Sermon preached by Rev. Emily Tanis-Likkel
Eagle Harbor Congregational Church, UCC
Matthew 6:5-15 and Luke 18:9-14
July 12, 2009
When you Pray
Did anyone here, after getting ready for church this morning, get into the car, pull out of your driveway, and then suddenly realize you had reached the parking lot with no recollection of the drive here? You know the drive here by memory, so your mind can wander to what shall we have for lunch today? and did I check my email? or I'll need to remember to silence my phone. We do a lot of things this way. When we ask my son to pray before our evening meal, he often prays, “now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep, angels watch me through the night and wake me in the morning light, Amen.” He knows that what he is doing is called prayer, but doesn't yet understand the meaning. For him, it is ritual. And we need ritual prayers. When we are afraid, the prayer that comes to our lips may be the Lord's Prayer. And it is prayers such as this that link us with people of faith throughout time and space. There is power in many of the prayers that we say from memory. Yet if we pray the Lord's Prayer with the same attitude that we say the alphabet, we may just as well be praying watermelon watermelon watermelon. We can get to many destinations without really noticing who or what we are passing by, but what are we missing? What are we risking when we drive on autopilot? We can say the Lord's Prayer on autopilot, too, but we miss a lot and risk a lot if we do.
I decided to do a sermon series on the Lord's Prayer because it has become rote in my own life. I figured that I was probably not the only one. I sense that there is so much more to learn from this teaching of Jesus, if we would take some time to explore it together. This prayer appears in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. In Matthew, it appears in Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, in his teachings on prayer. In the Gospel of Luke, the prayer comes as Jesus' answer when the disciples asked him how to pray. They noticed how Jesus went off by himself to pray. They saw how pleased he was with Mary who sat at his feet instead of rushing to serve. They recognized something that they were lacking. They were craving a deeper prayer life than what they were receiving from the ritual prayers of their day.
When Jesus taught them the prayer, it wasn't a lesson on the necessity of prayer, because Jesus assumed that they were already praying. He said “When you pray” not “if” you pray. When the disciples asked Jesus how to pray, they weren't denying the profound importance of ritual prayers. Ritual prayers could be recited in unison by the community. Shema: 6:4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD is our God, the LORD alone. 6:5 You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. When they found themselves lonely or afraid, ritual prayers would flow easily as prayers of the heart. But they also knew that they had more to learn – that there was more to prayer than what they knew. They were asking how to pray, what posture, what attitude, what framework. Jesus told them about the nature of God. He told them to pray “in this way.” Jesus told them to pray with humility and trust, to not “heap up empty phrases.” Jesus taught them how to pray, and then the church relegated this teaching to a prayer that often becomes tired and rote. What irony.
James Mulholland refers to the Lord's Prayer as Praying like Jesus, to emphasize the idea that what is important is not exact phrases but prayer that includes the proper attitude and the ingredients for a healthy relationship to God, others and the world. The parable in the book of Mark that we heard this morning gets at the heart of how we are to bend toward God in prayer. It is paraphrased well by Eugene Peterson (The Message):
9-12He told his next story to some who were complacently pleased with themselves over their moral performance and looked down their noses at the common people: "Two men went up to the Temple to pray, one a Pharisee, the other a tax man. The Pharisee posed and prayed like this: 'Oh, God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, crooks, adulterers, or, heaven forbid, like this tax man. I fast twice a week and tithe on all my income.'
13"Meanwhile the tax man, slumped in the shadows, his face in his hands, not daring to look up, said, 'God, give mercy. Forgive me, a sinner.'"
14Jesus commented, "This tax man, not the other, went home made right with God. If you walk around with your nose in the air, you're going to end up flat on your face, but if you're content to be simply yourself, you will become more than yourself." When we are truthful about who we are – grounded in God, we become more than ourselves. We become blessed by a deeper relationship with the holy.
The Pharisee's prayer was in a more proper form than the tax collector, but alas was not praying to God at all, but to himself. The tax collector's prayer was short, unsophisticated, and straight from his heart to God's. The tax collectors' prayer erupted from a place of trust and humility. Humility and trust are intricately woven together in our lives. Grounded in our dependence on God, we are able to come to God truly as ourselves.
There is a story you may have heard of a man who came to the gates of heaven to be greeted by St. Peter. Peter asks the man if he can give a brief history of his life with an emphasis on the good deeds he had done in order to gain entrance into the kingdom of heaven. "You will need 1000 points to be admitted," Peter tells the man.
"This will be a cinch," the man thinks to himself, "I've been involved in church from the days of my youth." Then he begins to list his activities for Peter. He was an officer in his youth group, served in every possible position he could as a youngster. Was on the Church Council and every committee the church had to offer. His list was extensive.
"Very impressive," Peter smiles at the man. An angel standing with them also smiled and nodded as he tallied the points and then whispered in Peter's ear. Peter tells the man, "This is quite striking -- we seldom see men of your very good works. You will be pleased to know that you have 327 points! Is there anything else you can think of?"
The poor soul breaks into a cold sweat and begins to reach deep for every single act of kindness he could think of. He listed them as the angel scratched furiously on his angelic clip board and nodded his head in admiration. Peter looks at the clip board and says, "This is quite exceptional! You now have a total of 402 points. Can you think of anything else?"
The distressed guy strives to recall good deeds -- like the time he helped a little old lady across the street. He finally arrives at a grand total of 431 points and cries out... "I am sunk! There is no hope for me! What more could I have done? O Lord, all I can do is beg for your mercy!"
"THAT," exclaims Peter, "Is a thousand points!"
If you're content to be simply yourself, you will become more than yourself." If you approach God just as you are in humility and trust, God will draw you in. The Lord's Prayer will not be simply some words to say, but may become your very heartbeat, your bending to God, and your solemn vow. By the grace of God, we enter into communion with the creator, redeemer, and sustainer of us all. We come as we are, recognizing that we are not actually the center of the universe, knowing fully that we depend on God.
I'm looking forward to diving deeper into this prayer with you over the next several weeks. It is a prayer that reminds us of to whom we are speaking. It reminds us that discernment is about aligning our will with God's will. When praying like Jesus, we pledge responsibility as children of God to healthy relationships with others and the world. It is a declaration of dependence on God and our need for God's help in resisting all that tempts us. James Mulholland wrote that praying like Jesus, “is a commitment to a new way of living. His prayer is to life as a wedding vow is to marriage. It is not the end of the journey, but the beginning.” May our spirits and lives be transformed by the richness Jesus offers in this prayer. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the Kingdom, and the power and the glory, forever. Amen. Let us shed any tiredness in which we've prayed these phrases. May we recognize that the power goes beyond these particular words, to the posture in which we pray them. Let us bend toward God, remembering that our attitude in prayer is to be that of trust and humility. Let us not pray on autopilot, but mindfully let ourselves be drawn into the presence of God.
"Things Are Looking Up for Those Who Are Looking Down," John Jewell, 1998. http://www.lectionarysermons.com/Oct2598.html
Praying Like Jesus: The Lord's Prayer in a Culture of Prosperity. James Mulholland, 2001, p. 27.
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