Sermon, Sunday 30 August: Exploring the Lord's Prayer Series - Wk 1 'Lord, teach us to pray'

Today we began the first of our 5-part series 'Exploring the Lord's Prayer',
by looking at the two accounts of the LP found in Matthew and Luke.
We reflected upon the setting/ context of the prayer, and then
thought about how the prayer is structured.  Here's the sermon:

Week 1/ 'Lord, teach us to pray'
Readings: Matthew 6:6-13 & Luke 11:1-13

Let’s pray: 

May the words of my mouth and the meditations 

of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight, 

O Lord, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

The story goes that, when a doctoral student at Princeton once asked: 

‘What is there left in the world for original dissertation research?’

the teacher, who just happened to be Albert Einstein, replied:

‘Find out about prayer. Somebody must find out about prayer.’

In the two versions of the Lord’s Prayer that we heard read earlier, 

we see the disciples doing just that: finding out about prayer.

And so today, and over this next five weeks, as people who follow in the footsteps

of those earlier disciples, I’m hoping that we might

find out something about prayer, as we explore the prayer that is prayed 

by Christians all around the world: the Lord’s Prayer.

But first, let’s think about the settings of these two versions of the Lord’s Prayer:

In the reading from Matthew, the Prayer is placed within a series 

of Jesus’ ongoing teachings -

beginning with the Beatitudes,

moving into ethics and God’s law, matters of justice, and of loving enemies.

The teachings then turn to practical matters around devotion to God 

- holy living, if you like - 

exploring themes such as:

giving to the needy as a sacred act,

examining how to pray,

looking at fasting,

and learning to trust in God.

Now, sure, the disciples are somewhere there in Matthew’s account, 

but really, only in the shadowy background - after all, Jesus is not teaching to empty air.

On the other hand, the context of our reading from Luke feels quite different -

Luke, after all, is a teller of stories.

In his account, the disciples are much more sharply in focus.

And what we pick up from Luke about the disciples, 

which leads to this particular point in the story, goes a little bit like this:

They had followed Jesus for a wee while.

They’d listened to his wisdom,

they’d listened to his stories.

They were learning to listen to his teachings - 

which for some of them, were hard teachings indeed.

And on one particular day, knowing Jesus to be a holy man, their ‘rabbi’,

they asked him: ‘Lord, teach us to pray’...

and so he did, by giving them -

and disciples all down through the ages,

a template - a working model for prayer.

‘Find out about prayer. Somebody must find out about prayer.’

And the Lord’s Prayer is a very good place to start 

if you’re wanting to get to grips with how to pray.

Structurally, the prayer that Jesus gave us can be broken down into two sections:

the first concerns who we’re praying to - God, 

and of the nature of the One to whom we pray.

The second is about what is being prayed for.

The first raises our eyes upwards - to God,

and in effect, our relationship with and to God - it’s a vertical focus.

The second causes us to look outwards - to God’s world,

and in effect, our relationship with and to others - it’s a horizontal focus.

We start with God, because that helps us to gain perspective.

The writer, Phillip Yancey notes that:

‘as you begin to think of the One who created the heavens and established the earth,

you begin to understand/ get a glimpse of your place in the universe’

Which reminds me of a cartoon of Calvin and Hobbes - a wee boy and his pet, stuffed tiger.

The cartoon is mostly night sky, filled with millions of stars - vast, amazing.

At the very bottom of the cartoon, are a tiny Calvin and Hobbes, looking up at this sky,

lost in awe, feeling overwhelmed and small in the scheme of things.

It’s when we begin to understand who it is that we’re praying to, that we go ‘ohhh’.

The psalmist captures this sense when he writes, in Psalm 8:

When I look at your heavens,

the work of your fingers,

the moon and the stars

that you have established;

what are human beings

that you are mindful of them,

mortals, that you care for them?

Yet you have made them a little lower than God, 

and crowned them with glory and honour.

You have given them dominion over the
the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea,
whatever passes along the paths of the seas.
O Lord, our Sovereign,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!

And so we begin the Lord's Prayer with:

‘Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name...’

The prayer moves on:

still focused upon God, but here, looking at what to pray for.

We pray for the fulfilment of all things, the now and the not-yet of God’s kingdom...

‘thy kingdom come’;

we pray for the right ordering of things -

‘thy will be done;

we recognise that we live in an in-between time:

we want God’s kingdom to come and his will to be done -

not just in heaven, but here and now:

‘on earth as it is in heaven’

Here, I’m reminded of the Christian Aid slogan:

‘we believe in life before death.’

And so, this is the first half of the prayer -

addressing God, 

praying for the kingdom -

and, that we experience glimpses of that kingdom even here, even now.

The second half of the prayer moves to us - what do we pray for:

recognising that we are dependent

upon God for all things, we pray for life:

for nourishment, for sustenance.

‘give us this day our daily bread’.

Harking back to some of our Gospel readings over the last few weeks,

we’re reminded of Jesus calling himself ‘the bread of life,’

asking us to ‘feed’ on him.

But the bread of life is not meant in just a spiritual sense in the Lord’s Prayer,

there’s a physical aspect to it:

If we don’t have our daily bread, it’s hard to focus upon Our Father,

or much of anything else for that matter.

As we eat our daily bread - and give thanks for having it,

it also causes us to look outward:
we’re minded of those who, for whatever reason don’t have as much...

and a question begins to form within us:
how can we be bringers of bread, bringers of life, to others,

and thus, work toward the coming in of God’s kingdom, 

where there will be no more hunger?

I find it fascinating that the subject which follows immediately on from bread -

that essential, life-giving staple - is forgiveness.

‘forgive us debts, as we forgive our debtors’

How can we have any sense of abundant life

if we’re bowed down, under the burden of unforgiven debts -

the tally of those things we’ve done that we wish we hadn’t,

or those things not done that we wish we had?

And, in the same manner in which our own debts are forgiven - 

those things that we’ve done that have been set aside -

we pray that we can forgive those we feel owe us - 

who have done things to us, and in doing so, have accumulated 

‘debts’ of pain, of injustice, of hurt, and injury that have been built up over time.

The way of unforgiveness is debt and death:

the way of forgiveness is freedom and is life-sustaining.

The theme of that which sustains life continues:

we pray to follow in the way of life,

to keep our focus upon the One who is the giver of life: 

we pray to stay away from that which will cause harm,and, should we lose our focus,  

we pray for rescue:
‘and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil’

Scripturally, that’s where the Lord’s Prayer finishes: with that final cry for help.

But we know that this is not how we finish the prayer when we say it. 

The last part of the prayer - which Jesus is not recorded as saying -

brings us back full circle to God:

There’s a symmetry to the way we say the Lord’s Prayer within worship 

that reminds us again of who we’re praying to...

and reminds us, quite strongly, that the prayer we pray is not to establish 

our power, or our glory:

the prayer we pray, is that God’s glory and power be shown and acknowledged.

It is both power and glory that move beyond our finite space and time,

and into the realm of eternity:

‘For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory forever, amen.’

....‘Find out about prayer. Somebody must find out about prayer.’

Over these next few weeks, let’s do just that, 

as we keep company with God in prayer. 

Let us pray:

Loving God
This 'Lord's Prayer', as we call it,
can make prayer seem quite easy.
It can be all too easy to read it or recite it
without really thinking about

the meaning behind the words,
even while part of our minds are

thinking about other things -
next week's menus,
an argument with a neighbour,
feeling that our views or abilities

have been overlooked...

But if we stop and think about

what we’re reciting,
they become tough words.

...'Father.' ...
What is the image we have of you?
Does it explain why sometimes we’re

 reluctant to pray? ...

'May your holy name be honoured.'
How we enjoy it when our name is honoured too!

'May your Kingdom come.'
We confess that often, we’re more concerned with our own little world,
wanting everything to go our way.

'Give us day by day the food we need.' ...
So why do we hoard supplies and throw away what we don't need?

'Forgive us our sins,

for we forgive everyone who does us wrong.'
...Can we really claim that's true of us?

'And do not bring us to hard testing.'
We admit that we long for a quiet life,

at peace with everyone. ...

Compassionate God, teach us to pray:
not just with Jesus' words,
but also with Christlike attitudes and behaviour.
Teach us not just to say the Lord's Prayer
but to live it.  Amen.