Trinity Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

Sermons 

Title: "What A Gift!"

Text: Luke 11:1-13

Prayer is a challenge for many of us. We are especially uncomfortable praying in public, feeling inadequate to perform what we define as a task rather than enjoying an intimate conversation with God. I came to appreciate the concept of "prayer as public performance" just after I enrolled in seminary and began the path toward becoming a minister. All of a sudden, whenever I attended a church-related gathering, the person in charge would say, "Van, would you open our meeting with prayer?" Or, "Van, would you close our meeting with prayer?"

In beginning the journey toward becoming a minister of Word and Sacrament, I learned that I also had crossed the invisible line to become a designated "pray-er." Now, eight years after entering onto this path, I assume that I will be asked to pray anytime I am the only professional "pray-er" in a group of Presbyterians.

It is almost as if we get ordained to become ministers of Word, Sacrament, and Prayer. I often wonder what folks would do if I, and Julie and all the rest of us ministers, would respond to requests for public prayers by saying, "Well, no, I don’t think that I should pray today; it would be better if one of you talked with God on our behalf."

Can you imagine the scandal? Can’t you just see the headlines in the Religion section of the Dallas Morning News, "Minister Refuses to Pray! Demands that Lay People Lead Prayer!"

Where did these problems with prayer get started for us Christians? I suggest that it goes back to the beginning, when the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray. And this morning’s Gospel lesson from the 11th chapter of Luke gives us one version of the story (the other being found in chapter 6 of Matthew’s Gospel).

In his distinctive fashion, Luke did both less and more with the Lord’s Prayer than did Matthew. Less, in the sense that Luke’s version has fewer elements – only two statements of praise and three petitions for the community, whereas Matthew’s version included three statements of praise and four petitions for the community. More, in the sense that Luke follows the text of the Lord’s Prayer with a parable about shameless persistence and with assurances that God gives the Holy Spirit to those who offer up prayers.

For many people, the Lord’s Prayer is the one prayer that we have memorized – whether willingly or as part of catechism lessons taken in our youth. But, even in the Church’s efforts to make the Lord’s Prayer universal, there are different versions to be heard in different faith traditions. In the Reformed tradition, most of us learned to say "Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors", while others (e.g., Methodists) learned to say, "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." Or, if you participated in more ecumenical gatherings, you came to say, "Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us."

Isn’t it curious that the one prayer at the heart of Christianity, the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples to pray, should be rendered so distinctively in our different traditions? And because the Lord’s Prayer is so "traditional," it is very hard for us to accept other versions than the one we learned as the "proper" way to say it. That’s one reason why our Bulletin and Order of Worship includes the parenthetical phrase ("in unison, using "debts/debtors") as a guide for our visitors from other church traditions.

Now, let us return to those early days in the first century, to the time when Jesus was "praying in a certain place" – and, as Luke tells the story, "one of his disciples innocently said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray ..."

It is remarkable that this prayer is so straightforward, considering how often Jesus responded to his disciples’ questions with a question of his own or offered up a parable instead of an answer.

The first element of the prayer is translated into English as "Father," but comes from the word "Abba," meaning something like "Daddy" in the Aramaic language that Jesus spoke. This first word of the prayer was intended to convey a sense of intimacy with God. Unfortunately, beginning with "Father" has become a stumbling block for many Christians, particularly those who have issues with the image of God as a male authority figure or those who have had issues with our own fathers. Indeed, some persons have seen this word "Father" as such a stumbling block that they are unable to begin the prayer at all. What Jesus meant as a signal to go forward in intimacy with God has become a red light that halts some people even from entering into the prayer.

In 11:2, we find the twin statements that the Lord’s name should be made holy and that the Lord’s kingdom should come. Earlier in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus had preached several times about the Lord’s kingdom, so his disciples would not have been surprised at the inclusion of this goal in the prayer.

Then, in verse 3 and 4, Jesus moves from God to the community of faithful believers. He offers up three petitions: first, a call to God for "our daily bread;" second, a petition to "forgive us our sins," with the understanding that "we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us;" and third, a petition that God "not bring us to the time of trial."

Let us consider each of these petitions in turn. First, the disciples were instructed to pray that God would grant their community sustenance each day. This surely would have reminded them of the provision that God had made for the people of Israel during their time wandering in the desert between Egypt and the Promised Land. Thus, the prayer recognizes our human dependence on God for the most basic elements of life – even our daily bread.

You will have noticed that the bread is not "my" (first person singular), but is "our" (first person plural). In Luke’s Gospel, the concern always is more with the community than with individuals – as we learned in the story of the Good Samaritan and the lawyer’s question about "Who is my neighbor?" According to the radical vision of Jesus, seen throughout Luke’s Gospel, there is no warrant for some folks having more than enough bread, while others in the community go without.¹

Moving now to verse 4, we encounter the petition about forgiveness of our sins. Again, this is presented to the disciples in the first person plural, rather than in the first person singular. Luke was concerned more with the ways in which we sustained righteous relationships with our neighbors than with our individual "debts." In ancient times, sins were ultimately social in nature; they represented tears in the social fabric.

This petition is the only one of the three found in Luke’s Gospel that has an attached clause. In this case, the initial phrase "And forgive us our sins," is modified by the clause "For we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us." This is not intended to convey to the disciples that God is a quid pro quo or tit-for-tat kind of God. Far from it. It means that all of us need forgiveness and also are capable of forgiving others.

It is not easy to forgive someone who hurts us, but it is important to forgive so that the hurt can depart from us – individually and collectively. This is why the Book of Order of the Presbyterian Church (USA) devotes so much attention to reconciliation. To be able to forgive someone is a critical step in freeing ourselves from the burden of the hurt we have suffered.

And this brings us to the final petition, found at the end of verse 4: "And do not bring us to the time of trial." This phrase as such does not appear in our modern "traditional" version of the Lord’s Prayer, although it does appear in the "ecumenical" version. What Jesus is making clear to his disciples in this last petition is that God can protect us from any situation that threatens our relationships with others in our community or threatens our relationship with God.

Even though Luke’s Gospel does not relate the story, I have confidence that, after hearing Jesus talk about prayer in this way, one of the disciples would have spoken up and said to Jesus something like this:

Lord, this is all well and good. I certainly can learn to pray these words – to honor God and to make petitions for bread, for forgiveness, and for avoiding the time of trial. But there must be more to it that this.

You make it sound so easy, so intimate. Maybe for you the relationship with God is like that with a "Daddy" who cares for you and loves you no matter what. But, I am too much in awe of God to come to God with my problems and petitions, whether for myself or for others in the community.

Jesus, I hear you pray and it sounds easy, but when I try to pray, my mind goes blank and my heart seems empty. The words come from my mouth rather than from my soul. My petitions seem too petty to merit God’s attention.

What I imagine to have been the disciples’ concerns about praying are still powerful impediments to praying constantly. But, we can take away from Jesus’ instructions on how to pray a simple and powerful lesson – prayer is not just an individual, isolated act. The praise and petitions contained in the Lord’s Prayer remind us that we are not alone in this world. Far from it. As God’s people, we are members of a community numbering in the millions who are speaking these same words that our Lord has taught us. In hospital waiting rooms, in wartime foxholes, in schoolrooms where examinations are being passed out, and in countless other places where we human beings feel the need to be close to God, the Lord’s Prayer is present for us –beckoning us beyond ourselves and inviting us into God’s presence.

This prayer – indeed, all prayer – comes to us from God. Prayer, and especially the Lord’s Prayer, requires no payment, for it depends solely on faith in God’s grace and mercy toward us. It does not correlate with who we are or with what we have in the way of wealth, status, or power. In the Lord’s Prayer, as in all prayer, we find the truth of what Jesus declared to his disciples: "Everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened" (Luke 11:10). The Lord’s Prayer -- what a gift! Amen.

1. There is a textual issue here. The word commonly translated as "daily" is very rare; it occurs only here and in Matthew 6:11, in that other version of the Lord’s Prayer. An alternative translation of this word is "for tomorrow" instead of "daily." Either way, the emphasis of the text in Luke seems to be on real bread rather than on some eschatological "bread for tomorrow."

© 2004 Robert V. Kemper(e-mail: rkemper@trinitypresdallas.org