Read the Lectionary Texts

I once had the privilege of listening to a four-year old child say his bedtime prayer. It went like this:

Now I lay me down to sleep
I pray the Lord my soul to keep
May angels keep me through the night
And wake me in the morning light. A-men.

Now that’s a much better version than the one many of us learned when we were kids  (“If I should die before I wake…”)!

I so admire the parents of this child. They are teaching their son at an early age to become fluent in four languages – English, Spanish, sign language…and the language of prayer.

A 2001 survey by George Barna revealed that 82% of adults say they pray at least once-a-week, and that 89% believe there is a God who watches over us and answers our prayers.

But think about this for a moment. If you really believe that God answers prayer, and prayer somehow unleashes the power of God, would you only pray ONCE a week? There seems to be a disconnect between what we believe about prayer and how we actually use prayer in our day-to-day lives. And I think I may know the reason.

A church member once told me about getting elected to the highest Board in her former church. She was very excited, imagining that serving on the Board would be a deeply spiritual experience – like being with Jesus and the disciples. The meetings would be full of conversation about the Kingdom of God and how the church could further it, and about the experiences of faith the people were having, and she imagined there would be prayer – prayers of thanksgiving, prayers seeking guidance for the future, prayers for the people of the church, prayers aimed at discerning the will of God.

Then she went to her first meeting.

There was a prayer – a very brief one at the beginning. Then came two-and-a-half hours of reading committee minutes, crunching numbers, arguing about things much less significant than the Kingdom of God, and following Roberts Rules of Order. It was not at all like being with Jesus and the disciples! Why, she said, it was like any other business meeting in any secular organization.

She was disillusioned. And well she should be. The Church in our day seems to have become much less like the Church and much more like a business, or a club, or a civic organization.

And we need to understand why.

You see, the secular world is where we live, and most of us have become very fluent in and comfortable with the language of minutes and budgets and organizational minutia. It’s the language we speak and live with every day.

And, in the meantime, many of us have lost the language of prayer.

I read a while ago that there are about 6,800 spoken languages in the world, but many of them are threatened by extinction. In fact, experts fear that at least half of these 6,800 languages will be dead by the end of this century. Languages die for a number of reasons – war, genocide, low birth rates, government policy, and so on. But the biggest threat of all is globalization because as the global village spreads and various economies become more and more intertwined, many people who speak minority languages will stop using them. For very practical reasons, they will switch to the dominant language of commerce. A good example is in Australia where British colonization introduced English as the language of government and commerce. As a result, 138 of Australia’s 261 native languages are now virtually extinct.

So is it surprising that we in the Church feel more comfortable with reports and budgets and Roberts Rules than we do with the language of prayer and the guidance of the Holy Spirit? Is it any wonder so many of us – though we believe in prayer – find ourselves unable any longer to speak the language of prayer with fluency and ease?

This is not a new problem. It existed in Jesus’ day, too, and it’s a problem Jesus often spoke about.

Did you notice in today’s reading from Luke 11 that it all starts with Jesus praying, and the disciples watching? And when Jesus is done praying, one of the disciples says, “Lord, teach US to pray.”

Now why in the world would they ask Jesus to teach them something they already practiced? They were Jews after all, and like all Jews of the period, prayed three times a day! Prayer was not unfamiliar territory to them, and by comparison, prayer was much more a part of their lives than it is a part of our lives today!

But they had never seen anyone pray like Jesus!

Their prayers were perfunctory – his prayers were POWERFUL. Their prayers were words hurled off into space– his prayers were CONVERSATIONS WITH THE DIVINE. Their prayers expected nothing in return other than reward points for praying them – his prayers expected MIRACLES.

They had never seen anyone pray like Jesus!

Have you?

So they said, “Lord, teach US to pray.”

And that’s where you and I must begin as we seek to renew the language of prayer in our lives. We need to begin by asking Jesus to teach us to pray. And I would challenge you – no matter how much or how little experience you have with prayer – to go home today and begin with THAT prayer – “Lord, teach me to pray.”

Teach me. Show me. Help me. Guide me.

“Lord, teach me to pray.”

That’s always the first step, you see, because learning anything new always begins with a decision that you want to start. It’s true of golf. It’s true of computers and the internet. It’s true of winemaking. It’s true of anything worth doing. You have to decide to start.

“Lord, teach me to pray.”

And then Jesus tells a story.

It’s midnight, and Frank is sound asleep. All of a sudden, there’s a knock on the front door. Now it’s never good news when the door knocks in the middle of the night. So Frank rolls out of bed, puts on his robe and slippers, carefully steps over the bodies of his children who are sound asleep (the whole family slept in the same room in those days, you know), and goes to the door. Through the peephole he sees Harry, his next door neighbor. So Frank opens the door.

“What’s the matter, Harry? Is someone sick? Is a criminal on the loose? Is there some kind of emergency?”

And Harry says, “Uh, no Frank. I just need to borrow three loaves of bread!”

WHAT??

Can you imagine this scene? It’s midnight and your next door neighbor wants to borrow bread!

Now if I was Frank, I’d slam that door right in Harry’s face! And as a matter of fact, that’s pretty much what Frank does! Then he stomps back inside the house, steps over the kids, takes off his slippers and robe, and slides back into bed next to Phyllis his wife, hoping to get some sleep.

But just as Frank is dozing off, the phone rings. Now, it’s never good news when the phone rings in the middle of the night. So Frank reaches across the sleeping form of Phyllis, and answers.

“Hello?”

“Frank, it’s Harry. I really need that bread! Florence’s second cousin on her mother’s side just showed up and they haven’t eaten and, well, we thought we’d whip up some tuna fish sandwiches. We’ve got plenty of tuna, but we’re all out of bread. Do you think…?”

SLAM goes the phone! And Frank tries to get back to sleep. But the phone rings again. This time, Frank doesn’t answer. But Harry leaves a message on the answering machine. “Uh, Frank, when you get a chance could you call me back? We need some bread.”

Frank throws the phone AND the answering machine out the window. But just as he thinks all is quiet, from the corner of the room he hears that familiar computer voice announce, “YOU’VE GOT MAIL!”

Now, it’s never good news when you get email in the middle of the night…

“Frank, I need bread…”

So Frank does the only thing he can do if he’s going to get any sleep. He stumbles downstairs to the kitchen, picks up every loaf of bread he can find, carries it across the street to Harry’s house, throws it on the doorstep, and hollers, “Now leave me alone!”

And Harry pokes his head out the door and says, “Hey thanks, neighbor!”

End of story.

And we and the disciples are left to figure it out. What do you think the story means?

Is Jesus saying that God is like Frank and will finally cave in to your requests if you just bug Him enough? Is this a story about the importance of being persistent in prayer? Many people think so. Many sermons have been preached on the need for persistence in prayer.

Well, persistence is important, but it’s not what this parable is aims at.

You see, sometimes parables show us what God is like. And sometimes parables show us what God is NOT like.

Here’s what Jesus says. “If you who are evil – (meaning ordinary, ornery human beings like Frank who just want to get some peace and quiet) – will get up at all hours of the night and give good things to your friends and neighbors just because they’re driving you nuts – HOW MUCH MORE WILL YOUR HEAVENLY FATHER RESPOND TO THE CHILDREN HE LOVES?”

You see, God is NOT like Frank.

God is like YOU! God is like you the day you first brought your baby home from the hospital. You would give your life in response to her cry. God is like you when your kids first get their driver’s licenses and are late getting home from a date. You pace back and forth waiting to hear the thump-thump of the big sub-woofer in the trunk of the car announcing they’re home safe and sound. God is like a parent who lies awake at night listening for the sounds of her children, and rushing to their side when they call!

In other words, learning to pray begins with knowing that the God who loves you is listening for the sound of your voice! God is tuned in to the needs you are praying for.

Then Jesus says, “Ask, and you will receive. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and the door will be opened.”

Why? Because God loves you!

So today I just want to leave you with this…

…God is waiting…anxiously waiting…listening for the sound of your voice. In the morning, at noontime, and even in the night, God is listening for you.

Why?

Because just like you love your children, God loves all his children!

God loves YOU!

Learn to pray like that!

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