July 29, 2007
9th After Pentecost
Luke 11:1-13 and Colossians 2:6-15
The Rev, Dr, G. Hermanson
Every week we have an opening prayer which finishes with the Lord’s Prayer. In our rehearsing of the words we are creating within us a sense of God’s presence. It is a prayer that reflects the graciousness of God. It is also a very radical prayer. In fact some have suggested that it is a very subversive prayer.
There is a saying to be careful about what you ask for - in this case pray for. For it might come to be. Luke places the prayer in a context of asking. He offers an understanding of the spiritual discipline of prayer.
It is easy to miss the point because so many of our prayers are gimmie prayers. Rather than being methods of creating an open space in our hearts so the sense of God to slide in, many prayers reflect a consumer and magical attitude. Asking becomes about things or highly personal requests. In some circles prayer is used as method to manipulate the world and God - do this for us and we will be thankful.
The magical aspect is the idea that prayer will break natural laws. I was at a meeting where the request was made to have a sunny day because of the importance of the event - a fund raiser for the hospital. In a very deep sense we really don’t believe in the efficaciousness of such prayers yet we continue to say pray for the sun or rain. The end result is we lose faith in the power of prayer. For we know deep in our minds that nature is nature and there are no supernatural exceptions to it. A flood comes because of rains. Now the rains maybe partially a result of climate change and thus we know how we live does affect the natural world. So here is clue to the power of prayer. If what we do effects what will become prayer has a role in changing who we are and what we wish for.
This is why the Lord’s prayer is so important in creating our spiritual understandings. When we couple it with the Colossians readings we begin to understand how our identity can be formed by the weekly praying of it.
These passages are very suggestive
2:8 See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the universe, and not according to Christ.
2:9 For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily,
2:10 and you have come to fullness in him, who is the head of every ruler and authority.
It is a radical understanding that within us and through us God works. We become the conduit for the grace of God. It is a radical affirmation that we fulfill and add to the Christ. It is a high view of our ability to put on the mind of Christ and to live in the power of persuasive love.
When we turn to Luke and take a deeper look we will note that “asking” is not primarily about us, but our relationship to God’s reign in our lives. It transforms the idea of bargaining, and to become a lover without expectation. We know ourselves as loved thus able to love others. Loving begins in the process of being loved. When we pray your kingdom we are letting of of control and bargaining. It is a process of turning oneself over to love and the lover who is God. This is the first aspect of spiritual discernment. It is to be let loose of bargaining and transactional values - if you give me this I will give that; I will love you as long as you do this. The prayer, then, begins with an attitude that we want to be changed. And not only us but our values and our world will become the reflection on earth of the values of compassion and justice which is God’s kingdom. It is a reversal of all gimmie attitudes for it asks for a subversive and radical change in how we live with creation and one another.
Luke’s version of the Lord’s Prayer reminds us that we utterly depend on God’s graceful and forgiving presence for our spiritual and personal well-being. The faithful God calls us to live faithfully.
“God is giving us good gifts in each moment of experience. God weaves together our deepest needs and the needs of the world in such a way that our quest for wholeness enhances the lives of others.”
It gives us us a holistic vision of the world. and in our interdependent reality we pass that sense of wholeness along. As we are aligned with Christ, we will know what to ask for, where to search, and how to knock. It changes the asking from selfcenterness to otherness. It calls us out of narcissism to world care. By beginning in the grace of God all of searching, seeking, asking, and knocking is formed by the love of God which is love for creation. We can become aligned with Christ because Christ lives in us! Even we fail to notice God’s presence, God is still working to transform our lives.
Another aspect of Luke’s reflection on the nature of prayer is the man who risks shame to offer hospitality to a friend. Prayer changes the person who now knows that what is needed is compassion for the other and prayer helps one get over ones’ hesitation and self concern to go to the aid of the other. Thus praying for the kingdom to come is to move us into the identity of the kingdom values. By inviting God in we are transformed to the power of love which is always a form of persuasion. We seek not our good but the good of creation and others. When we do we get what we need for our needs are transformed into qualities of holy hospitality.
Each Sunday, then, we pray to open ourselves to the love of God, to see the values of God actualized within our daily living. This is radical spiritual formation because it counters the unexamined life in the marketplace. For our world seeks to sell us wants as needs. The other night at a supper party we got talking about the nifty new appliance and how we are told our life is incomplete if we don’t have the latest technology. Witness the ads for ipods and cell phones - our life will be more fulfilled - have more friends if we have this type of phone. Well the Lord’s prayer changes our wants to what is needed - a reality of love as the basic commodity of existence - to be loved which to be given our daily bread and being given our need of bread we offer our hand to others.
When our self understanding is now other understanding we can now pray for ourselves. We are encouraged to ask God to respond to our deepest needs, even though God is constantly seeking the highest good for us and those for whom we pray. . Making our requests known to God, joined with the energy of our seeking and knocking, enables God to more fully make God’s vision known in our own lives. Prayerfully asking creates a spiritual field of force in which God’s vision can be more effective and clear in our experience. Still, neither our prayers nor God’s energetic vision are magical realities. They shape, but do not compel, the future movements of our own life and the dynamic and intricate world in which we live, move, and have our being. This shaping is a ongoing process - we create the future by what we pray for and as our prayers shape us in holy hospitality. Life changes not in dramatic ways , it changes in small movements of affirmation and commitment to one another, seeking the well-being of all and creation. We can recognize the hints of love lying beneath the surface of experience, and that awareness is this moment of experience.
“We need to be bold in our expectations of God’s ability to transform our lives as well as our own ability to be co-creators with God in mending the world. The God whose vision grounds each experience has the wisdom to bring forth beauty and wholeness over the long haul in every life situation.”
Thanks to Bruce Epperly for background ideas.
George Hermanson
