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We have witnessed the work of a
skilled artist, Craig today and Jessica last week, and our first
impulse is to ask in astonishment… “How do you do that?”
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And some of you upon hearing great
artistry, have demanded… “Teach me how to do that!” “Who taught you
how to do that?”
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We’ve been reading in Luke for several
Sundays now about the amazing experiences of Jesus and his
little band of disciples.
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The disciples were impressed beyond
belief. They left their former routines and lives behind, they were
on the road with Jesus traveling around the countryside, watching
him heal and teach and startle folks out of their certainties
and prejudices and into a world of thrilling risk and trust.
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They were with Jesus as he came near
the paralytic and the leper, the tax collector and the prostitute,
the mad man and the dead man, and made them whole again.
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They were with Jesus as he spoke to
Mary and Martha, as he responded to the smart scribes and zealous &
jealous Pharisees, as he prodded short Zaccheus and needled
Nicodemus, and told them something they did not know and might not
be able to swallow about God.
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They were with Jesus when he walked on
water and calmed the storm, when he glowed bright white on the
mountaintop, when he made a simple meal a sacrament of grace and
love, and they were standing by him as he went off into solitude to
pray, which he did more often than you might have thought.
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The disciples suspected that there was
a strong connection between his prolific prayer life and the impact
he was having on the world and people around him.
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Perhaps their first impulse was to ask
Jesus,
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“Teach us how to do that!
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We wish to have that energy in
OUR lives, too.
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Teach us, please, how to pray
the way you pray!”
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And he does.
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First, like a guitar teacher or piano
teacher with her scales or like a basketball coach with
passing-drills, he gives them a model they can follow. Do it this
way and you will increase your capacity to become a great pray-er.
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Learn this template of words and make
them your own and you will deepen your capacity for connection with
God.
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We have to remember here that Jesus
was talking to his own people. People who not only knew him well
over the past couple of years, but who were, like him, Jewish
Galileans. They knew well the fundamentals – the basics… the scales
and the skill drills.
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They knew about God and the Torah and
the Temple. They already had heard the old, old stories passed down
over the centuries.
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Even if they had lost some confidence
in them, living as they were in a time of diminishment and despair.
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The prayer was a Jewish prayer long
before it was a Christian prayer, and it still is.
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This prayer can be prayed by anyone of
the Abrahamic family of faith, which would also include Muslims, by
the way, a faith that is 600 years younger than Christianity.
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So, when the disciples said to Jesus,
“How do you do that?” Jesus was quick to discern that they weren’t
only talking about the mechanics of prayer or the position of words
in a sentence.
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What they were really after, I
believe, was how to be the kind of person he was.
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What was it that happened in HIS
prayer that wasn’t happening in THEIRS?
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What was he doing, up there on the
mountain all alone, that was empowering him, radically so, as they
were eyewitnessing day-to-day?
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They wanted some of THAT – whatever it
was.
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Jesus is quick to understand what they
really were asking – about the great unfathomable Mystery
behind it all.
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What they really wanted to know about
was who God REALLY was and how God REALLY responded to prayer.
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They wanted to tap into that power of
mercy and justice so they could help change the world the way Jesus
was doing.
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They wanted to know how to ride the
wave for themselves.
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And, so, Jesus invited them to use
their imaginations a little, as he often did with the many parables,
which is the only way to engage the real God of life.
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Think of yourselves asleep in the
middle of the night.
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Imagine what would happen if there was
a knocking at the door – your door.
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Imagine an old friend of yours from
J.U. (Jerusalem University) days showing up at your door in the
middle of the night needing a place to stay.
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Imagine that he is hungry.
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What would happen if you opened the
cupboards and discovered you had forgotten to go to the market
earlier that day?
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What would you do next for your hungry
friend in the middle of the night?
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Well, imagine that you decide to go
next door to borrow from your neighbor (this was before the time
that stores stayed open 24/7)
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Your neighbor, understandably, is a
bit annoyed to be waked in the middle of the night by your pounding
on his door,
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“Go away!” yells your neighbor.
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“Can’t you see that my children and I
are sleeping?
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I’m not about to get up and give you
anything tonight.
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Come back in the morning.”
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Imagine, Jesus continues, drawing them
into his finely crafted story, imagine that you are not about to
give up so easily and leave your good friend hungry all night long.
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Too bad your neighbor needs his sleep.
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You just keep pounding and pounding
and pounding on the door until he finally gets out of bed and gives
you what you need so he can get back to sleep.
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You see what Jesus is doing here?
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He’s got them right where he wants
them.
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And then he turns them right back
toward God.
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Don’t bargain with God, he says to
them. Be direct. Ask for what you want. This is no cat-and-mouse,
hide-and-seek game we are in. If your little boy asks for a serving
of fish, do you scare him with a live snake on his plate?
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If your little girl asks for an egg,
do you trick her with a spider? As bad as you are, you wouldn’t
think of such a thing – you’re at least decent to your own children.
Don’t you think the Father who conceived you in love will give you
the Holy Spirit if you ask?
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(from The Message paraphrase)
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You may notice something important
here.
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You may notice that Jesus did not say
that God would give them exactly what they asked for.
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You may notice that Jesus said that if
they asked and sought and knocked, if they didn’t stop asking and
seeking and knocking, God would give them….God’s own Holy Spirit.
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Which is what they were wanting to
know all along when they wanted to know how to be as effective as
Jesus was in changing the world.
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What happened when Jesus prayed was
that God gave him God’s own Holy Spirit.
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If his disciples really meant what
they were saying – “teach us how to pray like you do, Jesus” – what
they meant was they wanted to receive the gift of God’s own Holy
Spirit.
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It was the continual asking
that was key.
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It was the constant seeking
that was crucial.
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It was the persistent pounding
on the door that mattered most.
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William Sloan Coffin makes these
remarks in his book Credo :
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When Jesus says, ‘our Father who
art in heaven’, I listen.
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Even during my doubting days in
college I listened, and carefully, because Jesus knew not only more
about God than I did – that was obvious; he also knew more about
the world.
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He could talk convincingly to me
about a father in heaven because he took seriously the earth’s
homeless orphans.
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He could talk to me convincingly
about living at peace in the hands of love because he knew
that the world lived constantly at war in the grip of hatred.
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He could talk to me of light, and
joy, and exultation, because I knew that he himself knew darkness,
sorrow, and death.
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That’s why, eventually, Jesus
became for me too, my Lord and Savior, and that’s why I think it
right to say that the authority of the Lord’s Prayer stems from the
reliability of the source.
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But, you the people say in one accord
this morning sitting here in the pews,
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I came here with my stories, I have
sought and begged and pounded on the door with all my might and all
my hope and all my last bit of strength and NOTHING HAPPENED.
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The pain did not stop.
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The dead did not arise.
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The debts were not erased.
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The voice of fear remained louder than
the voice of assurance.
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But here’s the Good News for the day,
I believe.
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This whole idea of Prayer was
not our idea, but God’s.
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This whole idea of Being God’s
Children was not our idea, but God’s.
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God chose us before we chose God,
Jesus also teaches.
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We did not so much “take Jesus as a
savior” as Jesus “took us” and captured our imaginations, defied
our understandings of how things work in the world, upended the
apple cart of all our certainties, took our pain and fear and folly
seriously, and more importantly, took it compassionately.
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I can’t resist doing this.
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Knock, knock….
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“Who’s there?”
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Father.
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“Father who?”
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Art in heaven….
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So listen again with new ears. Let us
pray like this…
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Father. Reveal who you are to us.
Set the world right. Feed us what we need to stay alive today. Keep
us forgiven with you and forgiving others. Keep us safe from
ourselves and all that tempts us.
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(from The Message, adapted)
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Let us offer thanks to God for this
prayer that has sustained the faithful through all ages past and
will continue to do so for all ages yet to come.
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Thanks be to God.
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(much contained comes from Rev.
Kathryn Timpany, “How Did You Do That?”, Central
Congregational Church, July 25, 2004 sermon – who continues to add
color commentary to words and life)
An
Interpretation