Listen to the audio of today’s Reflection:

https://soundcloud.com/hapearce/reflection-for-may-16-2023

Luke 11:1-13

Jesus’ Teaching on Prayer

     One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.”

     2 He said to them, “When you pray, say:

        “‘Father,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come.
           3 Give us each day our daily bread.
           4 Forgive us our sins,
for we also forgive everyone who sins against us.
And lead us not into temptation.’”

     5 Then Jesus said to them, “Suppose you have a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have no food to offer him.’ And suppose the one inside answers, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is already locked, and my children and I are in bed. I can’t get up and give you anything.’ I tell you, even though he will not get up and give you the bread because of friendship, yet because of your boldness he will surely get up and give you as much as you need.

     9 “So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.10 For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.

     11 “Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? 12 Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 13 If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

I was invited to participate in the National Day of Prayer service the week before last at St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church here in Medina. Most of those in attendance were students and staff of the church’s school, and two other Protestant clergy were also invited to take part. Each of us was asked to give a three-to-five-minute reflection on the topic of prayer.

I chose to spend a minute or so sharing each of three thoughts.

First, I shared a quote I’ve probably shared with you before. One of my seminary professors, Dr. John Burgess, would say to his students, “Let me listen to you pray, and I’ll tell you what you believe.”

I think that expresses a really important insight. Because what we say in our life of prayer says a lot about what we believe about our God and the nature of our relationship with him. If your prayers are all about just asking God to do things for you, it seems that you believe God is really a great cosmic servant standing by to do what you want. And some Christians seem to believe that if you pray correctly, God is pretty much bound to grant your prayers.

On the other hand, if there’s a lot of giving thanks and confession of sins in your life of prayer, that says you believe that God has richly blessed you and deserves your thankful praise, and that you recognize you are a sinner who needs forgiveness.

Second, I shared the thought that the main purpose of prayer as it’s expressed in the New Testament is to change our hearts and minds to bring them in line with God’s own heart, and not to change God’s mind to bring it in line with what we want. I think it’s true that not only do our prayer practices express our faith, but also that they shape our faith.

I think we’re welcome to lift up our own concerns before God in prayer. But we’re not guaranteed that our prayers will be granted. Both Jesus himself and the apostle Paul – the two leading figures in the New Testament – prayed for things that were not granted to them. Jesus prayed for the cup of suffering to be taken from him, and Paul prayed for the healing of the un-named ‘thorn in his flesh.’ But both Jesus and Paul ended their prayers by accepting that God’s will be done. Both ended their prayer by handing the matter back to God – or as Jesus put it, “You will, not mine, be done.” That’s why I say that the ultimate purpose of prayer in the New Testament is not so much to get God to do what we want, but rather to get our hearts in line with God’s heart.

The Lord’s prayer seems like an obvious example. Since it was given to us by the Lord, it’s obviously meant to be a central part of our prayer practice, and a model for our prayer life. And when you think about it, the Lord’s Prayer also points to that ‘ultimate purpose of prayer’ I mentioned at the service. Everything in the Lord’s Prayer is something God already wants to happen. So if we actually think about what we’re praying when we pray the Lord’s Prayer, it ought to have the effect of steadily bringing our minds in line with God’s.

The third thought I shared at St. Francis X is that our lives of prayer should not be all about talking at God, but rather should include some times of quiet, when we’re actually listening for God’s voice to speak back to us. That kind of contemplative prayer is a prayer practice that takes some work to develop – and one in which our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters are ‘way ahead of us. But it’s an important part of a life a prayer we Protestants should make a commitment to.

Members of our congregation know that we sometimes use a couple of alternate versions of the Lord’s Prayer in worship, to get us to actually pay attention to what it is we’re praying. If you participate in our daily Morning Prayer program, you know we use those in our Wednesday and Friday prayers.

Here’s the one we use Fridays – it’s based on scholarship on the Aramaic language Jesus himself spoke, and its images provide a different way of understanding what he was teaching us. It seems like a good way to close our Reflection for today.

THE LORD’S PRAYER   (Alternate version from the Aramaic)

Father in heaven,

May our hearts become a shrine where you are worshiped.

May your counsel have authority over us until we are united in obeying it.

Provide what we need each day, in bread and in understanding.

Forgive the sins that entangle us

As we forgive the sins of those we love.

Protect us from being led astray by the superficial things of this world,

And protect us from the foolish actions of others.

It is your mind that rules all things,

Your life that is able to imagine and to act,

And your song that renews the world in beauty. Amen.

Grace and Peace,

Henry

(The other readings for today are Psalms 66 and 116; Deuteronomy 8:11-20; and James 1:16-27. Our readings come from the NIV Bible, as posted on Biblica.com, the website of the International Bible Society.)