Sermon, Sunday 24 July: Listening for the heartbeat of God

Gospel passage: 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...

It had been a busy day.
So many things to see,
so many places to explore,
so many games to play,
and now, after a cheerful supper,
the little one had curled herself up on the sofa –
cosy, content.
Eyelids began to flutter,
blonde head began to droop.
Quietly, gently, her dad moved across to the sofa,
and began to pick her up.
Blue eyes half-opened,
and a drowsy protest from the tiny 4 year old:
‘I not a-seep’.
She snuggled into her daddy as he carried her
up the stairs to her room,
and smelt the familiar, comforting pine scent
of his aftershave.
As he bent down to put her into the bed,
she snuggled closer to his chest,
looked up at him, and smiled.
‘I can hear your heartbeat.’
He smiled, leant in and listened...
‘And I can hear your heartbeat.’
He kissed her on the forehead,
tucked her under the covers,
and, by the time he had crept out the door,
she was sound asleep.

Over time, it had become their bedtime ritual.
Each night, as she cooried into her daddy,
she would say
‘I can hear your heartbeat’
and he would respond
‘And I can hear your heartbeat.’

Years passed.
The interesting teenage years were navigated successfully,
and eventually, it was time for her to leave home,
go to uni...
make her way in the world:
make her mark on the world.
A career.
And then, a chance meeting one day
turned into a planned dinner the following week,
turned into conversations, laughter,
shared joys and pain...
turned into the one she wanted
to spend the rest of her life with...
turned into her turn to gently pick up
her own half-sleeping child
and carry him up to bed.
Old bedtime rituals remembered one night –
as her son snuggled into her on the way
to bed, she smiled, and said:
‘I can hear your heartbeat’
The little boy looked up at her,
snuggled closer,
and then, suddenly alert,
said ‘and I can hear your heartbeat too!’
And so, an old ritual became new,
and, as she’d put her son to bed,
and say the old, familiar words,
she would often think of her dad
back when his hair was still brown,
his face, as yet unlined from living.
Now his hair was snow,
his face, full of years.
He had moved a couple of blocks away
a few years after her mother had died.

One crisp, blue-sky autumn day, she had popped in to spend time with her dad,
found him lying in the kitchen, having slipped.
Shaken, and sore, he’d hurt his knee...
couldn’t quite find the strength to get back up.
She looked at him,
suddenly realised just how frail...
how fragile he was.
How he’d...somehow shrunk
without her seeing it.
She knelt by him,
helped him, half-carried him,
to his bed...
As he gingerly got into his bed,
he leant into her, for support,
and then stopped...
Looking up at his grown daughter’s face,
he smiled
at life that had now come full circle:
‘I can hear your heartbeat’, he said.
She tucked the covers over her dad,
knelt at his bedside, put her head on his chest...
time stopped for a moment,
and then, quietly, she said:
‘and I can hear your heartbeat...’*

The story is one of deep love –
love so intimate, so close,
that you can hear the other’s heartbeat.
The story is one of trust –
a trust that allows the other to carry you
in their arms.
It’s a story that’s passed on,
down through the generations of family –
of old familiar words said
alongside long-familiar actions:
of a parent’s love for their child,
of the child’s love for their parent...
the hospitality of the heart
that makes the other welcome.

In our gospel passage this morning,
we find Jesus praying...
and the disciples, observing.
As is the custom of disciples following a rabbi,
so, Jesus’ disciples ask him – their rabbi –
to teach them to pray.
Perhaps they knew some of the old prayers –
used by those who led the worshipping community at the synagogue.
Perhaps, they’d caught snatches of prayer-words from the Pharisees,
who could be heard praying loudly in the Temple.
And they certainly knew that John, cousin of Jesus,
John, the prophet,
John, the one who baptised,
had taught his own disciples to pray.

‘Lord, teach us to pray...’
Are they asking him for the right formula,
the right words and phrases,
the right form of words that they could then
remember and recite?
To learn it so well that they don’t
even need to think about it as they say the words.
‘Lord, teach us to pray,’ they say...
and Jesus begins, not with a formula,
but with a person:
the person of God...
God, who Jesus, their rabbi, addresses, here,
and many times elsewhere in scripture,
as ‘Father’.

‘Lord, teach us to pray, they say...
and Jesus answers with
‘call God ‘Father’’.
and by doing so,
in pointing to God,
in portraying the God of the heavens
and the earth
as ‘Father’,
as loving parent,
he makes a radical statement about
what prayer is:
it’s about relationship, not rote learning.
Even so, he sets out a template to help them
begin the conversation with the One
they are told to call ‘Father’.
A template that reminds them
who they are praying to – ‘Father’
the nature of the one they are praying to – ‘holy’
the basics of what to pray for –
God’s kingdom to come,
God’s will to be done in the same way that it’s done in heaven...
a manifesto of liberation, in two brief statements – for to ask that the kingdom come
and for God’s will to be done,
is to ask for a world in which
love is the rule of life –
a love for God, and for neighbour, and for self...
a love that is so close to God,
that God’s very heartbeat can be heard,
and, with each beat of God’s heart
justice and mercy meet
and pain is ended,
and hunger is no more,
and every tear is wiped from every eye...

And it’s a template that reminds them
to pray for their own needs –
for ongoing trust in the one who
will supply their needs,
their ‘daily bread’;
for a life lived as someone forgiven, and forgiving;
for the freedom from temptation...

‘Teach us to pray’, they ask...
and Jesus gives them a way in which to begin
a conversation with the One who yearns for them – and for us –
to ask, to seek, to knock at the
door of the Father...
the Father who doesn’t answer with
snakes or scorpions, but who responds
with the gift of the Holy Spirit;
the Father who is so close to us,
who is nearer to us than breathing;
the one who loves us
and who would pick us up,
carry us in his arms,
and hold us so close,
the he can hear our heartbeat,
and we can hear his...
The one who loves us so much,
that, in Jesus, he became human –
showed us who to love
and how to love...
Jesus, the very heartbeat of God,
made human.

‘Teach us to pray,’ the disciples ask...
‘Teach us to pray,’ we ask...
What is prayer?
An ongoing conversation with one
who is our friend –
‘a friend who knows our every weakness’
and yet still loves us;
What is prayer?
it is part and parcel of an ongoing friendship –
the best kind of friendship
where worries and joys are shared,
where words tumble out breathlessly,
and where there are companionable silences,
sitting at ease in each other’s company.
What is prayer?
An act of love,
an act of trust in two parts:
a willingness to put ourselves into the
hands of the living God...
and God’s willingness to offer us hospitality:
....to open the door of his heart
and bid us enter in
as his beloved children.

Let’s pray:
Loving God, teach us to pray as Jesus prayed –
not by rote,
but through the building of a relationship with you, our Father...
Teach us to pray early in the morning and
during the watches of the night.
Teach us to pray in times of elation and in
times of deepest anguish.
Teach us to pray in desert places
and in holy places.
Teach us to pray patiently and persistently.
Teach us to pray humbly and graciously.
Teach us to pray with a childlike spirit,
in love and trust.
Teach us to pray 'Let your will be done'
with courage and faith.
Lord, teach us to pray.
For your name's sake. Amen.

*based on a story told by Father Michael Renninger