Audio Link and Sermon Manuscript for Sunday, July 25th

If you'd like to hear the recording of my sermon from Sunday, July 25th, 2010, click on this file and download: 

http://www.box.net/shared/xe3e6et9ps


The manuscript follows below: 


The Seventeenth Sunday of Ordinary Time; July 25, 2010
Park Avenue Presbyterian Church; Des Moines, Iowa
Texts: Hosea 1: 2-10
Psalm 85
Colossians 2: 6-15 (16-19)
Luke 11: 1-13 *

“Participation by Prayer”

--} Honestly, there are a lot of questions to be asked about today’s gospel lesson.

• Why does Jesus teach a prayer that’s different from the one we say in worship?
• Why do Presbyterians “pray it” differently than the Methodists, or the Episcopalians?
• How come Luke’s version and Matthew’s version of the Lord’s Prayer are different?
• Is Jesus teaching us “how” to pray, or “what” to pray?
• Why do we pray a prayer like this one every Sunday—so often, that it’s wrote and “boring” and we might not even know what it “means” anymore?

And honestly, there are a host of other questions we could ask, too. Like:

• What do the words of this prayer really MEAN?
• What are we “really praying for” when we say these words?
• Is there a particular theology being espoused, or doctrine, or dogma, that we should be careful of or concerned about?
• Christians have been praying this prayer for almost 2,000 years—shouldn’t we try something different for a change?

But honestly, I really don’t want to have to deal with any of those questions this morning. Instead, I’d like to tell you about how I’ve come to know the Lord’s Prayer in my own experience, and then see if the gospel story doesn’t shed some additional light on how Jesus invites us to be in relationship with one another and with God.



It was some years ago now; I was a young pastor serving a small congregation in the middle of Nebraska. We had a young family who had moved to town with two daughters—a nearly 2 year old, and a nearly 4 year old. Since the congregation was exclusively older, we didn’t have any children’s programming at all. But with some encouragement, we got the family to come to worship and bring the girls and things were quite happy. The congregation now had “entertainment” because they could watch the two girls during worship. They knew just how to make mom and dad squirm, and occasionally make one another squeal. And it was all perfectly fine—especially for the congregation, quietly “observing” during the sermon.

But all this changed one Sunday. As the pastor I’d been intentional about involving the girls in worship, inviting them to sing with us or occasionally referring to something they liked in the sermon. That congregation—like this one—also made a habit of reciting the Lord’s Prayer together every Sunday. And on this particular Sunday, I was paying careful attention to the 4 year old as the congregation began reciting the prayer. And it was one of those flash-bulb kind of moments. The 4 year old was about to punch the 2 year old; one of those moments when you thought you could imagine the future that hadn’t just happened yet. And at just the moment the congregation began “Our father, who art in heaven…” the 4 year old’s face changed. I could almost see the flash of “recognition” as the words stumbled past her ears and registered in her brain. Miraculously, she pulled back from her sister and her head swiveled around as she tried to comprehend what was happening. It was as if her brain was screaming out to her that the congregation was praying that prayer her mother had been trying for several weeks to teach her at bedtime. And because she was sitting in the front-row, I—the preacher—was the only one who got to see the gaped mouth of utter astonishment—as she discovered for the first time that somebody else knew that prayer, too.

In all my years in the church, this is one of the most precious of moments that I’ve been privileged to witness. But with it, was the following Sunday. Everyone was back in church, except the 4 year old brought her rapt attention. She didn’t bother with her younger sister. She sat, carefully listening, through the prayers, the hymns, the scripture reading, and even the sermon. It was as if she knew, at any moment, the whole congregation was going to do something. And sure enough, when it came time for the Lord’s Prayer, her suspicions confirmed, she was ready. And as we prayed on that next Sunday, she added her voice—her most grown up, adult, I’m going to participate too, voice—to the rest of ours and prayed so that everyone could hear her. And there wasn’t a dry eye in the house after that. There in those moments a mere 4 year old had learned what my preaching and worship professor had promised us in seminary, the kids will “get it too.” And she did.



Now I tell you that story because I want us to see and to know that it’s NOT because of the particular doctrine or dogma of the prayer that’s particularly important. I don’t know exactly what Jesus had in mind when he encouraged his disciples to pray “this way,” but I do know that in the tradition of Christian believers the Lord’s Prayer has taken a monumental place in our Spiritual formation and participation in the life of Jesus Christ. It could be about the words themselves. Yes, it probably is at least partly about the very words. But for nearly two-thousand years, for whatever reasons, Christians have recited the prayer. And it’s likely how we first learn to participate in believing.

You see, in the earliest church, the Christian community was small. A handful of families in any one place, really. There weren’t large gatherings like we know them. There weren’t church buildings. There wasn’t any kind of church infrastructure. No pastors, no elders, no bishops. The Apostles might have gathered in Jerusalem, but they were a far cry from the day-to-day experience of Christians. It wasn’t like today, when we expect to be asked questions like, “where are you going when you die?” or “was Jesus born by way of a virgin-birth?” or “is Jesus the only way to salvation.” In the earliest experiences of faith, people didn’t know “what” they believed or even “what” the church believed. Believers were marked by the prayers they prayed and the ways they acted toward others in the world.

“Christians” as we’ve become known as, were formed around the community that shared the words of the Lord’s Prayer and enacted the teachings of Jesus.

And so when Luke relates this story to first-century believers, there’s immediately the encouragement to begin praying these words. In fact, the earliest believers presume this prayer is a prescribed prayer. They write it into their worship practices and daily rituals—and they hand it down, generation by generation. Now that’s persistent prayer! And that’s generally the part that you and I affirm and participate in ourselves—every Sunday in worship, perhaps every day in our daily spiritual lives—if nothing else, we always have THIS PRAYER to sustain us. And as we join in the now-familiar and well-worn words, as they tumble out of our mouths across our lips perhaps even unknowingly, we join our voices with the myriad of thousands across the centuries who offered them in their own time of need or their own practices of reverence and hope. The fact that we know them “together” melds us as believers. “Together” it’s a common vision and witness—not just for ourselves, but for others. And we come to faith, I think, when we offer our own ascent to the words, as we join the chorus of believers in every time and place. And it’s always a feel-good kind of moment.



But honestly, I’m not sure that’s what Jesus had in mind—at all. And I say that, not because I doubt these were Jesus’ words, but I think somewhere along the way we took them a bit overboard. Don’t get me wrong, I like that we have the Lord’s Prayer. I like the grounded-ness that we feel in it, the unity and togetherness that comes from our common voicing of it. But those well-worn familiar words may have just been an example; where the true and heart-felt desire of Jesus was to teach us that “praying” is essential to accomplishing what God asks us to do. Not so much “how” we pray or even “what” we pray, but that we pray.

While there’s a lot that could be said about the “what” that we pray, I believe the prayer becomes instructive for us, not so much because of “what” Jesus has followers pray but because the Church chose to take up praying together. It’s a teachable moment both for us and the world. For us—more than the words that stumble out of our mouths, flowing off our tongues without our minds giving them a second thought or understanding the gravity of what they ask—the prayer does what otherwise seems impossible. It calls us to participation together.

For the earliest believers, that followers prayed together was exactly the point. More than doctrine or theology or specific petitions, Jesus marks us with a prayer—the repetition of which has been preserved and practiced for hundreds of centuries. And it marks us, not by what it means or how seriously we offer the words; but that we declare it. That we add our voices to the thousands and myriads. It’s how our lives are changed. It’s how we are reformed and conformed to Christ’s image. It’s literal, it’s spiritual, it’s hopeful. Not because we say magic words, but because we join the throng of faithful who know it and pray it, together.

Should we try something different for a change? I don’t think so. And neither did the 4 year old.


--+ Friends, God sent his son, the Christ, to show us how to pray and the power of prayer and the promise of persistence heard and responded to. So let us add our voices to those of the faithful of every time and place—that we too, might give witness not just to “what” we believe, but “who” we believe in. AMEN.