This prayer business…

Today, the disciples have glimpsed something. They are aware that John the Baptist has taught his disciples to pray. Now they are watching their own Rabbi / Teacher / Master / Guru praying in a certain place and decide that this prayer thing is actually a bit of all right.  They want to know how to do it.

But they have the courtesy to wait until Jesus has finished praying before they ask the ‘how to’ question. Clearly in the disciples eyes, this is a serious, intimate, important and enjoyable experience. You don’t interrupt  someone when they are in the middle of their prayers.

So they do the only logical thing and ask.

‘One of his disciples said to him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.’.’

Jesus’ response can be divided into at least two chunks.

First he gives his disciples a prayer to pray. A formula. A collection of words. We now call it the Lord’s prayer for obvious reasons and it is said at every Eucharist, at every morning prayer and at every evening prayer. It is also offered every time we take communion to the housebound, the hospital and the nursing home and a lot of times that happen every day.

The Lords prayer covers most bases.

The first word ‘Our’ should bolster and buoy us. Here is ‘our’ God referring to himself in a way that is intimate and connected. And the second word ‘Father’  is not an authoritative grumpy old man, but the father who never ever gives up on his children and who will care for, defend, protect and most of all enjoy his children as any good Dad does. And just as a good dad aches for his kids when they skin their knees and break their heart, so too does our heavenly Father, for he is our God of love and can do no other and be no other.

Also in the Lords Prayer there’s a bit about Gods will being done for clearly it isn’t always done, there is a bit about our language and Gods name, a bit about forgiveness, protection from evil and the polite petition for the earthly bread, heavenly bread and the stuff of life just to get us through the day.

There is a lot going on in this prayer and it is very easy to prattle through it without allowing the potency of each petition to work within us. A helpful little exercise might be to just focus on one phrase each time you say it and to chomp and digest it.

The Lords prayer is a good prayer to pray when you are stuck and you can’t think of the right words. It’s a good prayer to wrap up a conversation, or a visit or a meeting. It’s a good prayer because it works for us, it is deeply ingrained into us and it is a very good prayer simply because it is the one that Jesus taught us and gave us.

Interesting, that the bit we are so familiar with

‘For the kingdom, the power and the glory are yours’ never actually appears in the bible. It’s just something we stitched on much later in time, probably in the early part of the 17th century.

OK so we have the words, now comes the tricky bit. The attitude; and here Jesus gives us a little parable about always being persistent and not giving up.

There’s this guy who is safely tucked up in bed having a good old snore. It is midnight after all. A mate of his comes banging on the door saying that a friend of his has arrived, the supermarket is shut and he has nothing to offer his very late guest. “Could you lend us three loaves of bread?”

It’s not a welcome intrusion and who would want to leave their warm bed and get out on such a chilly night when it’s clearly not your fault that your buddy doesn’t keep his pantry topped up.

Yet the knocking and request keeps on coming, so the message is pretty jolly clear. Do not give up if your prayers are not answered straight away, in the way and time that you had hoped. As the loving Father, God knows what we need and when we need it. He will only give us what is best for us. Hence the little phrase about the scorpion and the egg, a snake and a fish.

All of this I am sure is very familiar to you but we all need reminding of it, especially clergy.

Finally, here’s a little take home something I thought of just the other day.

We usually imagine ourselves as the guy on the doorstep banging noisily and yelling loudly, asking in the nicest possible way if God could just get his act together and do something about our predicament.

But what if we are the guy in the safe warm bed. Complacent, warm and lovely in our own little siesta.

What if there are people who knock on the door of our hearts and lives and ask and are persistent in their asking. Wouldn’t the imperative be for us to get up and do something. To offer daily bread and forgiveness. Perhaps then God’s will may be done and his kingdom will come on earth as it is heaven.