The Lord's Prayer

Sermon given at Sydenstricker UMC 10/23/16

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^NRS  Luke 11:1 He was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples." ² He said to them, "When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. ³ Give us each day our daily bread. ⁴ And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us. And do not bring us to the time of trial."

An atheist was walking through the woods.
"What majestic trees"!
"What powerful rivers"!
"What beautiful animals"!
He said to himself. As he was walking alongside the river, he heard a rustling in the bushes behind him. He turned to look. He saw a 7-foot grizzly charge towards him. He ran as fast as he could up the path. He looked over his shoulder & saw that the bear was closing in on him. He looked over his shoulder again, & the bear was even closer. He tripped & fell on the ground. He rolled over to pick himself up but saw that the bear was right On top of him, reaching for him with his left paw & raising his right paw to strike him. At that instant the Atheist cried out, "Oh my God!"
Time Stopped.
The bear froze.
The forest was still.
As a bright light shone upon the man, a voice came out of the sky. "You deny my existence for all these years, teach others I don't exist and even credit creation to cosmic accident." "Do you expect me to help you out of this predicament? Am I to count you as a believer"? The atheist looked directly into the light, "It would be hypocritical of me to suddenly ask You to treat me as a Christian now, but perhaps You could make the BEAR a Christian"? "Very Well," said the Voice.
The light went out. The sounds of the forest resumed. And the bear dropped his right paw, brought both paws together, bowed his head & spoke:
"Lord bless this food, which I am about to receive from thy bounty through Christ our Lord, Amen."

Today we are going to talk about prayer. What does it mean to pray and what should we expect out of prayer. Years ago I remember being asked to bring a prayer ministry to the church where I was a member. This is before my call to ministry began to kick in in a way that I acknowledged it. The idea of the prayer ministry was that we spent time in a two prong approach at praying over those who were worshipping. One group was the shut-in folks who constantly want to reconnect with the church. They would pray during one of the worship services for the preacher, for the singers and for those who were participating in worship. The other group was a small group of people who prayed during the service in a small chapel which was located directly, and I mean directly, behind the chancel area of the sanctuary. In this church it would be the equivalent of being somehow connected with the stairway that runs behind the wall with the cross on it. These folks would pray for the people participating in worship and those on the prayer list for that week. Prayer in that perspective was asking God to bless those in worship and praise to God. I remember feeling a great sense of peace and comfort as I prayed during my time in the small chapel there.

The Disciples asked Jesus how to pray. The Lord’s Prayer was His answer. So how do we pray? Now there are several places to read the Lord’s Prayer in the Bible. One of them is the one you heard a few moments ago, the other is in Matthew. I like the Luke story because it is sandwiched in between the story of Mary and Martha and the neighbor who asks for bread. Mary and Martha is a story to remind us that the most important things are often the least attended to. Martha was worried about making sure her house was clean and food was on the table while Mary was listening to Jesus. And the second story is a reminder that when our neighbor asks us for bread we give it to them because, well, that is what we do.

The Lord’s Prayer is in response to the Disciples asking Jesus how to pray. Now without a doubt, they have watched Him pray countless times, perform miracles and tell great stories. So they want what He has. This power that seems to permeate all His being and He lifts it up to other people through healing and teaching. But at the center of it is prayer and Jesus takes time to do that all the time. I have challenged each of you to an hour of prayer a day. Break it up into smaller increments if you need to but prayer to God for an hour every day. Some of that prayer should be vocal, some silent, some speaking, some listening, but pray. And Jesus taught us how to pray just as the children’s moments have been teaching us. We begin by calling to God where God is, Our Father who art in heaven. We then praise God with hallowed it be thy name, they kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven. In other words, we are asking God whose very name is sacred and special to hear our prayers so that this world we live in can be the same as heaven where God resides. And we pray that God’s will be done in all things. We are asking that God’s will be central and lead us to where God wants us to be. Prayer is about God. It is about communicating with God with our desires, our dreams, our appreciation, our concern for others and sometimes just because. But I must warn you that prayer is always about God first.

Then Jesus tells us to ask for bread. That is why the story following this is so important. If we ask for bread, God will give us bread. Do you believe that? And then we ask for forgiveness. Why? Because Paul reminds us that we all fall short of the glory of God! The beauty of being a Christian is not that we are perfect, far from it. No the beauty is that no matter how imperfect we are, we are forgiven. And then we ask to be forgiven as we forgive. Be careful here. If you are not a forgiving person how can you expect God to forgive you? Ever thought about that? 

Every time we pray we have to enter into prayer with expectation that the prayer will be answered and that God will provide instruction. When you pray do you believe? When you pray do you pray praising God and pray for unselfish things? God’s power flows in places where God is present. Why should we expect that God will answer our prayers in places where no-one believes God exists? If we don’t believe that God is real then we have no expectation that God can answer our requests.

God’s power flows where there is expectation. I want to ask this question today. Did you come here today expecting to be in the presence of God? Did you arrive here expecting to see miracles and amazing things happen and see healing beyond your understanding? Because if you did not, then why would you then expect anything different than what you expected? What I am saying can transform this church. I believe that in order for us to become a great church, we have to become a deeply moving prayerful church. Until we are willing to become that kind of church, what we will be, what people will see, is a mediocre, good church full of good people reaching out to the world around them in good ways. But if we want to become a church of 400 or even 500  people who are making a difference in the world around us we need to do three things and we need to begin them today. We need to begin a disciplined life of prayer. A life where we pray when we get up in the morning, we pray throughout the day and then we are praying at the end of our day. We need to be in prayer for others. We need to be in prayer praising God for what God has given to us and praying that God will us in amazing ways. We need to be praying that God will prepare us for miracles and to encounter those in need. Through a disciplined prayer life we will begin to feel the mighty presence of God.

A do-it-yourselfer went into a hardware store early one morning and asked to see new saws to replace his old saw. The salesman took a chain saw from the shelf and commented that it was their “newest model, with the latest in technology, guaranteed to cut ten cords of firewood a day.” The customer thought that sounded pretty good, so he bought it on the spot. The next day the customer returned, looking somewhat exhausted. “Something must be wrong with this saw,” he moaned. “I worked as hard as I could and only managed to cut three cords of wood. I used to do four with my old-fashioned saw.” Looking confused, the salesman said, “Here, let me try it out back on some wood we keep there.” They went to the woodpile; the salesman pulled the cord, and as the motor went vvvrooommmm. The customer leaped back and exclaimed, “What’s that noise??” The do it yourselfer had entered into the purchase not expecting anything more than the same old way of cutting that he knew. I wonder how many of us enter into prayer the same way.

We can be a great church in our neck of the woods. Right now we are a good church, maybe even a mediocre church in our community. Now before you get upset with me, my observation is based on how much God is blessing us with an expectation that God can bless us beyond our understanding. There was a church located next to a major highway that decided they needed a revival. So they began to pray for God’s presence to be felt within the church and that God would bless them by using them to bless the world around them. One day in the midst of that revival tears began to flow from many of the parishioners, the pulpit split with a loud crack and truck drivers stopped along the road, entering the church and remarking that they felt a deep need to stop and come inside. I remember many years ago participating in a prayer service for a young lady that needed to have some surgery done the following week. We prayed over her with a conviction that God was going to bring healing. We later found out that when she went into pre-op the doctors discovered that her muscle tear had miraculously healed itself. Hmmm!

We need to begin to believe that God can do anything. We need to enter into prayer with expectation that God is going to do what needs to be done. Now I want to insert some caution here. We begin this process by entering into a place where God is present. God present in humbleness, in grace, in love and in compassion. God is not likely to care that we want to be rich, that we want perfect health or that we want things that we do not need. So if we enter into prayer with expectations that God is going to provide unreasonable expectations we may well be disappointed. But hear my words this morning. God is greater than anything we can imagine. God can heal anything and anyone. God can provide anything at any time. I remember being a chaplain and being called to work with a family in ICU. Their mother was in a coma and not expected to live. My job was to work with the family in those final moments. I remember praying with them for their mother and hearing a gasp. I opened my eyes and looked down into her eyes that were now open and alert. She told me later that she heard me praying and wanted to see who was praying for her. My expectation in that moment was that God would heal her in God’s will and in God’s way. God provided beyond my expectation because I believe that in our praise for God, God found compassion and mercy for us. She left the hospital and went home.

Finally, we need to acknowledge God. God is present with us here in this place. God wants us to allow God to use us as the instruments of God’s mercy and grace. When we are willing to be God’s instrument great things can happen. What do we want to be as a church? Do we want to be a great church and change the world around us? Do we want to be the place where the glory of God is present? Work with me by beginning a life of prayer. Are you ready to pray?