part one
“Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray…’’ Luke 11:1
I cannot imagine my prayers being so effective that an onlooker would be impressed enough to say, “wow, can you teach me to do that?” Yet, that is precisely what is happening with Jesus in this passage. I have been thinking a lot about prayer, that is why I wrote “IS ANYONE LISTENING?” a few weeks ago.
I have read several books on prayer; most of them just make me feel ashamed and useless. They speak of agonizing in fervent prayer for hours, but I am usually unable to speak to anyone for hours, especially the invisible God. I have heard very few sermons on prayer. I think that is because most preachers are so embarrassed by our own anemic prayer life that we do not wish to speak of it in public.
There are ministries that conduct whole seminars on how to pray, which I suppose is what most of us want to know. We approach prayer as if it were a complicated mystery, a complex algebra equation that will take a lifetime to solve. Or something only professional mystics are able to perform correctly. It must require a secret esoteric knowledge of spiritual things that normal people like us do not possess.
But when Jesus taught about prayer he was teaching “normal people”. People who were stumbling through their day trying to do the best they can to work a job and raise a family, people like us. He taught about prayer in the most simple, direct and sublime manner; a child could understand him. “
“Pray then like this”, he taught us, “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.”
Most of you have heard that before; many of you were taught it as a child. It is only a small part of his teaching on prayer and it is given as a model for us to learn from. It has been repeated down through the centuries, often said over and over as if it were an incantation or a spell to make something spiritual happen, which is odd because in this same passage in Matthew 6 Jesus tells us not to use “meaningless repetition” in our prayers.
I love the way Jesus taught. I admit, there are a few things that he said that I do not understand yet, (not many), but his teaching on prayer is not one of them. His words are authoritative, elegant and profound. I would like to think our way through this simple prayer; it is only ten lines, so that is ten things to write. What does it tell us about prayer? What does it tell us about God? What does it tell us about us? A lot.
The disciples asked Jesus to teach us to pray, not teach us how to pray. I do not really need to learn how to pray, (as we shall see it is not complicated). But I need to learn to pray. I am lazy, and proud, and self-reliant. I am dull to my own desperate need of heavenly provision every moment of every day. I am sure many of you are far more spiritual than I am, and you have traveled much further down this road than I will ever go. But for the rest of us mortals; those of us who are so distracted by the cares of this world that we forget to talk to God; those of us who find it easy to binge watch everything but hard to cast our thoughts heavenward; those of us who struggle with our own flesh, with weakness, with doubts, with Covid related depression and apathy, let us consider the words of Jesus. Who better to teach us how to talk to God than his only begotten son?
“Prayer honors God; it dishonors self. It is man’s plea of weakness, ignorance, want. A plea which heaven cannot ignore.”
“The LORD is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth.”