Sermon for Pentecost 7: "Lord, Teach Us to Pray"

 + 7^th Sunday after Pentecost – July 24^th, 2022 +

Series C: Genesis 18:17-33; Colossians 2:6-19; Luke 11:1-13

Beautiful Savior Lutheran

Milton, WA

 

 

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

 

The child learns to speak because his father and mother speak to him. The student learns to read because she has heard her teacher sound out letters, words, and phrases. 

 

The same pattern is at work in prayer. The disciple, the Christian, you the baptized believer in Jesus – you learn to pray because God himself teaches you how to pray. God even gives you the words to use when you call upon him in prayer: “Our Father.”

 

This is one of the marvelous things Scripture reveals about God again and again and again. God is the giver of all good things. This is who God is and how he makes himself known to us. He gives. He gives life. He gives His word. He gives his promise. He gives His Son, Jesus. 

 

Here in Luke 11, the Son of God in human flesh, Jesus, gives his disciples, past and present, the prayer we call the Lord’s Prayer. A prayer that is itself full of God’s gifts from the gift-giving God: the gift of being God’s children; the gift of calling upon God as a gracious Father; the gift of God’s holy name; the gift of God’s kingdom; the gifts of daily bread; the gifts of forgiveness; the gift of deliverance from temptation.

 

From Genesis to Revelation, when God reveals himself, he reveals himself as the giver of all good things. This is especially true when we come to Luke’s account of Jesus teaching his disciples how to pray.

 

Now Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.” 

 

This is one of those rare but beautiful moments of humility. Seeing Jesus pray. Watching and hearing John’s disciples pray. One of the disciples approaches Jesus. Lord, teach us to pray. This disciple recognizes a simple, yet profound truth when it comes to prayer. That on our own we do not know how to pray. Prayer isn’t something that comes to us naturally, at least not the way Jesus gives us the Lord’s Prayer. Prayer – like faith, must be given. We learn to pray by following the words Jesus gives us to use. And apart from Jesus teaching us how to pray, and what to pray for, our prayers – if we think of praying them at all – probably sound more like Janis Joplin than Jesus. “Oh, Lord won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz!” 

 

The Lord’s Prayer is entirely different. It is not self-centered, but Christ-centered. Jesus gives this prayer, not that we would turn to ourselves, but that we would turn to God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, in prayer because he is the giver of all good things. This is why Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Lutheran pastor and theologian, once wrote that, “The richness of the word of God ought to determine our prayer, not the poverty of our heart.” The gift of prayer begins with God the giver.

 

This is why the Lord’s prayer begins this way. Jesus said to them, When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be your name.

From the very first word of the Lord’s Prayer Jesus reveals God’s gracious, gift-giving ways. God is Father. We are his children. And this is no small thing. As St. Paul writes in Galatians…when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” 

 

We call upon God as Father through Jesus His Son, and only through Jesus. The relationship once broken is restored in Jesus. You are reconciled to God the Father in His Son Jesus. Next time you pray the Lord’s Prayer think about how significant this is. Through his dying and rising, the Eternal Son of God places you in that relationship to God. To call upon him as Father. 

 

This is why the small catechism says that we call upon God as Father with all boldness and confidence. The Yiddish word for this is chutzpah.” Prayer is holy chutzpah – the chutzpah of a woman repeatedly going before a crooked judge demanding justice. The chutzpah of a pesky neighbor who bangs on the door of his friend at midnight to borrow bread for sandwiches because he has an out of town guest and forgot to go to the store. It takes chutzpah to do that. Holy chutzpah. You don’t have a leg to stand on, but you do it anyway. You have nothing with which to bribe the king, and you stand before Him and dare to say “Our Father” as if you were his child, because that is who you are.

 

God himself invites this kind of prayer. Where we would only pray for our own needs by praying for daily bread, Jesus gives us that and more. “I’ll see your daily bread, and I’ll raise it to giving you my kingdom. I know that you need clothing, shoes, house, and so on; I’ll give you that and I’ll give you more besides: I’ll forgive you all your sin. Your late is wiped clean. Your debt is cancelled. All of your sin is nailed to my cross. And all of my righteousness is yours. My life laid down for yours. My baptism to place my holy name placed upon you. My word given to fill your ears, hearts, and minds with my living, life-giving voice. My body and blood for the forgiveness of all your sins.” 

 

So keep on asking, seeking, knocking. Why? Because the God who gave you the Lord’s Prayer is also the God who is the gracious giver of all good things. That’s who God is. He is eager to give. What father among you, if his son asks for^[d] a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; ¹² or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? ¹³ If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

 

The same God who graciously gives us the words to pray in the Lord’s Prayer, also gives us his promise. He will hear us. He will answer. He will give. 

 

Lord, teach us to pray. When you pray, say, Father.

 

With these words God tenderly invites us to believe that He is our true Father and we are his true children, so that with all boldness and confidence we may ask Him as dear children ask their dear Father. 

 

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.