July 25, 2004
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There are several answers to the question, what do Christians
do. But today, the answer is the same as we heard a few years ago in the
children’s cantata on the Old Testament King Jehosophat, “first we
pray”.
The value of prayer is that it connects us with powers
greater than we are. When the disciples heard Jesus praying that day, they knew
that they wanted to be able to do what Jesus could do and what John and his
disciples could do. When they ask him to teach them to pray, he gives them a
model of prayer that shows them how to make their requests, their petitions
known to God. No doubt you recognized the prayer model he gave them as a
slightly different variation of the prayer we say each Sunday. For some of us,
it is the first or second prayer we learned, along with “Now I lay me down to
sleep…” How shall we pray? A good place to start is to know to whom
we are praying. Jesus says, “when you pray, say, father”. You may say mother
or whatever your preferred name for the creative power of God is in a way that
shows the closeness of our relationship with God. To address God with the intimacy that we would use to address
a parent must have sounded strange to the people who first heard these words.
They lived in a time when the name of God was too sacred to pronounce. But Jesus
invites us to know and address God in the same personal, parental way that Jesus
knew God. What a blessing it is that in the name of Jesus, God can be known as
intimately as many of us know our parents. And as we need our parents to sustain
us with food, clothes, shelter, and other necessities when we are young, Jesus
says we can in prayer ask God for that which will sustain our lives. The prayer Jesus teaches makes five petitions, or requests.
First, we ask to remember that the name of God is holy, and that it is not to be
thrown around casually, as if it had no meaning at all. God’s name is holy and
majestic (Psalm
8.1). In fact it is so regal and magnificent, that in God’s
name we can come to God in confidence. So confident are we that we can offer the second petition
which is for God’s kingdom, God’s realm to come. We want to see now what is
promised, a time of peace and prosperity now; a time of justice and grace, now.
We long to see now what it will be like when every person can be secure in their
home and safe on every street; we want to know what it will be like when God is
worshiped, among other signs of the kingdom. Let God’s kingdom come. Our third petition is simply for bread. For most of us, “a
prayer for daily bread seems almost trivial. Our basic needs include so much
more – we need electricity, transportation, quality education, jobs that pay a
living wage, and affordable medical care, among other things. Some of us may
know what it means to go without electricity or medical care, but few of us have
experienced real hunger. So think of daily bread, in this prayer, as that which
represents all that is essential for life because God is the source of life and
everything that sustains life” (www.lectionary.org/luk/01-07-29,
p.3). The fourth petition is the hard one. It is that we seek
God’s forgiveness, we ask God to release us from every debt we owe to God as
we forgive those who are indebted to us. Those things for which we seek
forgiveness, setting out to do deliberate harm, infidelity to spouse and
partner, neglect of children, neglect of parents, all break faith with our
closest relationships. They require when we ask forgiveness and that we also
grant forgiveness when we are the offending party. When we have been sinned against, we find it hard to forgive,
it is natural and human to feel that way. Forgiveness is hard because the hurt
is too deep, the damage is irreparable, and we ask ourselves how can we forgive?
But think of forgiveness this way. To forgive is not to say, ‘never mind’,
it does not mean that there are no consequences for hurtful acts. It does not
mean that nothing happened. Nor does it mean that we can always go back to the
way it was before. Some bridges are burned beyond their ability to be fixed, and
we have to let go, or go another way. Forgiveness does mean that when someone
confesses and asks us to pardon their bad acts against us, we do what God has
done when we confess and ask for pardon for our bad acts against God. We are
asked when we forgive to do what God has done for us. God says to us, and we say
to others, I am over it enough that I will not hold the wrong done to me against
the one who hurt me. As Christians pray, we are asked to forgive as we have been
forgiven. The fifth and final petition Jesus teaches is that God will
save us from our times of trial, not that those times are avoidable, but that we
will get through them. “Luke’s church was encountering persecution, and soon
roads would be lined with crosses of Christian martyrs. Today, in some parts of
the world, Christians are still persecuted and martyred for their faith. We face
our trials and temptations here too. Drugs that kill people and neighborhoods,
sexuality divorced from positive values, violence that produces fear, greed that
produces disregard for the poor, leave us in need of deliverance from evil for
ourselves, our loved ones, our nation, and our world” (lectionary.org,
3). Jesus goes on to illustrate the power of prayer by sharing a
parable about a neighbor who has some unexpected visitors. It doesn’t make
much sense to us, with its talk of asking for bread at midnight, fish and
snakes, eggs and scorpions, and Jesus apparently calling the disciples evil. It
begins to make sense when we consider that Jesus lived in a time when
hospitality was highly valued. He could offer the parable of hospitality as he taught about
prayer because he knew that “people in the community would talk if the
neighbor denied a plea for help regarding hospitality. Better to risk waking the
children than to have to face the reproaches of the villagers when they heard
that a request had been refused”. (Texts
for Preaching – Year C. Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1994,
p.447-448). It is better for us to be persistent in prayer, than to
risk going without the blessing and presence of God. God will do even more than a reluctant neighbor. When we
pray, we can look for the strength and help only God can give; knock on doors
that only God can open; and trust that the one who hears will answer. We can in
faith expect from God what children expect from a good parent
– we can expect that God will provide for us what we need.
When we ask for fish, will God give us a snake? No. We come
to church seeking compassion, acceptance, healing, strengthening, will we be
turned away? No not here. What happens when we pray? When we pray, we are able to trust
that God who is ever gracious will provide what we need. When we pray we can
practice generosity and hospitality as a good neighbor would. One of my first
lessons in hospitality came when my parents invited some friends over for
breakfast. The friends were in town for a family reunion. The night before they
came we set the table for six. But then ten people showed up. My parents knew
Christian hospitality, and did not complain about the extra people at all. In
fact their only word was to welcome all of their guests and to make room enough
and food enough to make sure everyone was fed made to feel at home. Prayer helps us find hope. I read an article the other day
written by a United Methodist pastor who went to serve a congregation that had
been in existence for nearly 200 years. Over the decades the church had found
itself in some decline. When he arrived at the church, he discovered that the
church had neither a baptistery or baptismal font; they did have a baptismal
bowl which had not been used in a while because few people could remember the
last time anyone had actually been baptized there. No one was even sure where
the bowl was. The newly arrived pastor knew that the church needed something to
help them look toward the future and he felt in his spirit that the baptism bowl
was the symbol of the future the congregation needed. So one day he went looking
for the bowl, and he found it in the back of a closet. He cleaned it up and set
the bowl on the communion table. During his sermon one Sunday, he said: “When we gather each
Sunday, we must believe that this God who loved us enough to send His Son is
still at work, changing lives and calling people to Christ”. At that point, he reached under the pulpit for a small
pitcher of water. Then he walked to the communion table and slowly poured the
water from the pitcher into the baptismal bowl. He encouraged the congregation
by saying to them: “From this day on, each time we gather for worship, this
baptismal bowl will always be filled with water in anticipation of those who
will come to Christ and present themselves for baptism”. The pastor noticed as
he spoke that the people were quiet, some began to cry silently, and others
nodded in agreement with his words. He observed that “the presence of God was
evident in that moment, giving new vision to our church’s tired eyes”. A few
weeks later, a young woman called the pastor to say that she was ready to be
baptized. People began to request prayers for friends and family. They began to
direct him to people outside the congregation who were in need of a pastor. In
the weeks after he put the filled bowl on the table, the congregation began to
develop a discernible sense of positive possibility again. The pastor ends the article this way: “We’re still a
small congregation, but we have a big hope now – the hope that God is still at
work and that the best days of ministry for our church are still ahead. One
church leader told me recently, ‘this is our time. God has given us a new
opportunity. We have a lot to do!’” (Chuck
Warnock. “The Bowl of Hope” in Leadership magazine, p. 35). This is our time, God has given us a new opportunity, and we
have a lot to do here. My prayer of petition is for all that Jesus teaches us,
and it is for us as a community of Christians to do one more thing. I pray that
we have hope enough to find energy enough now so that we can grow in every way
now and into the future. What will be our symbol of hope as this congregation grows
into our future? What will we look to as they sign of our hope? For me the
symbol of hope is at the center of our sanctuary and the center of our worship
experience. The symbol of our hope is this glorious table of bread and cup, of
welcome, of memory, of thanksgiving and hope. We heard some of Neal Kentch’s
words about the strength of the table as we were called to communion. Later in
his essay he reminds us that “the table is open as wide as the heart of God.
The bread that we eat is the goodness and generosity of God. And we receive this
bread from the hand of Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the fullness of God
filling us” (Neal
Kentch, “The Open Table” DisciplesWorld magazine, July/August 2004,
p.15). From now on, as we come to the water and to the table and as we know that God through Jesus Christ is the source of our salvation, we can believe that he will bring us love and faithfulness, righteousness and every good thing we need. As God does all that God will do, and as we do all that we will do, may our prayer always be, may Jesus Christ be praised. Thanks be to God. Amen. Dr.
LaTaunya M. Bynum |
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Broad
Street Christian Church
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