Having a Prayer

This is the message given in the Wheatland Parish Sunday, March 10, 2013.  The Bible verses used are Luke 11:1-13; Matthew 6:5-14; Luke 22:39-46; Psalm 51:1-17.

We've been looking at exercises we can do to get ourselves into spiritual shape. We've been comparing these spiritual exercises with physical exercises, in that we need to do them regularly and consistently, just like we need to do physical exercises regularly to get ourselves into physical shape.

There's another way in which these spiritual exercises are like physical exercises. Sometimes, they're not easy. In fact, part of what makes an exercise helpful is that it is hard to do. If an exercise is too easy, it's probably not doing us a whole lot of good. It's only when it's hard, when we work up a sweat, that we really get a lot of good out of an exercise.

That's true of our spiritual exercises, too. It may be especially true of the spiritual exercise we're going to talk about today, and that's the spiritual exercise of prayer.

I've had a lot of people tell me that they have a hard time praying. We know we should pray. We know we need to pray. We know God wants us to pray. Still, we have a hard time doing it. There are a lot of reasons for that, but I think one of the main ones is that, sometimes, prayer seems really intimidating.

Prayer can be intimidating for a lot of reasons. I think a lot of it is that we have the wrong idea about prayer. We think our prayers need to be fancy. We think they need to sound polished. We think we have to use certain phrases when we pray. We worry too much about what words we're going to say, and we make prayer harder than it needs to be.

That's too bad. Because you know, I really don't think God is particularly impressed with those polished, fancy-sounding prayers. I mean, think about who we're praying to here. We're praying to the almighty, all-knowing God. You think God will be impressed by all the fancy words we know? God knows every word in every language. God created language. God is not going to be impressed by any fancy words we can use.

God's not going to be impressed by how long we can pray, either. This is the immortal, everlasting God. This is the God who existed before time. God existed before the world was created, and God will exist after the world ends. You think God is going to be impressed by how long we can pray? I don't think so.

If you feel like you don't know how to pray, though, maybe it'll help you to know that you're not alone. The disciples felt the same way in our reading from Luke. I'm sure they'd prayed before, just like I'm sure most of you have prayed before. Still, when the disciples heard Jesus praying, they felt intimidated. They felt like they really did not know how to pray. So, they asked Jesus to teach them how to pray.

What did Jesus say? How did Jesus say they should pray? This is why we read the Lord's Prayer in both versions, the one from Matthew and the one from Luke. They both have something to tell us about prayer.

In Matthew, Jesus tells the disciples, look, don't worry about having a fancy, polished prayer. God does not want us to put on a show. That's not what prayer is about. He tells the disciples, don't worry about having to pray for a certain length of time. God's not going to be impressed by a lot of words. That's not what prayer is about, either.

In both versions, Matthew and Luke, the Lord's Prayer is incredibly short. In Matthew, it's five verses and fifty-three words, at least in the version we read today. In Luke, it's even shorter, three verses and thirty-four words. There are no fancy words in it. The only word that might sound a little unusual to us is “hallowed”, and all that really means is”holy” or “sacred”. The only reason Bible versions still use “hallowed” is because of tradition, because so many of us grew up learning the Lord's prayer that way. If you want to substitute the word “holy” or “sacred” for “hallowed”, that's perfectly all right, because that's what it means.

Since this is how Jesus told the disciples to pray, let's look at the elements in this prayer. It's a remarkably simple prayer. It's starts out by saying who we're praying to: God, the father in heaven. It goes on to recognize the sacredness, the holiness of God: hallowed be your name.

Then, the prayer goes on to pray for God's kingdom to come to earth. Matthew adds the words, “Thy will be done”, and while that's important, it's really kind of the same thing. After all, God's kingdom coming to earth would be the ultimate example of God's will being done, right? In God's kingdom, God's will is always done. We pray for the coming of God's kingdom here on earth.

Third, we ask for God to take care of us and give us what we need: “Give us this day our daily bread.” We pray for what we need, not necessarily for what we want. We don't pray for our daily steak and potatoes. We don't pray for our daily ice cream and chocolate chip cookies. We also don't pray for enough bread to last us for a few weeks or a month. We pray for our daily bread. We pray for enough to get us through today, trusting that God will take care of our tomorrow.

Then we pray for forgiveness. We acknowledge who we are: sinners. We acknowledge we need forgiveness. But notice something else: we pray for God to forgive us as we forgive others. Jesus is consistent about that. It shows up in other places in the gospels, too. If we want to get forgiveness from God, we need to give forgiveness to others. Jesus is pretty clear on that point.

Finally, we ask not to be led into temptation. Jesus knew how hard it is for us to resist when we're tempted. After all, Jesus himself was tempted, and had to be able to resist it. Because it's so hard for us to resist temptation, we need to pray to not be tempted in the first place.

That's all there is to it. Acknowledge who God is, pray for God's kingdom and God's will to be done, pray for enough to get us through the day, pray for forgiveness, and pray to not be led into temptation. That's all we need to do. It does not take lots of words. In fact, we can even use Jesus' words if we want to. I'd guess almost everyone here knows the Lord's Prayer. We say it every Sunday. If you forget it, there are lots of places you can find it. When we're stuck for what to pray, we can always just pray the Lord's Prayer. It covers everything we really need to say.

But you know, we've been talking so far about what words to use when we pray. Now, words are important, but really, our words are not the most important thing about prayer. After all, as Jesus says, God knows what we need before we ask. What's most important about our prayers is the attitude we bring to them. What's most important about our prayers is the humility and sincerity of our hearts when we pray. As we read in the psalm, God wants us to come with broken and contrite hearts.

And you know, that can be the hardest thing of all about prayer. It's one thing to use the right words. It's another thing to really mean them. It's another thing to have a heart that's open and honest and humble and sincere.

And, just as with the Lord's Prayer, Jesus gives us an example. That's why we read the story of Jesus praying in the garden of Gethsemane. Jesus knew what he was in for. He did not really want to go through with it. Would you? Jesus did not want to be arrested and to be tortured and to be killed, any more than you or I would. He was praying as hard as he could. He was praying desperately. He was praying so hard that he was actually sweating. Have you ever done that? Ever prayed so hard that actual drops of sweat, as big as drops of blood, were forming and falling off you? I never have. Jesus was praying with all his might that somehow, in some way, God would spare him from what he knew he had to go through.

I'm not saying we have to pray that hard. But we do need to have that attitude. We do need to put our hearts into it when we pray. We do need to be sincere and honest and open when we pray. And that can be hard. If we're sincere, if we're honest, if we're open, then we'll have to truly recognize who God is and who we are. We'll have to recognize how far short we are of who we should be, of who God wants us to be. We'll have to recognize how much we depend on God and how much we need God's forgiveness.

And then we need to do one more thing. We need to honestly say what Jesus said. Jesus said it in the Lord's Prayer, and he says it again here. “Not my will, but yours be done.” If we cannot say that, we're not going to get anyplace. It can be hard to say. Sometimes we're convinced that our will is God's will. Sometimes we cannot understand why God's will is different from ours. Still, despite that, we need to be willing to say it, and we need to mean it. “Not my will, but yours be done.”

We worry so much about the words we're going to say when we pray. That's not the point. The point of prayer is to have an honest, open, sincere heart. If we have that, God will know what we're trying to say no matter how much we stumble for words.

So this week, let's work on the spiritual exercise of prayer. It may be hard. But you know what? It'll be worth it.