"Teach Us To Pray"

“Teach Us to Pray”

Robert M. Thompson, Pastor

Corinth Reformed Church
150 Sixteenth Avenue NW
Hickory, North Carolina 28601

828.328.6196   corinthtoday.org

 (© 2010 by Robert M. Thompson.  Unless otherwise indicated, Scriptures quoted are from The Holy Bible, New International Version, Copyright 2010 by New York International Bible Society.)

God is not focused on making my life so comfortable that I don’t need him.

This past week, Linda and I found ourselves driving in the nation’s capital.  It’s a little confusing at times, and my Garmin GPS occasionally gives unreliable information.  For example, Friday we found ourselves driving on the bottom layer of a two-decker road next to the Potomac River.  The GPS told me to turn left across the Rosslyn Key Bridge, not knowing I was about 100 feet too low to do so.  “Recalculating.”  Again.

Anyway, those big city people are at least as familiar with their horns as they are with their blinkers.  I think they teach impatience in their driving schools.  But I challenge any one of them to find their way to a Hickory address.  While they’re taking all their wrong turns, I will not honk my horn.

Sometimes my big city driving confusion is not my fault.  Linda and I were navigating M Street in Arlington, VA on Friday, looking for a particular store.  We came to an intersection near the Shops at Georgetown where there were two lanes with arrow markings on them.  With impatient Arlingtonian drivers on my bumper, I looked for Banana Republic and simultaneously tried to see if there was a place to park or eat lunch as the GPS recalculated again.  The light turned red.  The left lane was turn-only, so I got in the right lane to go straight. About ten feet to the right of the (red) stoplight was a sign that said, “No Stopping Anytime.”  That’s what I call getting mixed signals.  Does that mean the red light doesn’t apply to my lane?  Or is the red light a “no brainer” and the sign really means “No Stopping Anytime – Except for the Red Light.”  You don’t know, and you have about a half-second to decide while driving in a strange city.

Even though I have more time to figure out what to do with them, I also find “mixed signals” in the Bible’s teachings on prayer.  Sometimes the mixed signals are in the very same passage – like the one we read today, Luke 11:1-13.  Rather than expressing this dilemma myself, let me share with you how Philip Yancey phrases it in his book on prayer –

The real problem lies not in the fact of (God’s) refusal, but in the Bible’s lavish promises.  In a nutshell, the main difficulty with unanswered prayers is that Jesus seemed to promise there need not be any.

Jesus could have said something like this: ‘I am bestowing the gift of prayer.  You must realize, of course, that humans cannot have perfect wisdom, so there are limits as to whether your prayers will be answered.  Prayer operates like a suggestion box.  Spell out your requests clearly to God, and I guarantee that all requests will be carefully considered.’  That kind of statement about prayer I can easily live with.  Instead, here is what Jesus said:

I tell you the truth, if you have faith and do not doubt…you can say to this mountain, “Go, throw yourself into the sea,” and it will be done.  If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.

That quote from Jesus is not in our text today, but this one is: “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.”

Is that your experience in prayer?  Do you get what you ask for, find what you seek, walk through doors you knock on?  If not, what’s wrong?  Are you not asking, not asking well, or not asking long enough? 

The surrounding text, (even more so the rest of the Bible) clearly indicate you do not  always get what you ask for.  That’s what I mean by “mixed signals.”

Let’s take a closer look at Luke 11:1-13.

Simplicity (vv. 1-4)

As we open the chapter, we find Jesus in a familiar situation, especially as Luke tells his story.  He’s praying.  The way Luke tells it, the disciples are watching – but not necessarily participating.  They wait for him to finish, then make a request of him: “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples” (1).

The disciples’ appeal demonstrates that they want what followers of any rabbi would want.  It was a sign of progress among disciples of a particular mentor that they would notice what he did well and ask for help in imitating him.

In response, Jesus gives them one of two versions in the Gospels of what we call The Lord’s Prayer.  I preached on this text a couple of years ago, and went into more detail on the different petitions included in it. (Click here for the sermon.)

For today, I just want to note the simplicity.  I don’t believe Jesus intended us to repeat this prayer verbatim every time we talk to God, but he did want to remove our sense of intimidation in prayer – that it’s too complex for ordinary people to get right.  Prayer is about acknowledging God as Father and King, about humbly asking for daily needs, about asking for forgiveness and help in times of trouble.  Eugene Peterson does a good job of paraphrasing this prayer in words reprinted from The Message on the front of your bulletin –

Father,
   Reveal who you are.

   Set the world right.

   Keep us alive with three square meals.

   Keep us forgiven with you and forgiving others.

   Keep us safe from ourselves and the Devil. 

Linda and I had the privilege this past week to attend the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C.   My blog has some reflections from the week, and I won’t repeat them all here.  It seemed more like a “national faith breakfast” than a “national prayer breakfast,” but it was a great event.  We were humbled by being in the presence of some incredible people around our tables – business leaders, college students, and ordinary people who wanted only to be known as people of prayer.  We also sat with people from Norway, Egypt, and Nepal. 

The speakers and platform guests included a legislator from Australia, Mark Kelly (husband of attempted assassination victim Rep. Gabby Giffords), the spiritual leader of the Chilean miners, a Chinese woman who was among the student leaders of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protest, Hollywood film makers, Paul Young (author of The Shack), U.S. congressional representatives and senators, and, of course, the President of the United States.  (Click here for his remarks.)

Although I am politically not always in agreement with President Obama, I came away with a new appreciation for him as a fellow Christian.  He expressed his faith in Jesus Christ with clarity, and talked about the role of prayer in his life and office.  

The President said his prayers have three recurring themes.  First, he prays for “the ability to help those who are struggling.”  He acknowledged the hope, expressed in the Lord’s Prayer, that God will one day set the world right.  But in the meantime, we have been charged to work for justice, mercy, and compassion.

Next, President Obama said that he prays for humility.  My favorite quote all week was this one:  “The full breadth of human knowledge is like a grain of sand in God’s hands.”  He said that because none of us knows everything, we have to listen to and value those who come with differing points of view.  A number of listeners noted that this was a different President than the one who spoke at the same event a year ago.  I’m sure what he called a “shellacking” at the polls in November humbled him.

Finally, the president said he prays regularly that “that I might walk closer with God and make that walk my first and most important task.”

These are simple prayers.  That is as it should be when we pray.  That’s what Jesus taught us.  If you think better prayers are the ones where you squint your eyes and wrinkle your nose and say, “Oh, Father, we just really pray hard, Lord” or the ones where you speak eloquently in Elizabethan English or rapturous poetry, come back and read Luke 11:2-4.  It’s about simplicity.

Persistence (vv. 5-10)

Jesus’ teaching on prayer didn’t stop with the model prayer of vv. 1-4.  He went on to teach prayer through illustrations from daily life.

The story Jesus tells in vv. 5-8 would have made perfect sense to his listeners.  As a Galilean peasant speaking to other peasants, living in a one-room house, hand-to-mouth for daily bread was a common experience.  In a culture of shame and honor, the unexpected traveler must be welcomed with the expectation of spontaneous hospitality. 

Jesus tells his hearer a story about three friends, and asks his hearers to imagine themselves as one of the three.  Suppose you have an unexpected traveler show up at your house after your family has already eaten the daily bread.  Giving him somewhere to sleep is not a problem – it’s just another blanket on the floor in a crowded house probably no bigger than your living room.  Having nothing to feed him will shame you.

Everyone knows who in the neighborhood tends to bake more than enough bread every day, and he happens to be your friend as well.  So you slip out of the house and knock on his door.  But he goes to bed earlier than you are, and has his wife and kids bedded down.  Nobody wants to wake up the toddler once you finally got him settled down.  So he ignores your knocking.

If you keep banging, however, because of anaideia he will get up.  I don’t mean he has “an idea,” but this Greek word is a hard one to translate.  The original 1978 NIV translated it “persistence.”  The 1984 update changed it to “boldness.”  The latest NIV uses “shameless audacity.”  All of these are shades of the meaning of anaideia.  Afraid of being shamed in front of one friend, you are willing to shame another into giving you what you ask for.

So what’s that all about?  Is God like a reluctant, sleepy neighbor you have to shame into answering your prayers?  I don’t think this part of Jesus’ teaching is about God at all.  It’s about us.

Jesus continues, “Keep asking (it’s a present tense verb, implying continuous action) and it will be given to you; keep seeking and you will find; keep knocking and the door will be opened to you.”  Our part is persistence.

Chai Ling closed the National Prayer Breakfast evening dinner with prayer on Thursday night.  (You can read her story, including the story of her conversion, if you click here.)  She was the student leader in Tiananmen Square two decades ago, choosing a high risk protest movement over an opportunity to study in the United States.  Following the crackdown, she was protected and given hope by Bhuddist monks, and eventually wound up being smuggled out of the country in a 5x5 wooden crate, her refuge for 5 nights and 4 days.

Ling confessed Jesus Christ a little over a year ago and was baptized on Easter Sunday 2010.  The passion of her life has been to reverse China’s policy of forced abortion, particularly because the overwhelming number of aborted babies are female.  She was emotional and intense in her prayer for justice and freedom in her nation, often repeating the refrain, “In your time, God, do it swiftly.”

“In your time, God, do it swiftly.”  She’s persisting in prayer.  She may never see the answers.  She prays, as biblical writers do, for God to come through and do it now – but she simultaneously acknowledges that God’s timing is not ours. 

The writer of Hebrews mentions an entire hall of faith of women and men who “were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised” (Hebrews 11:4).  It’s not about praying the kinds of prayers that bring visible, chartable results.

What strikes me about Jesus’ model prayer is that there isn’t a single petition in there you can ever mark off as “answered” – not in this life, anyway.  You keep praying for God’s kingdom to come until kingdom come.  You may have bread to eat now, but there’s no guarantee that what feeds you today will be there tomorrow, no matter how much you have.  Prayers for forgiveness and help with temptation are constant.

If your prayers are only about items you can check off the list, your prayers are too small.  Prayer is designed to keep us in a perpetual state of need, of humility.  Our part is to keep praying, not to look for results.  Our part is persistence.

Trust (vv. 11-13)

Then Jesus asks two rhetorical questions, once again personalizing them.  Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake?  Or if he wants an egg, will you give him a scorpion?

OK, then, Jesus continues, since your heart is evil (Jesus shared with his listeners a belief in the depravity of man) and you give good gifts, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?  This is a bit of a surprise ending, but let’s hold off on that for a moment.

What Jesus is teaching is trust in your heavenly Father.  Linda and I passed some of our driving time to and from Washington listening to a Nicholas Sparks novel, “The Last Song.”  I’m usually not quite as much into fiction as Linda is, but this book moved me.  I spent most of the last hour of the book wiping tears off my cheeks as we drove silently though the foggy darkness in southern Virginia down into North Carolina on I-77.

The story is about a concert pianist named Steve, living in Wrightsville Beach, NC, following a separation from his New York City wife and two children – Ronni (17), and Jonah (10). Steve has invited his children to join him for the summer and their mother knows they need to be with their Dad – but she doesn’t tell them why.

Jonah loves working with his Dad, but Ronni has never gotten over her Dad’s abandonment of the family.  She is a bitter, aloof, angry teenager when she arrives.  Her life is transformed through a series of events, but it’s not the events that touched me.

It’s the Dad, Steve.  He’s a man of faith, although the movie version of the book downplays his prayers and Bible reading.  What touched me so deeply was just thinking about my own kids and how I would handle it if I knew I were going to die.  What would I want to leave behind for them?  What would I tell them and when?

Steve doesn’t tell his kids why he left home, nor does he tell them why he brought them from the city to the beach for the summer.  Sometimes your children don’t need to know the big picture, and sometimes they can’t handle it.  As a Dad, you just want your kids to trust you.

If that’s true of human fathers with our mix of motives and the relatively small  gap between our knowledge and that of our children, how much more is it true of a good and perfect God and the infinite chasm between his omniscience and the grain of sand that holds all we know?  He just wants us to trust him, period.

Jesus says, in a surprise ending, you don’t even need what you think you need when you pray.  What you need is a Who.  You need the Holy Spirit, and the Father will give him to those who persist in prayer.

There for a reason

Philip Yancey’s reflections on the mixed signals the Bible gives about prayer is in a chapter he titles, “Unanswered Prayer: Living with the Mystery.”  What I like about this chapter is what I like about his whole book.  He stubbornly holds on to the value and meaning of prayer even while addressing the hard questions head on.  But he never reduces prayer to three or four simple steps to make God your genie.

I believe God intends us to live with mixed messages.  It is irrelevant whether you can reconcile Jesus’ direct promises (“Ask and you will receive”) to his own unanswered prayer (“Take this cup from me”) or the struggles of virtually every other biblical personality and writer.  That’s not the point.

Jesus says, simply, keep your prayers uncomplicated, keep praying, and hold on to his good heart.  Simplicity, persistence, and trust.  That’s what you learn in prayer.

Yancey says he once asked a friend in Japan who provides resources to the underground church in China, “How do Chinese Christians pray?”

His friend answered that the prayers of Chinese Christians “follow the pattern of the Lord’s Prayer.  The church has spread most widely among the lower classes, and when they ask for daily bread and deliverance from evil, they mean it literally.”

But there’s more.  Yancey’s friend continued,

I’ve heard Chinese Christians pray for the leaders of their government, but never for a change in the government – even in areas that persecute the unregistered churches.  They pray very practically, thanking God for today’s grace, asking for tomorrow’s protection.  They tell us visitors, “Don’t pray for me to get out of prison, please pray for courage and strength so that I can witness boldly in the prison and not lose faith.”

I wonder if it’s not our very prosperity and success that causes us to infuse our prayers with demands that God give us yet more.  I wonder if it’s not our elongated life spans and amazing medical technologies that makes us think God is as interested as we are in what a recent Christianity Today cover story called “Chasing Methuselah.”  We reduce God to a tool for prolonging life, preserving liberty, and promoting the pursuit of happiness.  Isn’t God just as interested in me as I am?

Yes and no.  He’s actually more interested in me than I am.  But he’s not focused on making my life so comfortable that I don’t need him.  Quite the opposite.  When I read “Ask and you will receive” through the lens of my own desire to be self-sufficient, prayer will frustrate me continually.

That stoplight and “No Stopping” sign in Arlington, Virginia, are both there for a reason.  One protects me from intersecting traffic.  The other allows traffic to keep flowing.  It’s only because driving in Arlington is unfamiliar to me that I found them confusing.  I suspect no regular driver on M Street even notices the “mixed signals.”

So it is with prayer.  It is a beginner’s unfamiliarity with prayer that sees these messages as mixed.  As we grow, we begin to see prayer more clearly. 

Pray simply, for God’s will to be done.  Pray persistently, and you will receive what you ask for.  Above all, pray trustingly, and the Holy Spirit will be God’s best answer.  Amen.