THE REV. ROBERTO DESANDOLI
7th Sunday after Pentecost
Genesis 18: 20-32
Psalm 138
Colossians 2: 6-15
Luke 11: 1-13
“Teach us to Pray“
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.” 2 He said to them, “When you pray, say:
Father,[a] hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.[b]
3 Give us each day our daily bread.[c]
4 And forgive us our sins,
for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.
And do not bring us to the time of trial.”[d]
5 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; 6 for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.’ 7 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.’ 8 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.
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.
What does it mean to follow a Lord who not only teaches us to pray, but prays himself?
As Luke tells us, immediately before teaching them the words of the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus was in a certain place praying (hold onto this idea this morning)
What does it mean to follow the Lord’s instructions to pray in a certain way?
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.
Friends, since last Sunday I feel as if I have been pursued by the Lord’s Prayer every day this week.
As I sat at home last Sunday evening and opened my Bible to begin studying the texts for this morning’s worship, I read the story of Jesus and the resurrection of Lazarus, what I thought was the reading for today.
The next day, as I returned to my study, I looked up the lectionary of readings and found, no, it’s not Lazarus on the 28th, it’s the institution of the Lord’s Prayer.
Throughout this week: on Wednesday at the Franklin and on Thursday at a funeral home worship, the Lord’s Prayer came up as the text I was led to or asked to preach upon.
It was a blessedly focused week.
A week focused on a single text and a single litany, one that is always suitable to pray, no matter our age or station in life, no matter if we are in the midst of getting up or of lying down, one that Jesus Christ, God- made-flesh-Himself taught his disciples to pray two thousand years ago.
In Luke’s shorter version of the prayer, the prayer begins with a simple acknowledgement of the order of things:
Father, hallowed be your name.
It is an acknowledgement and an adoration not only of God as Father, not only of the hallowedness of God’s name but also of our own position in his creation: Father, you are God!
You are God and we are not.
There might be no more radical, no more counter-cultural position in 2019 than this: to say that despite the endless invitation by advertisers for us to construct ourselves, to find our identity in our possessions, to make our own world, to find our own truth, to be our own (small g) gods, we acknowledge that there is one greater than us; one greater than us, we are blessed to call Father, secured in the love that we are His children, that He is God and that his name is hallowed, whether we acknowledge Our Father or not.
Father, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
A further adoration. God, our loving Father, you are right now constructing the kingdom of heaven! You are right now making a world in which death and tears will be no more! God, as we live our lives in this often difficult and confusing world, we move not only by faith but by the ultimate promise that you are making all things new!
Rather than wade into the sea of ink that has been spilled on the topic of what these three words mean (“your kingdom come”: is that a here or a there? Is that a now or a not yet? Is that for everyone or not quite?) let us just pause for a minute to acknowledge and give thanks that Christ Himself taught us to pray for a new world.
Let us let go of our obsession with perfecting our state.
Let us let go of the stress our world places on us to fix everything in our lives.
Let us acknowledge and come before God in adoration that even though we are blessed to live our lives in this place and in these bodies, these bodies and this place are not God’s final will for us.
Your kingdom come.
Give us this day our daily bread.
A faithful request. A petition. And a third acknowledgment of God’s place in the world; as the giver of every good thing.
In the same way that theologians and Christians have argued for millennia about what exactly the “kingdom to come” means, we are likewise in the midst of a very long discussion about what asking for our “daily bread” should look like:
Is this merely about the Lord’s Supper? The earthly bread and wine that God chose to allow us Communion with Himself?
Or perhaps it is our real daily bread?
In which case, are we meant to ask only for that which is necessary to sustain life? Bread and water for our stomachs? Clothing for our bodies? A roof to keep us dry?
Or should we go broader?
In Martin Luther’s shorter catechism, the first father of the reformation described our daily bread as:
Everything that nourishes our body and meets its needs, such as: Food, drink, clothing, shoes, house, yard, fields, cattle, money, possessions, a devout spouse, devout children, devout employees, devout and faithful rulers, good government, good weather, peace, health, discipline, honor, good friends, faithful neighbours and other things like these
Perhaps Luther was right? Perhaps we are to ask for more than a mouthful of bread to keep us moving? And yet, I do not feel I am alone in my Presbyterian hesitation at asking God for fields, possessions, and employees.
In any case, by asking for our daily bread (and doing so persistently as Jesus instructs in his lesson following the prayer), we continue to acknowledge who God is and who we are. God is sovereign, God is the giver of every good thing, and we are the receivers of God’s abundant Grace and mercy.
This week, as I mentioned, I have been doing a lot of reading and preaching and praying on the Lord’s Prayer. It has been for me like a catchy song stuck in my head: sometimes stopping for a while but always re-starting with the smallest amount of prompting.
On Friday of this week I was out for a tune-up ride on my motorcycle and I experienced one of those perfect summer moments. Cruising along beside bright yellow canola fields on a warm summer day, looking back on a week of work that I was pleased with, looking forward to my visit with a guest from Calgary who would be arriving that afternoon, everything felt like it was just as it should be: warm, peaceful, pleasant, the prayer started going through my mind once again “Father, hallowed be your name. Your Kingdom Come. Give us each day our daily bread…”
And suddenly I was sent back in my memory three years ago to my first seniors’ home service during my summer ministry in Salmon Arm, BC.
At this advanced care facility there were about 25 seniors gathered, many with advanced Alzheimer’s and dementia, many who could not look up or respond when spoken to, with one notable exception, there was one woman, a little bit younger than the rest, with a lot of faith and a loud, commanding voice, who was not afraid to use it.
As I was stumbling through my reflection on the parable of the mustard seed, this voice boomed out across the room “Can we have a Lord’s Prayer?”
Not knowing exactly what to do, I tried to soldier on “Oh yes, we will in a few moments, now where was I?”
Two minutes later the voice came again “Can we have a Lord’s Prayer?”
“Of course.” I answered, actually a bit relieved to end my awkward preaching.
At first, it was only the two of us: myself and the faithful heckler: “Our Father, who art in heaven…”
And as we continued “Your kingdom come” soft voices began to join in, and more and more so that by the time we go to “For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever…” the whole room was praying in unison.
Voices that had not been used since the last time the Lord’s Prayer had been spoken, voices that had been silenced by illness and age for years, all of these voices came alive to praise God and ask to know Him better.
It was something spectacular that this prayer had united 25 very advanced hearts and voices, that it had reached into an almost 2500 years of total memory in that room and had given each the words to speak and the voice to speak it.
How many times in these 2500 years of memory had this prayer been spoken?
When had it?
In times of great joy. In times of great loss and tragedy. In times of peace and war. Through boredom and excitement. Through childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and old age.
Thousands of prayers.
Thousands of portions of daily bread.
Shared with thousands of other faithful people along the way.
All from the giver of every good thing.
And as I was riding along and as I was remembering this wonderful moment that I was blessed to share with these folks in, I realized that this is perhaps what “daily bread” truly means: that it means no matter whether we are young or old, no matter whether we have 70 years before us or 105 years behind us we are each united to God, Christ, the Holy Spirit, and one another through the moment we are sharing together. This day. And that God wills us to be blessed and have our bread for the day that He has made.
No matter where we are and what is happening in our lives.
God hears the prayer each day it is made.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.
We can likely all agree that the forgiveness of those indebted to us is more of a work in progress “as… we forgive our debtors” than it is a statement of fact “for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us”.
I have not forgiven everyone indebted to me.
I have tried.
You have tried.
We are working on it.
Though not through our own efforts, but through the abounding Grace and Love of God, so that as we are forgiven our sins, as we come to recognize more and more the undeserved yet freely given Grace of God, we are able (bit by bit) to forgive those who have wronged us.
And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.
And do not bring us to the time of trial
We trust you, O God.
We trust you and we trust in you.
For as much as the kingdom of God is partly clouded in mystery, so is the time of trial. Both of which Jesus spoke about largely in parables and symbols:
The kingdom of God is like a mustard seed.
The kingdom of God is like a woman who lost a coin.
The kingdom of God is like a man travelling on a road.
The time of trial is like an unquenchable fire for the chaff.
The time of trial is a place with weeping and gnashing of teeth.
The time of trial is pain and death and alienation from God.
Within the context of this story, this story, told by Luke, about the time that Jesus taught the disciples to pray.
There is something powerful, beautiful, and heartbreaking.
And that is the fact that as Jesus is speaking these words, as Jesus is teaching the disciples and us how to adore God and how to come before Him and how to Confess our sins and ask for His blessings, Jesus is Himself on his way to the pain and humiliation of the cross.
So, what does it mean for Jesus to teach us and to pray.
Hallowed be your name?
When He is about to cry out that He has been forsaken?
Your kingdom come?
When it is His body that is about to be broken so we may cleansed of sin?
Give us each day our daily bread?
When He is about to take his last drink of sour wine?
And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us?
When He cries “forgive them Father for they know not what they do”
And (finally) do not bring us to the time of trial?
When He is about to undergo all of these trials and more for our sake?
The meaning and the truth of these things is that even though Jesus taught the disciples how to pray, these words would be nothing without the Word Made Flesh.
Christian prayer, including (and especially), the Lord’s Prayer are not magic spells.
They are not magic words that we say so that God will give us whatever we want or so that we will never face a difficult time in life.
The words of prayer are nothing without the Word Made Flesh in Jesus Christ, who is the key and the doorway into the reality that these prayers proclaim!
We know each of these things through Him and his salvation on the cross!
We know our Father is to be hallowed, we know His kingdom is coming, we know He provides us our daily bread, we know He forgives sins and allows us to forgive others, and we know that He will save us from the time of trial.
We know these things when we look to the self-giving Love of Jesus Christ on the cross! It is there that we see the truth:
That God did not spare even his Only Begotten Son in His mission of reconciliation with humanity.
That God went all the way in taking on human flesh so that we may know Him and that we may sympathize with Him in his weakness.
That God came into our lives. Into our flawed, complicated, human lives to offer Himself as the Truth and the Life that will set us free from all sin and all pain and all death.
And that through the beauty of the resurrection, through the one who taught us to pray, went to the cross, and came to show us the first fruits of resurrection before ascending to Heaven, that we too are offered citizenship in the Kingdom of Heaven.
“Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.”
Amen.
