The writer of Ecclesiastes knew, “What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun.” (1:9)
The question of how to pray has been on our lips since Jesus was in Galilee with his disciples, if not longer.
We looked at some of the different forms of prayer during our Lenten worship earlier this year but there are many ways to pray. With words or in silence. For our needs and those of the world around us. For healing and reconciliation. You can pray with your whole body by kneeling or walking a labyrinth or lifting your arms. And the promise we have is that God hears our prayers no matter what form they take.
But in today’s gospel, the disciples come to Jesus and ask him to teach them to pray in the same way that John had taught his disciples. Their question assumes there is a particular form that is “correct” and in the verses that follow their question, Jesus offers them the outline of a prayer that we recognize as Luke’s version of the Lord’s Prayer. In his gospel, Matthew records a longer version that is closer to what we say in our worship and his words are what Martin Luther writes and teaches about in his catechism.
There are probably more questions about prayer than answers. Some would ask, why do we even need to pray?
Luther said we ought to pray as Jesus and the apostles did and recommended praying the Lord’s Prayer both in morning and evening prayer. We pray because God commands us to pray, and we pray with confidence that God hears us because that’s what we’re told again and again in Scripture.
Others would wonder whether God has selective hearing, addressing some prayers and not others, or even whether God cares. Especially when prayers appear to go unanswered or when we witness suffering in the world around us. I cannot explain why there are prayers that appear to go unanswered. I do believe that the power of prayer is not in our hands or our character but in God’s. We are not the key that makes prayer “work”; God is.[i]
Because of our lived experiences
and disappointments, it is tempting to roll our eyes or express skepticism at
the promises that Jesus makes to the disciples in verse 9 —
“Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will
find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.” But
Luther wrote that promises like
these “ought to awaken and kindle in
our hearts a longing and love for prayer.”[ii]
Luther wants us to remember who God is and what God promises.
In our gospel text this morning, “Jesus doesn’t stop at teaching a new set of words, he suggests a new attitude altogether.” [iii]
It is an attitude of expectation and boldness that comes from understanding the power of prayer to accomplish real change.[iv] It comes from our belief that the God whom we worship is personal and is moving and active in our lives and in the world.
When we pray this way, we can’t get away with praying without thinking or reflection. Our words can’t be mere rote repetition. Our prayers reflect our belief that even though we live in a world that is constantly threatened by evil, we are loved by a God who promises to preserve us from it.
We have this particular prayer because God so desires to draw us near that we would think about God and talk to God about what is on our hearts, and allow God to respond to us.[v] God desires this so much that God gives us these words and puts them in our mouths.[vi]
And with these words and the very short parable he tells afterward, Jesus reminds us exactly who God is. That God hears us and provides for us. God forgives us and protects us. And finally, that God is more generous than we ourselves would ever be.
Often when Jesus tells stories or parables, our instinct is to try to figure out who each character represents. And I’ve read this parable and tried to make God the one knocking or the one being woken, but this time, reading it just as it’s written, I think that Jesus knows that, in our humanity, we might ignore the knock on the door or only grudgingly answer and provide assistance to the neighbor in need. But instead of suggesting that God is like either one of these two characters, I think Jesus is saying that God responds to us in an entirely different way because of God’s love for us.
Jesus is teaching us that our prayer is grounded in God’s character, not ours.
Jesus teaches us to pray, “Your kingdom come”, and in his Small Catechism, Luther writes that “God’s kingdom comes on its own without our prayer, but we ask in this prayer that it may also come to us”, that God would give us the Holy Spirit to strengthen us in faith.[vii] It’s a risky prayer because we are asking God to align us with God’s desire for the world. We are asking God to change us and the world around us in big ways, to transform us into the people we have been created to be.
Created in God’s image, we are praying that our actions will reflect God’s goodness and generosity, God’s compassion and love. And that through the Word and the power of the Holy Spirit, God will destroy the devil and all the forces that defy God, the powers of this world that rebel against God, and the ways of sin that draw us from God. That is bold expectation!
So as we follow Jesus into the world this week, I challenge you to pray specifically and boldly, with confidence in God’s love and in expectation of God’s power. Amen.
[i] Brian Peterson, Working Preacher. Luther Seminary.
[ii] Martin Luther. “Large
Catechism.” Book of Concord. 443:20.
[iii] “Pray as You Go”, July
24, 2022. https://pray-as-you-go.org/player/2022-07-24, accessed 7/23/2022.
[iv] R. Guy Erwin (Author),
Mary Jane Haemig (Author), Ken Sundet Jones (Author), Martin J. Lorhmann
(Author), Derek R. Nelson (Author). By Heart. 105-106.
[v] Mark Allan Powell. Loving
Jesus. 141-145.
[vi] Luther. 443:22.
[vii] Martin Luther. “Small Catechism.”
Book of Concord. 356-7.
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