July 25, 2010

“Still Learning to Pray”

Luke 11:9-13

Jesus teaches his disciples to pray. And we listen as well because we are always learning to pray. Certainly the life of faithful involvement in the world—that is to say the life we seek to live—is a life caught up in and sustained by prayer.

Karl Barth, one of the theological giants of the twentieth century, both inspires us and challenges us when he says that we should pray with the awareness “that God answers. God is not deaf, but listens; more than that, God acts. God does not act in the same way whether we pray or not. Prayer exerts and influence upon God’s action, even upon God’s existence.”

This insight speaks to us on these summer Sundays as we walk along with Jesus while he moves toward Jerusalem. We’re following the account of this journey that is unique to the Gospel of Luke.

Last Sunday we found Jesus praying—“in a certain place”—providing his disciples with a model for prayer that we call “the Lord’s Prayer.” We came back to that unnamed place this morning and heard words of encouragement, that we might be persistent in prayer.

And you know how hard that can be.

Contemporary books and articles reflect these concerns with titles like: “The Problem of Prayer” and Where Is God in My Praying? Maybe those sound like tiles of books or articles that you could write.

With all the roadblocks, it's easy to give up.

But Jesus tells those who would follow in his way: Ask, seek, knock.

Prayer is not a matter of following a formula—that if we get the words right we will also get what we want from God. Such an approach will only lead to disappointment—and worse a sense of our own unworthiness when prayer seems to go unanswered.

In teaching us to pray, Jesus gives us not so much words as an approach to prayer. It is an approach that might help in overcoming some of the obstacles on the road of prayer.

We can approach prayer as an occasion of openness.

I touched on this briefly last week, but want to open this up a little more.

To ask is to be open.

If I ask you a question, then I am open to your answer, whatever it may be.

If I ask for your help, then I am open to your action, whether assistance or rejection.

When we pray, we come before God with empty hands and open hearts. Empty hands and open hearts are ready to receive.

Open hearts find that on our own we have nothing. The Reformers who wrote the Heidelberg Catechism reminded us that “neither our work and worry nor God’s gifts can do us any good without God’s blessing.” Prayer confronts us with the promise that we will receive. Our daily bread will be given by God's grace even more than our own strength.

The processes theologian Bruce Epperly suggests that “‘asking’ is not primarily about us, but our relationship to God’s reign in our lives….We utterly depend on God’s graceful and forgiving presence for our spiritual and personal well-being….God is giving us good gifts at each moment of experience. God weaves together our deepest needs and the needs of the world in such a way that our quest for wholeness enhances the lives of others….We are encouraged to ask God to respond to our deepest needs, even though God is constantly seeking the highest good for us and those for whom we pray….Prayerfully asking creates a spiritual field of force in which God’s vision can be more effective and clear in our experience.”

We are taught and invited to pray as those who ask. It is difficult to find that we come to prayer with empty hands. But because our hands are empty, because our hearts are open, we can receive what is given to us when we pray.

It’s an odd business, the kind of prayer in which we ask and it is given to us. Always, what is given is God’s Spirit that we might better see and use all that we have, all that is available to us.

Such prayer is not always easy. People often feel let down or rejected or abandoned by God. At such times trusting in God’s goodness seems extremely difficult, perhaps even foolish.

The opening words of the prayer Jesus taught calls us back, invite us into a relationship of trust. We come slowly to the sense that, as parents know how to give good gifts to their children, even more so can God be depended on in our daily existence.

In prayer we take the risk of not having it all. We take the risk of not having it all together. Because God can be trusted, we dare to come before God in need.

We come, Jesus suggests, not to give, but to receive. We come empty. We come asking. Prayer is an occasion of openness.

We can approach prayer as an occasion of exploration.

To seek is to explore—in the hope of finding something. We seek what is misplaced or lost. We seek what is not yet known. The opposite of faith, after all, is certainty, not doubt. If you have certainty about all things, you don’t need to pray—indeed you cannot pray. Prayer calls for doubt and questioning. So it is that we are a congregation that respects questions. In prayer we search after what is needed—and after what it not known.

Can you remember exploring a new city for the first time? Or have you ever looked at a familiar place with new eyes?

I still remember my first trip through Iowa City sometime back in the 80’s: taking wrong turns, heading out the Coralville Strip only to find, well, nothing. What a strange and wonderful place this city was. And it was something new again when I arrived three years ago. Even today it is possible to look at it in fresh ways, to discover something new in someplace familiar.

Prayer is an occasion of such exploration, of such surprise.

In prayer we find ourselves looking at the world, at our lives, at our souls. We can explore those regions of life that are usually ignored.

Because of this, prayer takes each person into the shadow side. Seeking what is truly needed in prayer, keeping at it, we are bound to run across, well, evil in our own lives. M. Scott Peck once said that there’s a part in each person that “belongs in jail.” Our seeking in prayer will lead us to better know that part of us. Our seeking in prayer will also lead each of us to discover in ourselves the person that God loves without limit, the new creation that we are becoming in Christ.

Jesus invites us to seek God's forgiveness as we pray. In the shadows we encounter our sin—our separation from God.

And in that shadow region, we find the light of Christ shining all the more. The forgiveness that we encounter tells us that it’s all right to keep exploring even if we’ve made some wrong turns, even if it seems that we’ve come to a desolate place.

Forgiveness says that there is a way out of no way.

And those who have found the mercy of God are perhaps more inclined to forgive other human beings.

We are seekers—in shadow and light. Prayer is an occasion of exploration.

We can approach prayer as an occasion of homecoming.

To knock is to hope that the door will be opened.

At the end of a journey of exploration we discover that we are welcomed home.

Robert Frost famously put it: “Home is the place, where, when you go there, they have to take you in.”

There is a place ready for each person who prays. You don't need to be perfect, or know just what to say. Before you begin to pray, God has accepted you and awaits your return.

The great hymn writer Isaac Watts hints at this in his paraphrase of the 23rd Psalm:

     The sure provision of my God attend me all my days;

     O may Your House be my abode, and all my work be praise.

     There would I find a settled rest, while others go and come;

     No more a stranger, or a guest, but like a child at home.

Jesus tells us to pray for deliverance from evil. Our place of refuge is also a home.

How often do you forget the good news of God's forgiving love that waits for you, ready to welcome and embrace you?

Prayer is an opportunity to enter through the open door. It is an occasion of coming home.

If we approach prayer as an occasion of openness, exploration, and homecoming maybe we will begin to see that in prayer we approach a God who is a generous friend.

A friend gives bread to a neighbor, Jesus suggests, not out of friendliness but because of the neighbor's persistence. A parent—Jesus says even an evil parent—knows how to give good gifts to a child.

Human generosity points us beyond to the friendship of God.

Prayer is not a command to come before a judge, but an invitation to talk with One who is a friend, who desires our good above all else. Indeed, as the sisters and brothers of Christ we can address this friend in a new way—as Father.

Such a name, as I said last week, is not an absolute. Even John Calvin wrote: “We will not have it understood that we are so bound by this form of prayer that we are not allowed to change it in either word or syllable.” We can speak to the God revealed in Jesus crying “Mother” as well. We bring many names to point toward the caring intimacy that is discovered in prayer.

It is just this relationship of love—an openness, expectation, and discovery that we hear about in the parables of Jesus that tell of a God who also asks, seeks, and knocks. The One to whom we pray comes to us in a way of mutuality.

Ask, seek, knock.

In doing so we find that we receive, we discover, we are welcomed.

Ask, seek, knock.

In doing so we learn to pray and find ourselves at ease before the God whose love does not fail.