“How do you do that?” The disciples traveling with Jesus are noticing that he prays – a lot! Obviously it’s important and they realize that it makes a difference. They want to know how to do it, too! It is, after all, the most important mark of a disciple1. Click on the link above to continue reading…
In Luke 11, when the disciples asked Jesus how to pray he answered with an invitation into relationship. Follow the typical Jewish prayer form that you’ve heard spoken in the temple – food, forgiveness and self-preservation BUT start it intimately, with “Daddy.” To God “abba” recognizes that to enter into prayer with God is to enter into a sacred space with the creator.
Most importantly, to do is persistently and shamelessly, as demonstrated with the parable of the friend at midnight.
Given the horrific deaths at the hands of terrorists all over the world coupled with law enforcement under siege, prayer is the first thing that we should be doing, does it do any good? Is it ever answered?
There are times when life is overwhelming, God’s must be on vacation because he certainly doesn’t feel in the midst of all this mess so why even bother to pray? Does God answer prayer?
Oh, I can throw all sorts of clichés out at that one: “yes, but not that way you would like” or “you’re just not praying for the right things” or my personal favorite: “of course he does, sometimes the answer is “no.”
Borrowing liberally from colleague Dr. David Lose, president of Philadelphia Lutheran Seminary, in his blog “In the Meantime”, he recognizes that prayer is really a passive act. You pray, then wait for something to happen – like sending an email and then waiting for someone to answer.
So think about this: God beckons us to “see, draw near and get involved” (my interpretation of the parable of the Good Samaritan). Prayer is relationship, an intimate conversation with the Creator. When God gets involved things happen (and God is never NOT involved!)
What is stopping us from being bold, audacious, over the top confident and shameless in our requests? Do we not have the promise that God will respond and much more generously at that? Because it is not enough just to pray (yes, it’s the best start) but, like the lawyer was told in the Good Samaritan, seeing is not enough. We are called to draw near and get involved. Likewise with prayer!
As Lose asks in his column, “what is stopping us from living into the reality that we just prayed for?” In other words, prayer is a way to get involved!
We pray for those who are lonely, and then we visit them. We pray for the end of gun violence, then we go to work to eliminate the loop holes that allow military-grade assault weapons on our streets. We pray that law enforcement would not use unnecessary force and then we tell a police officer THANKS and pray for his or her safety.
Imagine. Imagine the future for which we pray. Imagine that future is now. The work we do is prayer, when we work to preserve the dignity of the least, the last, the lost and the lonely. The work we do is prayer when we comfort the needy and feed the hungry.
We are being used by God to answer someone else’s prayer and to be a God-sighting for someone else no matter their gender, sexual orientation or Christian or not.
Prayers are words that we share with others. Prayers are doing the things that we prayed for.
We know how to give good gifts…how much so that God gives us. God gives us Christ and the Holy Spirit, to empower us to live into our prayers, to be bold, to be audacious, to be shameless! Just do it.
1 Real faith for Real Life: Living the Six Marks of Discipleship. Michael Foss, Augsburg-Fortress, 2004. The entire congregation Holy Trinity has been invited to join the council and staff in reading this book. Groups forming in the fall.
2 “In the Meantime…” David Lose http://www.davidlose.net/2016/07/pentecost-10-c-shameless-prayer/