A Sermon preached on July 28, 2019, Proper 12
at St. Augustine’s, Wiesbaden
Genesis 18: 20-32,
Colossians 2: 6 -19, Luke 11: 1 – 13
I learned a new phrase this week while researching for this sermon: Semantic
satiation. According to CNN, this “is the phenomenon in which a word or phrase
is repeated so often it loses its meaning. But it also becomes something
ridiculous, a jumble of letters that feels alien on the tongue and reads like
gibberish on paper.” In their view, and
this was in an article following yet another mass shooting, the phrase ‘thoughts
and prayers’ had reached that stage of full semantic satiation. It has simply
become a catchphrase beloved of politicians, in most cases devoid of meaning,
and used mainly as a cover for doing nothing at all to deal with the causes of
the tragedies.
When I am writing to people after a personal tragedy – a death or a
severe illness – I catch myself thinking twice about whether to promise that they
are in my thoughts and prayers or to try and find an alternative wording as the
words are in danger of losing their true meaning. And yet prayer is not the opposite
of action. On the contrary, prayer is as important as action, and
very often prayer initiates action. We
need to rescue prayer and make prayer not only acceptable, but desirable again.
Jesus’ mission cannot be understood without prayer and so our Gospel
reading this morning begins with the words, “Jesus was praying in a certain
place.” (Luke 11:1) We are not told where but based on the other cases we can
assume somewhere quiet – a garden or olive grove, a hilltop, somewhere he could
actively seek conversation and connection with his Father without being
disturbed. When he had finished, when he returned, we heard that one of the
disciples said to him “Lord, teach us to pray.” The text tells us that he adds,
“as John taught his disciples.” So perhaps John’s followers had a set prayer,
and Jesus’ followers wanted one too. Or perhaps they noticed that whenever Jesus
came back from praying, he was newly energized and motivated and wanted to share
in this experience in this source of strength and guidance.
Either way, in response Jesus offers a three-part teaching: a model
prayer, a parable about prayer, and some sayings about prayer. Let’s look at
them one by one.
What we call the Lord’s Prayer and use in our worship is based more on the
version we find in Matthew’s Gospel. The Lukan version is shorter and missing
some of the familiar components: No “who art in heaven,” no “thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven,” no “deliver us from evil.” You won’t find the
doxology – “for thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, forever and ever”
- in either version by the way, It’s not
biblical – that’s why the Roman Catholics do not usually use it (yes, sometimes
the Catholics are more obedient to scripture than the Protestants). At our
weekly Bible study, one person said that in Luke’s version she particularly
missed the “your will be done,” as this was a good reminder that when we ask for
things in prayer, we may not get what we want, but what God wants for us!
But even with these “omissions,” the prayer is still easily recognizable.
It grows out of the mission of Jesus – we could say that it is his mission
statement, and one we can actually all remember (which is not the case with
every mission or vision statement)! Jesus
prays to – and tells us to pray to – the Father. To call God ‘Father’ or ‘Abba’
is an act of intimacy, it describes a family relationship, it describes someone
who loves us. It is the first and most important action of prayer: getting
reconnected to the source of our being, our parent, our creator.
But it also recalls the God who liberates, the God of Exodus (4:22-23),
who tells Pharaoh “Thus says the Lord: Israel is my firstborn son. I said to
you, ‘Let my son go that he may worship me.’” Jesus then invites his disciples
to pray that God’s name be hallowed or kept holy. How does this happen? Through
our worship and adoration of course, but also by how we who claim to act in God’s
name behave - holy, special, and in such a way that God’s name is held in honor.
When God’s name is hallowed and God’s kingdom comes, there is daily bread for
all, forgiveness is practiced, and God delivers the faithful from the time of
trial. Jesus came in God’s name, bringing liberation from the sin of division
and hate, providing both physical and spiritual bread for the journey, offering
forgiveness everywhere he went and finally for all on the cross, and while many
followers had to go through a time of trial, with the gift of the Holy Spirit,
he gave us the means to endure.
Endurance – or persistence – is the main theme of the parable that
follows. The friend asleep in bed, surrounded by his children is not God. What Jesus
wants the disciples to understand with the help of this story is that if even the
friend will eventually get up and help in the middle of the night, how much more
will God answer our prayers. Jesus is encouraging a kind of holy boldness[1]
and insistent asking. Don’t give up, he says, whether you are praying for the world
to change or for yourself to change, don’t give up praying, and don’t give up
trying. “Pray without ceasing,” is Paul’s admonition to the Thessalonians (1
Thess. 5:16)
And so, Jesus continues: “So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given to
you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.” (Luke
11:9). This is perhaps the most difficult part of the passage because our
experience contradicts Jesus’ words. We have all asked and not received; we
have all searched and not found. Despite our most fervent prayers, loved ones have
died of cancer or in senseless accidents. Despite the fervent prayers of people
around the world, like we do every Sunday, wars and conflicts continue, and daily
we hear of tragedies of violence, hunger, disease, and natural disasters.
I have seen a cartoon where a man was sitting on a bench talking to
Jesus. The man says, "So, why do you allow things like famine, war,
suffering, disease, crime, homelessness, despair, etc. to exist in our
world?" And Jesus responds, "Interesting that you should bring that
up as I was just about to ask you the exact same thing."
Or to put it another way, these things happen when we forget the action
part of prayer.
I’m not a fan of the idea that God only acts through us, at least not
the God that I believe in, but God certainly also acts through us. In the
Prayer Book of the Anglican Church of New Zealand there is a lovely paraphrase
of the Lord’s Prayer that makes very clear what our role is in answering prayers:
The way of your justice be followed by the peoples
of the world!
Your heavenly will be done by all created beings!
Your commonwealth of peace and freedom
sustain our hope and come on earth.
With the bread we need for today, feed us.
In the hurts we absorb from one another, forgive
us.
In times of temptation and testing, strengthen us.
From trials too great to endure, spare us.
If we want to rescue prayer and make prayer not only acceptable, but desirable
again, then we must of course pray: as a community, alone, with a prayer partner
or as part of a prayer chain, in silence or out loud, in a church or in the middle
of nature. But not only that, our prayers and actions must form a unity and be consistent.
No snakes for fish, not scorpions for eggs, no evil for good. If we pray for
God’s kingdom, then we must act as citizens of that kingdom, if we pray for bread,
we must share it, if we pray for forgiveness, we must forgive, if we pray to be
delivered from the time of trial, from hardship and testing, then we must spare
others from their trials too great to endure .
Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment