Prayer

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Episcopal Church

July 24, 2016

                                                     Proper 12 C

Since arriving in Hudson almost 3 months ago, my GPS and I have become very good friends.  While I always get where I am going, and I have no problem stopping to ask for directions, my own sense of direction is not great. In my first month here, I tried to take the back route from the church to our house in Connecticut Colony by turning left on Prospect and following my nose. I ended up in Macedonia. So, I like a good set of directions, preferably in the form of a voice coming out of the speakers in my car saying “in one half mile, turn left.”  When I follow the directions, step by step, without second guessing them, I get where I am going.  As I have said before, with the help of the gps, I always get where I am going, but I often do not know where I am.

In today’s gospel lesson, the disciples ask Jesus to teach them to pray.   I shouldn’t speak for the disciples, but my guess is that, like many of us, what they really want is something like a good set of directions that, when followed exactly, will get them where they want to be, at least metaphorically.  This sounds much more selfish that it actually is, because I believe that in most cases our prayers are for others, not for ourselves.  We want to be able pray such that our loved ones are healed, war and violence come to an end, hunger and poverty are eliminated, people get along, and our own limitations are conquered.  Teach us how to pray, Jesus, with exact step by step directions, so that God will hear our prayers and be moved to act.  And so Jesus gives us the prayer we know and love as the Lord’s prayer, tells us the story about a man who goes to his friend at midnight and beats on the door until the friend answers, and then Jesus makes what seems like a rash promise that if we ask, we shall receive, if we seek, we will find, and if we knock, the door will be opened. Jesus seems to tell us that persistence in prayer pays off with the desired results, and that God would never give us a scorpion when we ask for an egg.  But, the reality is that we don’t always get what we pray for, no matter how persistent we are, or how closely we follow any particular recipe for prayer.  We ask for eggs, and sometimes, all we see are scorpions.  So, what could Jesus possibly mean? Why bother with prayer when many of our prayers seem to go unnoticed by God?  

I find it interesting that Jesus’ teaching on prayer parallels the last hours of Jesus’ life before his crucifixion.  In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus tells us to ask for 4 things: that God’s kingdom come, that we receive our daily bread, that our sins be forgiven, and that we are spared the time of trial.  These four requests parallel the events of Jesus’ last hours.  Knowing that Jesus’ hour has come and that his earthly life will soon come to a painful end, Jesus takes bread, regular daily bread, and blesses it, gives it to his disciples and tells them to eat this daily bread in remembrance of him.  Jesus also tells the disciples that he will not eat this bread again until the Kingdom of God has been fulfilled.  “Your kingdom come.  Give us each day our daily bread.”  Then Jesus blesses the wine and says “This is my blood of the covenant which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”  “Forgive us our sins.”  Then Jesus kneels, at the Mount of Olives in Luke’s gospel, in the garden or in Gethsemane in other gospels, and prays.  “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me; yet not my will but yours be done.”  When Jesus finishes praying, he says to the disciples, “Pray that you may not come into the time of trial.”  And do not bring us to the time of trial.

There, in Jesus’ last hours, in the face of his suffering and death that his prayers to God will not remove, are all the pieces of the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples. This is the context into which Jesus’ teaching on prayer must go.  Prayer is not a set of directions we must follow to get what we want or be delivered from our suffering.  Prayer is a way of being persistent followers of the crucified and risen Lord in the midst of whatever scorpions life hands us.  Prayer is a way of uniting ourselves and our concerns with Jesus in his death and resurrection.  That does not mean that we do not make specific requests of God when we pray.  Jesus was very specific in his request: “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me.”  But Jesus reminds us that the primary gift of prayer is not eggs and fish, or whatever it is that we want or need, but the Holy Spirit, which will always be given to those who ask and which sustained Jesus through the darkest of times and sustains us as well.  In the context of Jesus’ suffering and death, the Lord’s Prayer specifically and all prayer in general is not a means to an end or a set of directions to be followed in order to get to the desired location or result. In the context of Jesus’ suffering and death, prayer is a way to connect with the Holy Spirit so that we can live into the words from the reading from Colossians this morning. Prayer is a way to receive Christ Jesus as Lord, to live our lives in him, rooted and built up in him established in the faith, abounding in thanksgiving.

                                                                             Amen.