A Sermon for 28 July 2019 – 7^th Sunday after Pentecost

A reading from the gospel of Luke 11:1-13. I realize this version might sound unlike what we pray each week; but listen for God’s word to us in this reading that tells it a bit differently than the other gospels.

“Jesus 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 Jesus said to them, “When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. ³ Give us each day our daily bread. ⁴And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us. And do not bring us to the time of trial.” ⁵ And Jesus said to them, “Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; ⁶ for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.’ ⁷ And he answers from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door has already been locked, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.’ ⁸ I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, at least because of his persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs. ⁹ “So I say to you, ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. ¹⁰ For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. ¹¹ Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish? ¹² Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion? ¹³ If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!’”

This is the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God!

How do you pray?

Do you get up really early in the morning to get a little quiet time with God before all the noise of the day begins? Do you lie in bed at night and tick off a list of loved ones who need God’s help? Moments in the day for which you know you need grace. Cares you want to lay down so you can drift to sleep in peace. Do you pray while you walk – each pound of the pavement a prayer of thanksgiving for the beauty of this world, a shift in your circumstances, the people in your lives for whom you are absolute grateful? Do you steal away to a favorite spot during lunch to leave the mess of your job behind – if even for a few quick minutes? Do you say the same thing every time – or vary it, at least a little? Maybe even reveal greater concerns as you go deeper in your life with God? Do you pray through music? Movement? Or maybe even paint? Allowing the creative impulsive of your body to open up before the Great Creator of it all? Do you pray through the words of Scripture – using the Psalms or prophets? Or do you just turn your heart and mind inward in silence to connect deeply with the God residing within?

In Feasting on the Word, one commentator describes his experience of prayer. He writes: “In Catholic school I learned four reasons to pray: to praise God, to thank God, to ask God’s pardon, and to ask God for what I needed, or even wanted – provided the prayer ended with ‘however, not my will but yours be done,’ like Jesus at Gethsemane. Later, while becoming a member of the Redemptorists, a Roman Catholic religious order,” the commentator writes: “I was taught mental prayer, to meditate and contemplate. . . . More recent voices that influenced my attitude toward prayer,” the commentator continues, “are Thomas Merton, who spoke of prayer as the communion of our freedom with God’s ultimate freedom; and Anne Lamott, who wrote that she has two basic prayers: ‘Thank you, thank you!’ and “Help me, help me, help me” (Feasting on the Word Yr. C, Vol. 3, James A. Wallace, C.SS.R.; p. 287, 289). The commentator’s words bring to mind Lamott’s book: Help! Thanks! Wow! The Three Essential Prayers.

Boy Erased tells the story of one young man’s persistent prayer. “Lord, make me pure,” the boy fearfully would pray every time a thought came that his religious community had taught him was sinfully wrong. Even though the Apostle Peter learned the lesson way back in the first days of the Church, as is recorded in Acts of the Apostles: “What God has made clean, you must not call profane” (Acts 10:15b). Still, “Lord, make me pure,” the boy erased would pray in trepidation when he did things that seemed natural to his body, but he knew were considered perverse to the deacons and elders of his small, deep South church. I’m not sure the major motion picture, released last year, as clearly paints the boy’s fervent, fright-filled prayer as does the biographic memoir written by Garrard Conley, the boy whose parents sent him off for the conversion therapy that today is considered by most not only unethical but entirely unscientific. In fact, while Garrard only endured about 8 days of the brain-washing therapy, at the release of the book nearly fifteen years later; Conley reports he still has been unable to connect with any sort of loving God. The experience of being raised in such a constricting, fundamentalist church then shipped off by those very same people in order to be changed from something God had made him to be has robbed Conley of faith. It’s left him, and so many others who were made to undergo the fear-based therapy, isolated in abiding ways. Garrard’s anxious prayers were persistent. But never answered as he desired; for he got prayer all wrong.

Jesus is clear on that. His disciples want to know how to pray and what does Jesus teach them? We’ll never know why the version told in the gospel of Luke is shorter than the version told in the gospel of Matthew. What we do get from the whole of the gospel of Luke is almost a continuous reminder to pray. To ground our lives in deep communion with God, as does the Jesus portrayed throughout the gospel. What’s more, though Luke’s Lord’s Prayer jumps right from “Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come” to the needs we have for daily bread, forgiveness, and deliverance from difficult trials; the gospel of Luke paints the picture of a way to pray that is all about communion with Love. “Father,” Jesus says. “Abba,” in the Greek which is more like addressing God as Daddy. Tender. Dear. As his follow up stories declare, the Presence of constant care that is way better than any example of the most gracious parent who certainly would provide every last need for their cherished child. That’s how to pray, Jesus is teaching – at least as the gospel of Luke presents the Lord’s Prayer. In the attitude of – while using words that underscore our full trust in the God who would do anything for us to know the depths of Love, that is indeed God.

Wild Mercy: Living the Fierce and Tender Wisdom of the Women Mystics, tells of a great saint of the church who knew exactly how to pray. If you’re not familiar with Teresa of Ávila, she’d be a great woman of faith to meet. She’s accredited as saying: “The important thing is not to think much, but to love much, and so to do whatever best awakens you to love” (Wild Mercy, Mirabai Starr; Sounds True, 2019, p. 17). Teresa was born in the early 16^th century in Spain, not too long after the Spanish expulsion of Jews and Muslims in 1492. Her own paternal grandparents dared to convert from their ancestral Jewish upbringing to the church-enforced Roman Catholicism that was to be practiced if families wanted to remain in their homeland. These were the early days of the three-hundred-and-fifty-year span of the Spanish Inquisition. When it was discovered Teresa grandparents secretly still clung to the Jewish practice of welcoming the Sabbath, the whole family – including the boy that would grow to be Teresa’s father – was drug through the city every Friday for seven weeks as others spit on them and hurled anti-Semitic insults while church officials forced the whole family to kneel at every Catholic shrine in the city. As a result, Teresa’s father became a staunch Catholic who would never give a shred of suspicion for his own children to undergo such shaming humiliation. Having endured the death of her mother at 12 years of age, Teresa grew into a bit of a wild young woman. At long last, her father sent her away to a convent in hopes the sisters would settle her down, then return her home as a proper civilized woman who’d be ready to marry and begin having babies. To the shock of all, Teresa discovered refuge in the quiet spaciousness of contemplative prayer during the liturgy of the daily offices. She declared to her father she was staying and determined to make her vows among the sisters.

Decades would pass – the routine of monastic life a challenge for Teresa – until one day late in her thirties, Teresa deeply connected in the convent hallway with a statue of Christ. The figure was bound and crowned with thorns. With eyes fixed upon the eyes staring back at her, the floodgate of Teresa’s heart opened. She saw the unconditional love of Christ. The vulnerability. The intimacy. It’s told: Teresa flung herself on the hallway floor and refused to get up until promised that Christ “would never let her forget how deeply she loved him” (Ibid., p. 20). Thus began Teresa’s profound union with God. What she went on to describe as the highest form of prayer. “’The Prayer of Quiet,’ in which the soul simply rests in the presence of the Friend and any trace of separation between them evaporates” (Ibid., pp. 23-24). Isn’t it beautiful? For Teresa, God had become the Beloved. Her own soul the lover.

Teresa’s way of prayer seems like what Jesus was teaching in his prayer. That we enter into communion with the tender Parent whose name even deserves praise. Whose reign of Love we long for most. Who we can trust fully to provide all we need: food for our bodies. Nourishment for our souls. Forgiveness for our failings. Deliverance in times of our deepest distress. Dropping any need for moralizing our own and others behavior, we’re reminded. Whether we have the proper words to define God and God’s demanding Way. Jesus teaches us to pray simply, as Teresa does. By stepping into the arms of the Beloved to allow the intimacy discovered there to inspire us “to harvest the fruits of love and feed the hungry world” (Ibid., p. 24).

No matter the manner in which we do it, I hope each and every one of us prays like that. Steeped in communion with God, the Lover of our soul; the Divine Parent waiting to hear us all.

In the name of the life-giving Father, the life-redeeming Son, and the life-sustaining Spirit, Amen.

© Copyright JMN – 2019 (All rights reserved.)