Home > Sermons > July 29, 2007

Answered Prayer

First Congregational Church of Evanston
July 29, 2007 (Ninth Sunday after Pentecost)
Luke 11:1-13

Rev. Dr James E. Roghair, Interim Minister 

When Do We Pray?

The Sunday School teacher asked little  Mike, “Do you say your prayers every night?”  And Mike was honest, “Not every night, teacher.  Some nights I don’t need anything!(see Emphasis p. 39)”  Mike was surely too young to realize that his idea of prayer reflects pretty accurately the view of prayer held by many of the adults in his life:  Prayer is a way to get God to do what we want.  We pray when we want something. 

In the terribly strained language of the 1970's Presbyterian Worshipbook a printed form for the prayers of the people begins like this:

I wonder just what kind of prayers God does want us to pray? 

Teach Us to Pray

Jesus’ disciples saw him at prayer deeply and often.  It was an important part of who he was.  The Scriptures report the disciples question, “Lord teach us to pray.”  Surely there were lots of things they could have asked Jesus to teach them.  They might have asked Jesus to teach them to heal the sick or cast out demons.  People were  expecting them to do those things, but there is no record that the disciples sought that power.  

The story says that they saw him walk on water – that Peter tried and failed. But it doesn’t say Peter asked Jesus to teach him to walk on water.  Nor did anyone ask him to teach them to feed the multitudes, though the story of feeding a huge crowd is told five times in the four gospels.  

But the disciples did ask for help with prayer.  Is that what you would have asked for, if you had been one of them? (Emphasis, July, August 2007) I wonder if what he taught was what they expected?  Whether or not it was, it became very important to Christians.  It is repeated weekly, even today, by many churches like ours, and repeated as a part of the Mass in the Roman Catholic tradition.  But the Lord’s prayer is a good Jewish prayer as well.  A Rabbi working with me on an interfaith event said he had no objection to the using Lord’s Prayer – it is a prayer he could pray. 

What’s In the Lord’s Prayer

The Lord’s prayer is good and it is well-known.  But we know it is so well, that we may not even think about it as it goes by.  So let me remind you what it says.  First, there is the recognition of who God is – “Father, hallowed be your name.”  God is our Creator, we approach God’s glory with a sense of awe.  We express that awe often in our church in music. 

Saying “Your kingdom come,” aligns us with God’s way.  Praying that means we want what God wants,  and that we expect what God expects for the world.  It is about the present and the future. This three word petition in Luke is a little longer in the version from Matthew we use weekly which includes “thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” This petition  packs huge understandings of justice and hope for our world. It envelops the issues of world peace, of human rights and racial justice, of hunger and distribution of resources, of care for the earth. ‘Thy Kingdom come,’ is huge. 

Only after the global petition for God’s kingdom, does the prayer get personal. And even then, the personal petition is a very modest one. We pray not for wealth, or health, or security, or long life. We simply ask for sufficient food to get through the present day.  “Give us each day our daily bread.”  Is the simplicity of bread granted daily, enough for us?  Although we pray this prayer over and over – we may not linger on the daily bread long enough to recognize that we do not ask for abundance, only,  sufficiency.  This is no petition for adequate retirement – that we want the opportunity to travel. Those expectations are beyond the scope of Jesus’ teaching. It is a simple hope to survive that Jesus teaches. 

Then in the prayer comes the matter of our own spiritual life: “forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.”  Whichever translation or version you prefer to use, this petition has to do with the reciprocal relationship between our own forgiveness by God and our forgiveness of others.  This is another one we might like to gloss over.  After all,isn’t it God’s business to be forgiving us?  Why do we have to extend to others that which God does so much better than we can? But the Lord’s prayer teaches us that if we are to be truly forgiven, we will participate in what God does – we will forgive. 

Finally we ask for God’s protection from things that may overwhelm us “do not bring us to the time of trial”  – “or lead us not into temptation,” and the related version in Matthew says, “but deliver us from evil.”   Our request of God is to keep us safe from those things that can lead us astray or distract us from what God wills for us and for the world. 

The prayer in Luke does not have the affirmation of “the kingdom, power and glory,” which is found in some manuscripts of Matthew, but not all. But those words are really a reiteration of the very beginning of the prayer as it starts “Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come.”

Why We Pray

The prayer Jesus taught his disciples – the one we know so well –  is a prayer to be said often. It will keep us in tune with the great sweep of God’s Kingdom made known in Jesus Christ.  It is one to be said even on those evenings when like little Mike, we “don’t need anything.”   

The Prayer is more about our getting in tune what God wants,than about getting God in tune with what we want.  Even though the story about the persistent neighbor going for food at midnight may sound like God has to respond to us, the point of that story is the value of our persistence:  For to everyone who knocks, it will be opened, and anyone who seeks will find.  Is it,then, God’s responsibility to do that for us?  Are we supposed to get our hearts desire? Some people teach that. I do not believe that is Scriptural nor our right to expect. 

Rather, prayer tunes us in to God.  If we pray for a cure from an incurable disease.  We may not get a cure, but we may get healing.   Healing is a spiritual answer, and may not be a physical one.  God is not required to cure our diseases – but God will heal our souls. You may notice the very end of this passage puts a strange end to the story.  It promises that God will answer prayers.  But it doesn’t promise that God’s answer will be what we ask.  Listen to the final verse again: “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children (talking about fish, not snakes and eggs, not scorpions), how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” That is, if our prayers tune us into God, God will answer with the Holy Spirit dwelling in us –  God’s answer.

The Prayer of a Bag Lady

Finally, prayer is a way of giving to God those things we cannot do ourselves.  Let me tell you a story: It comes from Tom Long and a church in Princeton, New Jersey.  They became concerned about the problem of hunger in Trenton, New Jersey. A number of members from the church had worked in an intercity ministry there and made the rest of the church aware of the huge problem of hunger in Trenton. The church decided to reach out. Every Sunday, during the service, as the hymn was sung, people were invited to come up and place an offering into the plate to be used to alleviate hunger in Trenton. As the Sundays wore on, and as they learned more about the problem, the congregation became overwhelmed by the problem of hunger in Trenton. The problem was growing, and the offering could not keep up with the need. Gradually, it dawned on the congregation that they didn't have the resources to solve the problem of hunger in Trenton. 

Then there came that Sunday when, as they were receiving the offering for hunger in Trenton, an older woman, one of the town's "bag ladies,"  with everything that she owned in a bag, dressed in an old coat, came forward when the hunger offering was received. Everyone watched her shuffle down to the front, many probably thinking that she was going to take something out of the plate, knowing that she had nothing to offer. When she got to the front, they watched. She put nothing in the plate. She did not file past the plate, rather, she folded her hands, knelt before the plate, and prayed.  

That woman became an eloquent parable of Christian compassion and prayer. Despite our good efforts, we are not going to solve the problem of hunger. But we do not lose heart. We give, and we do what we can. And then we pray. We ask God to take our meager efforts and use them. We ask God to do for us that which we cannot do for ourselves. Our labor becomes part of the prayer that God's will be done on earth as it is in heaven. (Adapted  from, Pulpit Resource, July, August, September 2007) 

Conclusion:

We pray whether we think we need anything or not. 

Prayer, changes us, not God. 

Prayer does not guarantee God will do what we want.  

But in prayer we can give to God the things that we cannot do on our own.   

Amen.

Last Updated: Wednesday, February 6, 2008