Prayer has been described as the link that connects earth with heaven!   And yet words are not always needed to experience it, are they?

My husband and I took a recent trip to Oregon and we drove by Alkali Lake.  I thought “How barren; surely nothing good can come from such a place.”  But Jerry knew that the flamingo breeds in such places, in countries like Africa, because their predators can’t wade there.  You couldn’t tell to look at it, but that lake was life giving—sort of like prayer.  Mysterious and often elusive in the way it “works,” we humans recognize how limited we are in our knowledge about prayer.  It’s like we sometimes say to each other, “You don’t know what you don’t know.” 

 
Tim, Sara and I were just shooting the breeze the other day and we got to talking about prayer— how we should do it,  what position we should use when praying and all that—how to make it as effective as it possibly could be, since we all believe in it so strongly.  As we were talking, a telephone repairman was working on the phone system on the other side of the room.   Anyway, Sara said that she always holds her hands together and points her fingers upward as a form of symbolic worship.  Tim then said he believed it was an absolute necessity to be on your knees for real prayer, while I argued that the only position worth its salt is to pray while you’re stretched out flat on your face. 

Well the phone man, it turns out, was listening closely to our discussion.  He turned toward us when he could no longer stay out of the conversation.  He walked right over to us and said:  “I found that the most powerful prayer I ever made was while I was dangling upside down by my heels from a power pole, suspended 40 feet above the ground.”

Seriously now, people really do have different ideas about prayer, don’t they?  Martin Luther, when most pressed with work, said “I have so much to do that I cannot get on without three hours a day praying.”  John Wesley was known to spend hours in prayer each day, and is said to have turned more than 10,000 souls to the Lord through praying.   While those figures are pretty amazing, some recent statistics do tell us that four out of five adults do pray during a typical week.  That’s 82% of all people, not just church going people!  And—a whopping 89% of adults (that’s 9 out of 10) agree that “there is a God who watches over you and answers your prayers,” while the same 89% believe that “prayer can change what happens in a person’s life.”  Now, these statistics are from a reputable company, Barna Research, so I have no reason to believe they are not accurate.  

And yet my personal experience tells me that many people are uncomfortable with prayer and feel that they are lacking in an adequate understanding of prayer.  I know I grew up learning the Lord’s Prayer, and it became my regular nightly prayer for a long time, although I’m not at all sure I had a very deep understanding of it.   Things never changed until I had a crisis and went in for special requests—kind of like using a can of Instant Spare Tire when you get a flat.  You just squirt it in, it does the job, and for a while at least, you’re just fine.  Does that sound familiar?   I have to tell you that, while I was at my computer preparing this sermon, a totally obnoxious gnat had been flying around and around my head and was in my face ‘til I just couldn’t stand it anymore.  I did shut my eyes and said, “God, help me,” and when I opened my eyes the gnat was right in front of me—so I smashed him between my hands.

Well, I guess Jesus’ disciples must have felt a little bit like me and perhaps some of the rest of you when they went to Jesus and said, “Lord, teach us to pray.”   They had been following Him around for a while now, and observed Jesus praying in every kind of situation, including every great crisis in His life, so they knew that prayer was of the utmost importance to Jesus.  Yet there was something about  Jesus’ praying that made the disciple feel that he did not know how to pray, that he had never prayed, and that he could not learn by listening even to the Master as He prayed.   

The disciples wanted to learn more about Jesus’ experience of prayer.  They wanted to know this language that was so foreign to them that they were at a loss for words.   They wanted to get to the core of what Jesus was all about.    They saw Him as one walking so close to His God that they had an irresistible impulse to commune with that God in the same way.

The prayer that Jesus taught His disciples—the prayer that we now call the Lord’s Prayer in our scripture from Luke for today—is of the utmost importance, for it focuses on the realization of the Kingdom of God that was central to Jesus’ teachings.  In doing so, it provides a pattern for all of the prayers of our lives. 

The prayer begins with “Father” (Abba), a term of endearment that reminds us we are family with God, for we are His children.  It’s this closeness in the beginning of the prayer that makes the fulfillment of the rest of the prayer possible, because God as the loving parent who gives, nurtures, and sustains life is greater even than God as king.

“Hallowed be your name” establishes the reverence we are to have for our God.  It’s a phrase that commands the greatest respect.

“Your Kingdom come” clarifies that the reign of God is over all creation.  To pray in this way was to pray for the promised salvation made possible by the death and resurrection of Jesus.  It’s an acknowledgment of that great love of our God for all of us.  Further, all personal desires were to be subordinate to the will of God and the Kingdom. 

“Give us this day our daily bread” reflects our faith in God’s willingness to provide our daily needs, and to be present daily for us.   When Jesus sent the apostles out with “no staff, no bag, nor bread, nor money” it was a reminder that God will provide for our needs and we do not need to store up material possessions.   As the manna provided to the Israelites in the wilderness so long ago could not be stored, so will our daily sustenance be given, as people of faith. 

It is perhaps significant that the “forgiveness” section follows “Give us our daily bread.”  Forgiveness is central to where we all are in our lives.  What does the world need more, we might ask?   Forgiveness is the one petition that Jesus chooses to mention later on, stressing its importance and our need to grow in understanding.  Debts and indebtedness create false allegiances that should instead be given to our God.   A 4-year old once interpreted it this way:  “And forgive us our trash baskets as we forgive those who put trash in our baskets.”  She may be more perceptive than we know.

“Do not bring us to the time of trial” may be a reminder of the temptations Jesus experienced, or it may be a more general request to be spared, insofar as possible, from ordeals in which human faith is tested and found wanting.   

As the prayer’s focus changes from God to our needs in the prayer, we are reminded of our dependence on God and that we are in a relationship with God.  While God is clearly singular, through the use of “you” and “yours,” the use of the collective “us” throughout the prayer reminds us that we are all in this together, as social creatures and part of the same human race, the family of God.  Our concerns must be for that whole family in each of these areas we discussed.

While that concludes the prayer in today’s scripture, the prayer is followed by a somewhat unusual parable, or series of sayings, found only in Luke’s gospel, that seems to illustrate the effects of persistent prayer.   But instead of allowing it to lead us to an inappropriate conclusion on God’s character, we might better recognize that God would have us know that prayers are not bound within any time zone, and an “answer” to prayer may come at a much different time, and perhaps way, than we could ever anticipate.  Yet we do have that assurance that God does answer prayer!   For as the friend knocks on his neighbor’s door, asking for bread for another friend, the neighbor responds by telling him to go away, as he and his children are already in bed.   We have two people here, friends with very real needs.  With persistence, however—the friend continues to knock--the neighbor finally gets up and gives his friend the needed bread. 

In looking closely at this, we can see that one reason the neighbor finally answered the door might have been because the friend who was knocking was asking for bread for another person, not himself.  Would that have made a difference?   Maybe—if the neighbor had a change of heart.   But the situation also indicates a close relationship among all persons which is reflective of the kingdom that was mentioned earlier. 

In the limited information we have, perhaps we can only know that prayer does change things, and when God is in the midst, we cannot predict what might happen, and we can’t always know “who needs to change more…”  The key may be a movement in the heart that adjusts to a God perspective, that God’s will might be done.   This heart response can likewise be a major factor for the whole unity of the church.

While passing through Nevada on that earlier trip to Oregon I mentioned, a copy of the Reno Gazette caught my eye and I was struck by the story of Cruz Alvarez.  Cruz is a 23-yr old bus person at the Flowing Tide Pub in the South Meadows section of Reno, Nevada.  Cruz was being specially recognized by the newspaper and the Pub as an exemplary employee after being nominated by someone who had observed Cruz in his job.   “Heartbeat of the Pub,” Cruz was called, for his hard work featured in “A Cut Above.”

 The newspaper article was very specific.  Cruz knows his job.  He knows he’s responsible for clearing off the tables after meals, cleaning up and re-setting the tables after the restaurant patrons have departed.   He also helps diners with any special requests.  Cruz says he knows that he has to do things better.  His boss, Ms. Costellucci, said Cruz is the heartbeat of The Flow, and if you watch him, you’ll see why.  In the time it takes to finish a dinner, he makes approximately 28 trips back and forth from the kitchen.  His boss said she’s never even seen him stop for a drink of water and he’s only spoken to her when she complimented him on his efficiency and attention to customers and their needs.  He unselfishly smiles and says, “thank you,” she says.    “I like working with people,” Cruz says.  “I like the people I work with.  It’s a fun place to be.”  “Everyone talks and smiles” he says, and he doesn’t mind helping new bus people learn the ropes.  There’s this—and much more---that could be said about Cruz who, by the way, actually has two jobs plus a wife and two kids. 

Now, I have to admit there’s a lot I don’t know about Cruz.   All I know is from this newspaper article.   I don’t know for sure that Cruz is a person of faith—although I might guess he is.  If you mentioned prayer to him, I don’t even know if he’d be comfortable with discussing the topic.  But what I can be pretty sure about, is that Cruz has heard a really good message somewhere along the way in his still short journey of life, and that message appears to still be coming through.  Cruz is working for that Kingdom described in the Lord’s Prayer and Cruz is listening, in a way we all should be, even if he is at a loss for words.  When Cruz does run into future difficulties in his life, as he most surely will, my prayer is that he will know the forgiveness that is in the Lord’s Prayer and know that it is for him, too, as is the daily bread and all of that prayer.  May he hear the full message.

Listening is the other part of that two way relationship that the Lord’s Prayer reveals.  As people of faith, we cannot simply say or read it and expect it to be an active part of our lives.  We must take it to heart and listen for the way God reveals its message in each of us.  It’s a response of the heart that changes lives and builds the Kingdom of which Jesus spoke.  It was that heart-felt response that the disciples sensed they were missing and yet couldn’t put their finger on, when they went to their Lord and asked Him to teach them.  The disciples were still learning of that tremendous love their Lord had for them, and of the ways in which God’s grace would manifest itself throughout their lives.     

Praying without ceasing, changing lives through prayer that is put into action, listening for God’s words and receiving God’s tremendous grace—if at a loss for words, as God’s guidance is revealed through this simple act of obedience—this is the way of the disciple that is revealed through the Lord’s Prayer, that synthesis of the whole life of Jesus and the key to understanding His life.  With this, God’s kingdom will come on earth.  To God be the power and glory, forever.  Come, Holy Spirit, come.    Amen.