Sermon 7/29/07
God Talk - Luke 11:1-13
(view lectionary notes for this text)
Why is talking to God so very hard? People have lots of hang-ups when it comes to questions of religion and faith – you know, stumbling blocks, things that trip them up, that they just can’t get their minds around, or get their minds settled about. We tend to be private about faith. We tend to be individualistic in our faith. These days, many people would say that they are “spiritual but not religious,” which usually means that some form of spiritual life is important to a person, but spiritual needs are met outside of the church, outside of organized religion. People have hang-ups about mixing faith and politics, and we tend to be suspicious of candidates for public office who either talk too much or too little about their faith. Protestant and Catholics are remarkably similar in most theological issues, but we still sometimes get ‘hung-up’ on practices that are different between us. But of all the spiritual hang-ups we have, I think the one that touches most people is a hang-up about talking to God. We’ve got issues, collectively, as the human race, when it comes to talking to God. Why is talking to God so very hard? Ask someone to lead a committee, start a new project, teach a course, go on a mission trip, give their money, and people will do it, if with a little encouragement. But ask someone to pray – especially out loud, in public, without a pre-written prayer? We’ve got some hang-ups.
Maybe our issues with God talk start because we give our conversations with God a special name: prayer. The word prayer means to entreat, to ask earnestly for something, to obtain something by entreating, asking for it. So, the word we use to describe talking to God has implicit in its meaning that when we talk to God we’re asking for something. We’re not just talking to God to make conversation, but we’re talking to God because there’s something from God that we desire. Maybe we’re uncomfortable with always being on the receiving end of conversations with God – God can give to us, but what can we give to God? Or maybe we just find it intimidating to talk to God because God is – God! God created us, created all that we know, and we usually think of God as all powerful and all knowing. Are we just scared to talk to God? Afraid of God? Afraid of what God will think of us? Say to us? How God will judge us?
Why is talking to God so very hard? My prayer life has certainly changed throughout the years. When I was a child, my mother told me that I should pray by telling God about my day. I took her at her word, and did exactly that. “Dear God” – always ‘Dear God’ as if I was writing God a letter – “Dear God, today I got up and had cereal and went to school and at lunch and had recess and came home and did my homework and played outside and . . .” If I made it through this recitation, I would then do my “God blesses” – “God bless my mom and dad and Jim and TJ and Todd, God bless Grandma and Grandpa and Uncle Bill and Aunt Shari and cousin Becky and Ben” – and then if I made it through all of that, I would end with the Lord’s Prayer, because, well, we always say the Lord’s Prayer! Usually, though, I fell asleep somewhere between telling God about my day at school and telling God about my evening. But it was a daily routine that I stuck to faithfully for a long time.
As I grew older, though, I found it harder to maintain this prayer ritual. I’m not sure why. For one, I guess, I started to expect more of my prayer time – I didn’t just want to tell God what I did with my day. I wanted some answers from God too. I didn’t just want blessings for my family, but I had specific areas of concern for my family members. And I found it harder to concentrate on a quiet prayer time, harder to set aside that time to talk to God. My thoughts before falling asleep tend to be about what I have to do the next day. And my thoughts about God have changed. I wonder more about what prayers do, what God wants to hear from us, how I should talk to God. I try to incorporate talking to God into my whole life – to let it be something I just do as naturally as I breathe in and out. But I also wonder if thinking of prayer in this way makes it easy for me to never really spend time talking to God. Special, set-aside talking to God time.
I also confronted prayer ‘challenges’ as I began the ordination process for becoming a pastor. The only thing I was more nervous about than leading children’s time, which terrified me, was leading a pastoral prayer. I was worried that I wouldn’t get the names right from people who requested prayers, and worried that I wouldn’t be able to say the flowing and lovely kind of prayers that I was used to from my pastor. When I first started filling in occasionally at Rome, I would try to pass off the pastoral prayer to someone else, or, if I got stuck with it, I would actually try to write the prayer out once I got the list of joys and concerns – I’d be scribbling notes during hymns and anthems, trying to get it done in time to pray it out loud later in the service.
Why is talking to God so very hard? What terrible thing do we think will happen to us if we say to God the wrong words in the wrong way? We act as though prayer is really some magic spell, some secret combination of words that we have to get right, or else God won’t listen and certainly won’t answer. Is that what we really think? Well, maybe we’re not the only ones with issues about talking to God. Our gospel lesson today from Luke begins with Jesus praying. Jesus prays frequently in the gospels – he seems to yearn for time to pray when his life is most chaotic. His disciples are apparently watching him – when he finishes, they ask, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.” We know just from this sentence that two groups of disciples – both Jesus’ and John’s – are unsure about their praying. Already Jesus’ disciples have been following him for some time, and watched him pray, and presumably, tried to pray themselves. But they, like us, want to know if they’re doing it right. “Lord, teach us to pray.”
What Jesus teaches them is what we know as the Lord’s Prayer, although it doesn’t sound so formal in context. “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.” That’s it. The prayer Jesus taught his disciples. Scholars have debated over whether or not Jesus meant for them to pray in this way exactly with exactly these words, but many agree that it is unlikely. And though there is comfort and strength in us all praying the same words together in the same way when we pray the Lord’s Prayer, I think sometimes we’re missing the point. Jesus was trying to help us talk to God. We’re to hallow God’s name – to make it holy. We’re to remember, in prayer, in life, that God’s kingdom is near, here, in our midst. We can and should ask God for what we need. But just what we need – the bread for the day, not piles to store up. We can ask and trust in God’s forgiveness, and we are to forgive all those indebted to us. And we can pray for safety, for peace – whatever it means to us to not be put into times of trial.
But I think that the most important part of this passage comes after the Lord’s Prayer. I think the reason we have so much trouble knowing what to pray for and how to pray comes down to what we believe about God. What do we believe God is like? What is God’s nature? All of our hang-ups and insecurities about praying suggest that even if we say out loud things like “We believe God loves us unconditionally” and “we believe God shares grace with us freely,” in actuality, we believe God’s love is conditional. We act like we believe God has mood swings, that we have to catch God at a good time if we want something from God, or like God needs to be flattered by us in order to give in to our requests. We act like we must bargain with God, make promises to God in order for God to give a little to us in return. We act very much like God’s answers to our prayers are just like the Magic-8 Ball, as likely to be yes as no, as like to say ‘try again later’ as ‘outlook good.’
What does approach to talking to God have to do with the God we know, the God we are here to worship? Jesus teaches the disciples about prayer, and what is most important about what he says isn’t the Lord’s Prayer, but the second part. Jesus gives examples of ways that we as humans will respond when someone asks us for something. He talks about how human beings can be badgered into giving others what we want – not because of our good nature, but because we will be persuaded by someone’s simple persistence. If you ask me enough times for something, even if I don’t want to give it to you, I might give in, just to get you to stop asking. Children are natural learners of this method of asking – we call it nagging. Children do it because it gets results! Jesus also talks about how ridiculous it would seem for a parent to give a child the opposite of what they asked for. If a child asks for an egg, what parent would give a scorpion? A horrible parent, of course – not only is a scorpion not what the child wanted, but it would bring harm to the child too. Jesus’ examples are exaggerated scenarios – but they’re meant to make a very simple point. If we, faulty humans, can give to others what is asked, and respond to people in need even when we don’t want to, and give things that are good and nurturing, why, why do we think God would not do the same – more – abundantly more – for us?
Jesus says if we ask we’ll receive. If we knock, doors will open. If we seek, we’ll find. Our asking, our searching, won’t always bring what we expected in response. But God who is good will not bring us what will harm or hurt us. Why would God who created us make each one of us different, so that not a single of six billion people is alike, if God did not love us? And if God loves us, why would God desire anything but the best for us? And if God desires the best for us, why would we find talking to this God so very hard?
“Jesus was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray.’” Amen.