“Defined By A Prayer”

July 25, 2010
Luke 11:1-13

According to Luke’s account, Jesus and his disciples are on the road to Jerusalem, and on the way, he’s teaching them about discipleship. Discipleship requires traveling light when on a mission trip and trusting that everything needed, even the bread we eat, will be provided. Discipleship requires centering one’s life on love – love for God and neighbor, even those we would rather not call neighbor. Discipleship requires both listening to and doing the Word of God. This is what it means, Jesus says, to follow him. And this is what disciples do – they follow, and model themselves on their teacher.

For many of us our first teachers were our parents. In some homes, ‘grace’ was said at every meal – “God is great, God is good, let us thank Him for this food…” – or there was a prayer at bedtime, “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep.” Then as we grew older and went to our friends for the day or ‘stayed over’ for the night, we noticed their prayers were different – because their parents and teachers were different. We model ourselves after those we follow.

An important part of what defined Jesus as a person was prayer. That is why the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray – something they themselves probably knew how to do on their own. However it would be by the ‘common’ way they prayed to God, a way distinct to their teacher, that others would know whose disciples they were. They had seen how central prayer was to Jesus life and they wanted him to show them how to that as well because they wanted the same strength and peace as their teacher in their lives.

So, Jesus told them, ‘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.’ This is then the prayer that marks us, identifies, and unifies us as his disciples, followers of Jesus the Christ.

Although we come from different places, from varied backgrounds, and have followed different spiritual paths to this church, the prayer that Jesus teaches his disciples in this reading of Luke is something familiar, something we share in common. It is the one prayer that we most likely know by heart (although it may not always be the one printed in the bulletin). It is a prayer most of us are able to join others in saying.

For Jesus prayer was an intimate conversation with God. I would like to think that when engaged in prayer, he listened just as much as he spoke. He believed we should talk with God as we would to a loving Father, a loving parent, a parent who listens to us, cares for us, forgives us, provides for us, protects us. This, to him, is the reality of God's love, a love that is infinitely greater and more generous than ours.

In Matthew's account of this same event, Jesus teaches his disciples that God will give "good things" to those who ask. But here, Luke says that God will give "the Holy Spirit" to those who ask. For me, it was a revelation, an ‘aha moment.’ I had not ‘really’ heard that before although I had many times. To me the words meant my asking God to provide the things I needed for each day. But that wasn’t it at all! God gives us the Holy Spirit when we ask – each and every day. “Give us this day our daily bread.”

It was like driving in a downpour as a gazillion raindrops take turns making splats on the windshield as two mechanical squeegees dance back and forth, back and forth, back and forth in rhythm. Outside, everything is the same shade of gray. And suddenly, ahead, a small bright spot appears in the gray sky and begins to define the cumulus clouds around it. And the gray cloud opens up revealing a blue sky ahead, filled with much smaller, less saturated clouds. God gives us the Holy Spirit when we ask – each and every day. “Give us this day our daily bread.”

At first, that revelation may seem a bit disappointing. We want the "good things." We want to be healthy, and happy, and safe. We want a little success and a little comfort – don’t we? Like Matthew, we prefer asking God for ‘good things.’ But in Luke, Jesus says, “God will give the ‘Holy Spirit’ to those who ask.”

This promise of the Holy Spirit is the key to understanding the passage as a whole, because the promise of the Holy Spirit and our sense of call as a disciple of Christ go together. The Lord’s Prayer is not just a comforting, private little prayer to get us through our tough times. Think about this – we don’t pray, “Give me…” but rather “Give US today… (all of us) what will sustain and nourish us, the strength and peace of God that comes only from the Holy Spirit.

The Lord’s Prayer was, and continues to be, the prayer of Jesus’ disciples, followers of the Way, a community promised the Holy Spirit, which later was to become "the church." We, too, are called to live in radical dependence on, and trusting in, the God who made us, who listens to our prayers, and who forms us into a community defined by a prayer, "Give us this day our daily bread."

Of course, it is easier said than done. Because the truth is: for most things, we are more likely to depend on ourselves than God. There's a great story about Mother Teresa and a man who came to work at her home of the dying in Calcutta. The man was looking for a clear answer about how to live the rest of his life. He asked Mother Teresa to pray for him. She said, "What do you want me to pray for?" And he said, "Pray that I have what I want most – clarity (of purpose), like you." To which Mother Teresa laughed and said, "I can’t. I have never had clarity; what I have always had is trust. So I will pray that you trust God."

Because this prayer is the prayer of our community, and not just a private one, it reminds and challenges us not only to form this prayer with our lips but, to be formed by it ourselves, shaped into a community of compassion and justice that makes sure that all of God's children have "their daily bread" by experiencing the abundant strength and peace that comes from the presence of the Holy Spirit in their living. It also calls us to join in the building of God's kingdom not up in heaven, but here, on earth, a reign of justice, healing, mercy, and love.

There is comfort knowing there are other Christians in other places, praying the same prayer, forming it in their hearts and on their lips, and that together, we are all formed by it. In this prayer, we pray for one another and for what we need – forgiveness and to forgive, mercy and to show mercy, love and to love, and most of all to trust that Psalm 138 is true: "God will fulfill God's purpose for me; your steadfast love, O God, endures forever. Do not forsake the work of your hands."

Father, when we ask, “Give us each day our daily bread,” give to all of us Your Holy Spirit, that we might be strengthened in our discipleship and know your peace.