pray without ceasing. In other words, to just pray!
Remember, prayer is not only
words and us talking. In fact Jesus
teaches against long, wordy verbose prayers.
Prayer is listening too.
Listening for God, giving time to feel God’s presence. 'Be still and
know that I am God’, as Psalm 46 says.
Yes, we can ask, we can search and we can knock….and yes it is wonderful when our prayers are answered. Many times though as we know, our prayers are answered very differently than what we had envisioned.
There is an old saying….God answers
our prayers in three different ways. One
answer is, “Yes!”. Another answer is, “Yes,
but not now.” And a third, “No, because
I have something much better planned for you!”
Thus prayer is not so much
about us receiving what we ask for. Rather, it is more about relationship with the
Holy, being open to what God may be trying to offer or teach us.
Prayer
is powerful....and prayer goes beyond the boundaries of religion or denominations....
As a chaplain in the Air Force and Air National Guard, over the years I have prayed with people of just about every denomination of Christianity. I have prayed with Jewish people. I have prayed with Muslims. I have prayed and meditated with Buddhists. I have prayed with people of many religions, even those with no religious preference!
Prayer heals, prayer teaches, and prayer transforms!
Lord, teach us to pray!
Amen!
