Sermon: Learning from a Master

Sermon preached by Rev. Emily Tanis-Likkel, Eagle Harbor Church, UCC        

July 15, 2007

Luke 11:1-13

              Have you ever watched a person who has busy at their craft, amazed, soaking in their technique, so that you could try and emulate them?  Have you asked someone to teach you how to do what he or she is good at?  Have you asked for another to mentor you?  Do you wonder how to grow delicious juicy tomatoes?  Look no farther than Ann Lovejoy's Sustainable Gardening column in The Kitsap Sun.  Do you want to learn how to decorate your house?   You can peruse the interior decorating section at a bookstore, or talk to a friend who is passionate about color and texture.  Would you like to take up golf or tennis?  You could sign up for some lessons from a pro.  If you want to draw, watch an artist. 

My husband Brett talks about how his most significant learning in college was from the sculpture artist he apprenticed with.  He spent countless hours with Jim, working by his side in his studio, modeling his own work after that of his mentor.  I have watched my Dad cook beef brisket so that I could prepare it the same way. I've asked my mom for help when having trouble with rolling out piecrust.  If I wanted to learn to knit, I'd ask one of the many people that I know who are great knitters.   If you want to learn how to color correct a picture in Photoshop -don't ask me.  But ask me about babies or writing or spirituality – then we'd be speaking the same language.  We go to experts in a field when we want to learn a certain craft.  We go to the person for whom that certain task comes easily, or the one who finds so much joy in it.  Maybe you have sought the advice of someone when wondering how to pray.  The disciples did. They went right to the expert.

              The story in Luke begins with saying that Jesus was praying in a certain place.  This is the third story in a set of three teachings of Jesus.  The first we looked at two weeks ago, and was about a certain lawyer who asked Jesus “who is my neighbor?”  The second we explored last week, and told the story of what happened in a certain village, when Martha and Mary received Jesus in their home.  A certain lawyer, a certain village, and a certain place.  The first story told us that we are to love everyone, the second taught us about placing our relationship with God as our top priority.  This third story tells us how to pray. The point is not to always say our prayers exactly the way Jesus taught it, but to pattern our prayers after it.  The Lord's prayer in Luke covers all prayer components: It first orients us toward God, then asks God to meet the needs of the world and our own needs; it moves to confession, and ends with asking that we be kept from evil.  These elements don’t need to be in this order, or even all in the same prayer. Yet this pattern of prayer contains the necessary pieces for our conversations with God. 

              Jesus' disciples noticed that he was always going off by himself to pray.  They were curious about his prayer life.  They figured he must really know how to pray, that it was second nature to him. They often prayed formulaic prayers, as we often do today.  They knew that John the Baptist taught a certain prayer to his disciples.  What prayer is Jesus praying, they wondered?  They wanted to emulate him.  They wanted to learn from the master.  So they asked him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.  Jesus must have been excited to share this teaching with them.  Those who love their craft are often passionate about sharing it with others.  When asked to mentor another, the teaching practically bubbles out of them.  Jesus taught the disciples a prayer that has stayed with believers through centuries.  It helps us converse and commune with God when we were on a journey, while laying on a bed awaiting surgery, upon rising and going to sleep, at table, and at worship.  He taught us a pattern of prayer that contains all the essentials.  Luke's Gospel gives us a version that is simpler than the one in Matthew that we recite on Sundays.  It is focused and direct.

              “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. Eugene Peterson updates the language in The Message Bible paraphrase like this: Father, Reveal who you are. Set the world right. Keep us alive with three square meals. Keep us forgiven with you and forgiving others. Keep us safe from ourselves and the Devil.”

              The Lord's Prayer begins with invoking the name of God, and affirming God's holiness.  We are taught to pray Our Father, because we are all children of the heavenly parent.  We are not believers in isolation, but in community.  In this church we emphasize in the bulletin that each pray-er can invoke God's name in a variety of ways, recognizing that there are many appropriate ways to address God.  In saying Our Father, Jesus was not emphasizing maleness of God, but intimacy of a believer's relationship with God. James Mulholland, in his book Praying Like Jesus wrote that if Jesus were teaching the Lord's Prayer today, he would probably begin it with “Our Mother.”  Why? He explains that Jesus “uses Father imagery to counteract those titles that kept God distant and impersonal. In our society, where nearly 50 percent of all children grow up without a father active in their lives, Jesus would probably call God “Our Mother.”   The Lord's Prayer would have seemed odd to the disciples from the start, because they were used to using royal titles for God.  This was not only calling God Father, but Abba, which is translated Daddy.  This was something very different: personal, familial, and loving.  The title of Father is juxtaposed with the phrase “hallowed be your name.”  The intimate parent is also holy and beyond understanding.

              After invoking God's name affirming God’s holiness, the prayer moves to asking for God to reveal God's realm.  Your Kingdom come.  Peterson updated it to read Set the world right.  What does this mean?  God's realm is upside down, the opposite of what we've come to expect.  It is about love and mercy when one has done nothing to deserve it.  It is open to all, with grace upon grace.  It is about the end of suffering and evil and unforgiveness.  It is about all of creation shouting out in praise to God.  We pray for God to set the world right because there is so much injustice and unrest.  Your Kingdom come.  Let it be so.

              Jesus taught the disciples to pray simply and directly. Much of The Lord's prayer is petition.  The petition has the elements of Give, forgive, and deliver.  Jesus first tells us to ask for what we need.  He said, “Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish? Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” It is good and expected that we pray for what we need.  We are not intended to pray only for extreme situations, but also the everyday worries and concerns that trouble us.  Jesus did not only pray for large-scale problems, but also that God would meet his daily needs.  He was concerned with people getting lunch during a long teaching and wine when it ran out at a wedding.  He instructed his disciples to pray for daily bread.  They lived in a culture of hospitality.  They were used to receiving from one another.  God is portrayed as a consummate host, as a parent who gives with joy. We are expected to pray for the meeting of our daily needs: Give us this day our daily bread. 

The second part of the petition is “forgive.”  A Seminary professor of mine in a class on Spiritual Disciplines suggested that when we confess, we imagine ourselves going through the previous week or 24 hours. In this imaginative walk back through time, we open ourselves to hear what needs confessing.  I’ve found this to be a very helpful method.  Forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us. In this prayer, we are not expecting that we will sit back and have God do all the forgiving.  We also forgive, and it is out of our forgiving of others that we ask God to forgive us. We strive to forgive more like God forgives.  Mulholland compares human forgiving to using a teaspoon of forgiveness, or maybe even a cup of forgiveness, yet God pours buckets of forgiveness upon us.   God forgives unconditionally, and in this prayer we pledge to forgive others like we are forgiven.

In the third part of the petition Jesus tells us to ask to be delivered:  “do not bring us to the time of trial.”  As Richard Foster in his book on prayer explains, “The only time God tries us is when there is something in our hearts that needs revealing.” In this we pray that we do not have sins that are keeping us from enjoying a relationship with God.  We are taught to pray to be delivered from the temptation of wanting more possessions, of being controlled by addictions, and for withholding love and grace.

              The Lord's Prayer is a prayer to emulate, that is, if we pray it and not just say it.  James Mulholland wrote, “I grew up in a church that prayed the Lord's Prayer every Sunday.  Every week we would pray in unison, reciting the Prayer of Jesus. It was a monotonous chant without passion or thought. I discovered I could say the word “watermelon” repeatedly while the others prayed and no one would even notice.”   Formulaic prayers like this one have their pros and cons!  It is an essential prayer, yet has the distinct possibility of becoming stale because many of us have prayed it so many times.  It is imperative that we pray it with our whole beings and not just our lips. Jesus intends that we know what we are saying, and that through the prayer we are open to an encounter with God. 

              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.

              Have you watched someone at a craft, activity, or sport, and memorized how they did it, wanting to learn from someone who really knew what they were doing? Have you ever wondered how to pray?  The model of prayer that Jesus taught his disciples is a great place to start.  It helps us sustain our faithful talking and listening to God our whole lives through, and is often a pray believers pray at the very end of their lives. We can pray the words we find in the Gospel of Matthew, or in Luke, or use the prayer pattern as a framework from which to speak in our own words. God, our loving parent, you alone are holy.  Bring about justice and peace on this earth.  Give me what I need today.  Forgive me as I forgive my neighbors.  Keep me from wandering off.  The disciples asked Jesus: Lord, teach us to pray.  Let us emulate the prayer master.  May we be strengthened and transformed by encountering God in prayer.

      P. 34.

P. 106.

      Richard Foster, Prayer: Finding the Heart's True Home. New York: HarperCollins, 1992. p. 188-9.

      p. 15.