The Way of Prayer

Transcripts are computer-generated and may not be 100% accurate.

We're continuing on and tonight we're talking about the way of prayer and the way of prayer. As we look at the life of Jesus, it's easy to see that that was part of the regular rhythm of Jesus. And just also for you who are new, part of our mission statement, is we are a people practicing the ways of Jesus and if we're gonna practice the ways of Jesus, prayer is a part of that. It's easy to look throughout scripture and particularly what comes to mind is all those times that Jesus was involved in intense ministry and he needed to get away. He needed to get out to deserted areas and just spend time with God. And you could see that it was not only told us about the character of Jesus, but his heart, his mission in the world. And what we know from the text is that so much of it was a way for Jesus to take care of his own soul and his ministry as well.

As we look through the gospels, we can see that Jesus prayed. I mean he prayed at his baptism. He prayed in the morning before heading out to Galilee, after healing people, before choosing the 12 disciples, before speaking to the Jewish leaders. He gave thanks to God above before he fed the 5,000 in one of the texts. And before he fed the 4,000 in another text, before he walked on water, at the transfiguration, before teaching his disciples the Lord's Prayer, before raising Lazarus from the dead, Jesus prayed. Jesus laid his hands on children and he prayed and he prayed for himself and his disciples and for all believers before he stepped into the garden of Gethsemane the night before he died. And on that night when he was in that garden, he prayed the same prayer three times: “My father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me, yet not what I want, but what you want.” And on the cross, as he hung on the cross in the midst of pain and agony, crying out in distress, Jesus said, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And later on that same cross, he asked for God to forgive the people that were torturing him. Father, forgive them for they do not know what they're doing. And finally in his very last breath here on earth, he prayed, father into your hands, I commend my spirit.”

I think of those stories and what comes to mind to me is authentic and raw and real and honest. I think that's what we're asked to do in prayer. And Jesus prayed and he gave thanks. He prayed when he needed help. He prayed when he was despairing. He prayed when he was hurting. He prayed when he needed peace and rest. He prayed in his final breaths.

And here's my question for you all. When I said we're gonna talk about prayer tonight, what was the first thing you thought of? Because I've been thinking a lot about prayer this week and I have to be honest. When I first hear prayer is important to the life of faith, my mind starts to go, oh gosh, I should be praying more. Or maybe prayer needs to look like this needs to be deeper. More often. I imagine that we've all had moments of prayer like we just heard about from Jesus. Those moments where we're crying out for help those moments feel gratitude and joy. Those moments where we feel alone.

And I'm guessing that we've all had moments of struggling with prayer, maybe even seasons where it hasn't felt all that desirable to pray. Maybe we've had a lot of unanswered prayer in our life and it's turned us away from prayer. And I don't know whether it's misguiding my misguided teachings or bad theology or just wrong messages. But the truth is this prayer is not something that's transactional between you and me and God. It's not about transaction, it's about communion with God. And here's what I started thinking about. When we think about communion with God, being in the presence of God, feeling the rightness of God, the awe with God.

I just thought about the last week or two in the life of this church and I was thinking about Mark and Morgan Harmon this last week welcoming baby Wyatt into the world. And a couple weeks back I thought about Tyler and Autumn Beinlich welcoming baby Jude into the world. I was imagining the prayers prior to the birth. I was imagining that there were all sorts of prayers, praying for a safe delivery, praying for a healthy baby. And then I was picturing the prayers afterwards and whether it was this like direct like God thank you, or just this deep feeling of awe at this gift of life, I was all filled up just thinking about that prayer of gratitude and thankfulness.

I was thinking about a lot of my friends in this room who have had a lot of loss, those that have had hard diagnoses, broken relationships, lost jobs, thinking about what those prayers felt like. God help me, help me God, I need you. God, where are you? I can't feel your presence thinking about those prayers when something's new. Maybe we go to sit at a table in a lunchroom with kids we don't know. Maybe we feel alone 'cause no one's invited us to the birthday party. Thinking about what those prayers might be like.

And then I was thinking about just doing life. And the prayer of that fills you up when you walk around the lake on a sunny, warm day like today, and you're filled up with just like creation around you and the beauty and that prayer. And then Gino, I was thinking about you at one of your concerts when you're drumming away, and I'm thinking that's a prayer that is you connecting with God, you and communion with God. That's prayer.

And I think that's our thing, right? Is that we maybe see prayer too narrowly that we think it needs to look just like this. I don't think it does. I think we pray both consciously and unconsciously. I think sometimes we familiarize ourselves and we ritualize our prayers. And sometimes that works for people. I know many people that love that ritual that even the Lord's prayer every Sunday, that that is something that connects them to being in God's presence. And sometimes it's our mealtime prayers or our bedtime prayers and we have a mealtime prayer that we do in our family, don't we? You guys? What's our mealtime prayer? Do you remember? [sings] Oh, the Lord is good to me. And so I thank the Lord for giving me the things I need. The sun and the rain and the apple seed, the Lord is good to me. Amen. Amen. Amen.

Even that little ritual, we sit around our counter at our crazy grandkid dinners where no one sits more for five minutes, but for that little bit of time we are connected to one another and we are connected to God. And guess what? It matters. It's important. And for some of us, and I have some friends who do this, they have this beautiful discipline where they'll actually put aside time every day and they never miss it. And they sit in quiet in a certain space and they sit in quiet with God. And it's part of what sustains their soul during regular life, hard life, good life. That's what they do. That doesn't work for the way I'm wired. I stick to it for about three days and then I'm done. But I think there's the rest of us.

Sometimes our prayers are unrehearsed words. They come in the daily moments where we catch a glimpse of God, where we get to sit with people when they're in hard places. When we get to sit with people in these beautiful moments that happen in our lives too, that's prayer. And I think that's the truth. That prayer can simply be abiding, an abiding sense in the presence of God. And I think when we sit in there, it's about us being honest and vulnerable that we're there with our full selves, including our heart.

Well, we are practicing the ways that Jesus and Jesus prayer prayed and Jesus had something to say about prayer. And here's Jesus in Luke:

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. So he said to them, when you pray, say Father, hallowed, be your name, your kingdom come, give us each day our daily bread and forgive us our sins for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us and do not bring us to the time of trial.

I'm gonna pause here partway through our text for tonight to say, that doesn't sound exactly like the words we say every Sunday night. And I'm gonna tell you a little bit about that. There are two texts that tell us what Jesus told the disciples to pray, what we call the Lord's Prayer. There's this one in Luke, it's a shorter one. It has five petitions in it. And then there's the one in Matthew, seven petitions in it. And here's what scholars believe that Jesus did model this form of prayer to his disciples. A couple decades later, Luke took that, wrote that version down, recorded it probably closest to the original of what Jesus said. And then later than that, Matthew took it, made it a little fuller. And that's likely what the first century Church said during their worship services.

Now then as years went on, the Christian Church just made that bigger and added to it out of their own awe and majesty of God and all that doesn't change what Jesus modeled in this prayer because what he modeled was a prayer of depth that is simple and straightforward. “Father” is radical 2000 plus years ago. Because what it did was claim an intimacy, a relationship with God that hadn't been claimed before. A intimacy between God and his people a relationship.

And in those five petitions, it talks, it's a call and an invitation to all of us. I think for some of us, prayer can feel intimidating, especially in a public context. The same thing that I said earlier. I don't know how to pray. I don't know what to say. I don't have just the right words. But here's why this is important. What Jesus is saying here, he's not teaching about a right way to pray, but what he's teaching about is an attitude, a, a posture of prayer. I think of it as as a presence. It's about showing up, showing up in those moments, not trans. It's not transaction between us and God. It's about communion between us and God. So here's what Jesus goes on to say, because he tells a few stories after that:

And he 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 for a friend of mine has arrived and I have nothing to set before him. And he answers from within, do not bother me. The door has already been locked and my children, we will not or, and my children are with me in bed. I cannot get up and give you anything. I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything out of friendship, at least because of his persistence, he will get up and give him whatever he needs. So I say to you, ask and it will be given to you. Search and you will find knock and the door will be open to you for everyone who asks receive. And everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks the door will be opened. Is there anyone among you who if your child asks for a fish would give a snake instead of a fish? Or if the child asked for an egg, would you give a scorpion? 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?

So I wanna be clear that I don't think what Jesus was saying here was that, hey, ask search, not knock you. Get anything you want. It's not a blank check on on God's account, his instruction to ask, search, and knock is in relationship to what we call the Lord's Prayer. And here's what he's saying: We are to be persistent in aligning our lives to the hollowing of God's name, the holiness of God's name. We are to be persistent in living out God's kingdoms in our life, in our relationships. We are to be persistent and opening our arms to the gifts of this day to acknowledge that what we have today can sustain us and we are to be persistent and free freely receiving forgiveness and freely giving forgiveness.

And I think what's interesting about that is these words that Jesus told his disciples to pray that is telling us to pray in some ways are words that God is praying for us because I think it's a call, it's an invitation to us in our lives. Because when Jesus is teaching about asking, searching, knocking, it's not a technique on how to pray or some mantra or some magic formula, pray like this, you get whatever you want. What he's doing is he's describing a posture, a way we show up a way we are present before God. Open, vulnerable, willing to be in God's present, willing to listen to whatever the Spirit might be saying or calling us to do.

So that makes me think that maybe prayer in some ways is more about how we respond, how we show up than what God does. And maybe our truest prayer are the words and actions that we offer in response to God's invitation and calling in our own lives like Jesus. Prayer is a practice that keeps us connected to God, a way to sustain us in life. I know I've experienced that. I know a lot of you have experienced that as well.

But here's the cool thing about this text is that prayer keeps us open to a future that's coming. The coming of kingdom, the coming of daily bread, the coming of forgiveness. And when we're open to the future, we're open to a sense that the future was always better, even though it might not be, it might be. And that's hope. That's what keeps us going. That's what helps us to step into things. That's what helps us move. And the might be is the faith. It is the hope in our prayer. It's the thread that we hold onto when everything's unraveling around us. It's a prayer we have when we don't have a prayer, we pray for the coming of a future.

And I think that's what what it means to us is that we don't give up when the world feels like it's crashing down on us. We don't give up when it feels like the country we live in has suddenly shifted and a democracy is being deconstructed and people that we know and love are being targeted and that we do not give up. We don't give up when our life feels like it's becoming unhinged or that we're overwhelmed or that we come to the limits of our own ability. And that anything that we can do on our own, we don't give up when it looks like this is as is as good as it's gonna get. And there'll never be anything better.

Because here's the thing about prayer, is that it opens us up to the possibilities of something new. I love the word possibility. We need the word hope right now. So don't discount that prayer matters. And here's why. It doesn't guarantee an outcome. It doesn't help us escape our present circumstances, but it keeps us open to a future, like I said, a possibility of life and more life. That is what Jesus is promising in the gospel today.

But what strikes me about what he's teaching us is it's far bigger than any particular things or circumstances. It's bigger than that. It's about a future and our responsibility in that future. Because here's what happens when we spend time with God, whatever that looks like. And like I said, that looks a million different ways we spend time with God. And it not only moves us closer to God, but at the end of the day, it changes us. And that's what moves us into being part of bringing good news, of bringing hope, of being allies, of stepping into hard things. It changes us.

So years ago when I was a pastor at Christ Presbyterian Church, which is the church that the table launched out of years ago now, um, there were some people and myself as the staff pastor who started a group that was called Living in the Tension. We met on Sunday nights after the table and we were trying to build a bridge between the church and the LGBTQ community. One of the women that was on the team, her name was Jeannie, and she became a good friend of mine. And Jeannie had a son, Matt and Jeannie. Um, and Matt both belonged to a very fundamental conservative church. She actually was a single mom. So she wasn't allowed to teach Bible study at that church because of her singleness. And when Matt came out in his college years, it knocked Jeannie over because of the things she had been taught, the things she had been told about how abhorrent it was in the eyes of God to be gay. She tells the story of how she laid in a fetal position on her bathroom floor for 24 hours, crying, crying out to God. And for two years she said every day she prayed that God would change Matt. And then she told the story that at the end of the two years what happened was God changed her, changed her heart.

So here's the rest of the story that's so beautiful is Matt, who then became a good friend of Steve’s and mine. Um, he was a Christian singer songwriter down in Nashville and he had a whole lot of Christian singer songwriter friends and a whole lot of 'em were part of the LGBTQ community. And Jeannie started going down there regularly. And a lot of people in Matt's circle, their parents had disowned them. They wouldn't be in relationship with them. And she became their mom. She became their mom. She was the one that hugged them and held them and talked with them. And they built this relationship.

So when, a few years after I had met Jeanie and at about my age at the time, she ended up dying of cancer, I had the privilege of being with her and Matt and his partner as she left this earth and stepped into heaven. And I also had the privilege of officiating her beautiful memorial service. Twenty of Matt's friends came up from Nashville. Some of them were singers like part of Amy Grant's band, and I mean amazingly talented people. And they sang at her service and they celebrated her life. And one by one after the reception for hours, and I exaggerate not, they came up to me to tell me how much she meant to them, how her love for them, her hugs for them saved them when they had no one else, no other mom or adult in their life.

Prayer changes us and then we get on board with God and we change the world. That's why prayer matters. Prayer is a posture, it's a way of standing before God. And we are exposed and we are vulnerable. And it is hard because it means that we have work to do. What might that look like for us all if we stood before God and said, here I am. Here I am, I am an instrument of change. What would it take for our lives to look like that?

I think in this text, what Jesus does is he invites us into the goodness of God. And the twist to Jesus's teaching is that the gift that God gives us is not the exact answer to what we want, but the gift that he gives us is his divine self. The Holy Spirit. And that's what changes everything. So the call is to be persistent in prayer, to commune with God and one another and to show up honestly and with vulnerability 'cause that's how we come to know the mystery and the presence of God. How we have confidence in God, even when we can't quite see what's ahead or the answers.

Would you please pray with me? Our God in heaven, regardless of what has or has not happened through our words and actions. We bless, hallow and make holy your name before others. We claim your ways, your concerns and desires as our own. Each day give us bread for the day to nourish and strengthen us, body and soul, for whatever lies ahead, free us from the past and forgive our sins in the same way and to the same extent as we forgive others. Save us from the temptation of turning away from ourselves, from one another and from you. And we pray it in the name of Jesus. Amen.