“Lord, teach us to pray”

Luke 11:1-13

Antioch Christian Fellowship

July 29, 2007

   “One of His disciples said to Him, “Lord teach us to pray.”” We don’t know much about this particular disciple, whether he was one of the twelve or one of the many others who had seen something special in this man Jesus, and left everything to follow Him. We know that the disciples were Jews; we can assume that they were observant Jews because they gave up so much to be closer to God. If they were observant, then they had prayed many times in many ways throughout their lives. The Jewish temple and synagogue liturgy is rich with beautiful prayers of praise and petition. The entire book of Psalms is composed of prayers of one type or other. Prayer was not a new concept for them. Yet as they saw Jesus pray, they noticed something different, and they wanted to know what it was, to understand it, to possess it. What was it then, that was so different, and so desirable? 

   Imagine an old man sitting under the flap of his tent, trying to stay cool in the heat of the day. The Lord God himself, in human form, walks up for a chat. This the same God who later generations of Abraham’s offspring would fear so much that they would go to any lengths to avoid contact with Him. They were taught that to even look upon God would mean instant death. The only human who was exempt from this death sentence was the High Priest, and he only for one day of the year, the Day of Atonement. The fear was so deep and so terrible that they would tie a rope around the leg of the High Priest so that if he had a heart attack while he was in the presence of God, they could pull out his body from the Holy of Holies without being killed themselves. Yet Abraham, recognizing God immediately even though He appeared in the form of three angels, proceeds to bargain with him for the lives of the residents of Sodom and Gomorrah. Today we recognize that what Abraham was doing was intercessory prayer, but I believe that he probably thought that he was simply negotiating with God to save the life of his nephew Lot, who lived with his family in Sodom. Abraham is so comfortable in his relationship with God that he even becomes annoying in his argument, but God doesn’t lose his temper. God assures Abraham that if he can find just ten righteous people in the entire city, that for the sake of that ten He will not destroy it. Ten righteous men can’t be found in Sodom, but God hears Abraham’s prayer, and Lot and his family are saved before the city  and its inhabitants are destroyed.

   Abraham was not afraid, as his descendants, including the disciples of Jesus, would be, to come into the presence of the Living, Almighty God. Abraham’s faithful obedience to God had created a special relationship between the two; a relationship of love and respect rather than fear; a relationship that allowed Abraham to laugh when God told him that he and Sarah would have a son, even though they were more than ninety years old; a relationship that allowed Abraham to bargain with God for the life of Lot.

   What Jesus’ disciples saw that day in our Gospel reading was the fulfillment of an ancient covenant. Paul, in his letter to the Galatians, portrays Jesus as the promised seed of the covenant that would die and rise again to produce a bountiful harvest, such that  any man or woman who professed and lived the faith that Abraham lived and professed, would be adopted as a beloved child of God; a child that can beg, and laugh, and argue with his Father and yet be loved with an awesome, unconditional, gracious, and all powerful love that changes everything.

   It is this loving relationship that Jesus is modeling for his disciples in his prayer, and it is this relationship that they are seeking for themselves. So they ask Jesus to teach them, and he does. It’s a simple teaching, at least on the surface. Jesus wants his disciples to be in relationship with God and in relationship with each other, so He teaches them a communal prayer, a prayer that they are to pray together as a body,  beginning by acknowledging the worthiness of God to be declared holy. This might seem so obvious to us as to be unnecessary, but it’s not. If God is holy, then He should be our Lord. If we acknowledge Him to be our Lord, then He is worthy of our praise and our obedience. Because we fall so short in both praise and obedience, it’s important for us to profess God’s holiness and worthiness in community every time we pray. But notice that we are to pray to God as our “Father”, rather than some remote, fearful entity that we cannot approach. God loves us, and when we pray we should confess that we love God, and that we recognize His Holiness. But we know, because Scripture teaches us, that God wants every human to join us in that confession. But Scripture also teaches us that such universal acknowledgement of God’s holiness and sovereignty will come only at the end time, so we are to pray that that time will come quickly and God will be honored by all: Thy Kingdom come Lord, for you are worthy!  We are to ask God for our sustenance. Jesus chooses Bread because of its double meaning: certainly we can pray that our physical needs our met, but bread has a much deeper meaning to the faithful believer. It represents the spiritual sustenance provided by the Bread of Life, Jesus Christ Himself. For us today, and in just a short time for these disciples, it will be the Body of Christ, The Bread of Heaven that is sacrificed for us so that we can be in relationship with our loving Father for eternity. We are to forgive the sins that our neighbors commit against us. The commission of a sin creates a debt on the part of the sinner that must be repaid. We are to forgive the sin and the debt that the sin creates so that we can be one body, knitted together in love. And when we do forgive, we will be forgiven and brought into closer relationship with our Father. Come into My presence good and faithful servant; your sin has been forgiven, and the debt has been paid. Finally, until God calls us home, in our lives as disciples we will be faced with times of trial and persecution. Some of them will be the products of Satan and his minions in the World. Some of them will be products of our own sinful nature. In either case,  Jesus teaches to pray to our loving Father that when those times come that He will clothe us in His full armor to protect us from Satan, and that He will convict us of our own sin before we can be overwhelmed; and that He will save us from a trial that is too difficult to bear.

   In the end, Jesus promises the disciples that God our Father is with us, and we don’t need to be afraid. His Holy Spirit is in us to guide us and protect us. Prayer is the gift that God has given us to nurture our relationship with Him. We don’t even have to worry about the words; Paul teaches us in Romans that if we can’t find the words that the Holy Spirit that lives within us will provide the words for us. God make it so easy! All we have to do is turn our face and our hearts to him, and He’ll take it from there. Amen.