I was
little. Maybe I was 6. I sat with my mother in the pew at Church of the
Good Shepherd.
My mother held
my hand and we went in and found our pew, in the middle, the left hand side, the
Gospel side. My mother knelt…I fidgeted
and I slid up and down the pew.
She prayed…I
fidgeted and whispered her name over and over again.
She was
quiet…I fidgeted and tried to get her attention, I pulled on her dress.
She told me
to kneel with her and to pray to God before church began. I said, “I don’t know what to say to God.”
I’m sure I said this with a very loud voice.
She whispered to me that I was to go see my father.
I sulked. I
sulked out of my pew. I sulked all the way back to the back of the church to
the church doors…past the crucifer…past the torch bearers…I sulked past the lay
readers…I sulked up to my father (the priest) standing at the back of the
procession.
I looked up
with my best sad face, I marshaled the tears, and I blubbered. Mom says to pray
to God. I don’t know what I am supposed to say. What do you say to God? Does
God even listen? Will God listen to me? Mom says pray. I don’t know how.
My father
leaned down to me and said, “Go tell God good morning and hello. Introduce yourself.
That is all you need to do. Go tell God hello; like you might to an old
friend.”
There comes
a time in everyone’s life when we pray for the first time. It doesn’t matter how one grew up. It doesn’t
matter the tradition of one’s family.
Somewhere, in some quiet place, in some way, at an important time,
everyone utters a prayer to God.
In a moment,
then the moment is gone, a word of prayer bridges the gap between heaven and
earth; between the creator and the created.
Some of us
get mighty good at praying.
Some of us
get very good prayer voices.
Some of us
are good at making prayer gestures.
But in this
season of Lent we are reminded of the importance of simple prayer and a simple
conversation with our maker. We are
reminded of our need to go see a good friend…an old friend. We are reminded to make ourselves known. We are given an opportunity to again in a
small quiet place, in a quiet voice, to say “hello” again to God.
Jesus, in
our lesson from Matthew offers a bit of guidance. It is as if he is saying, “Hey…don’t
get in people’s faces about your prayer life.”
Allow your
prayer life to remind you of the importance of giving…but don’t be all high and
mighty about it.
Don’t use
that God voice when you pray. It
irritates God and everybody else.
Being public
with your faith is not all it’s cracked up to be. It is a lot better to pray
privately and sincerely. It is better for
your life to model the very best of God’s love…then when people ask you about
it you can tell them. Sometimes the obvious
is not as good as the subtle.
Remember when
you pray that God knows what you need so you don't have to always be telling
God out loud with a long list of how you would like life to be...
Please don't
look dismal and sad. Look happy and
enjoy your relationship with God.
Remember
that what matters is the love of God, the love of neighbor - these are the
treasures worth having. So pray and live
for love.
If we opened
the bible up and looked at this passage what we would see is that Jesus is teaching
his followers to pray, and he offers to them what today we call the Lord’s
Prayer.
It is as if Jesus
is saying, “This is a good way of doing it. Pray like this.”
Jesus says,
say “Our Father”. Begin this way because
we are to seek as intimate a relationship with God as I have.
Pray “Who
art in heaven”. When you do you’ll be
reminded of your created nature as a gift from heaven. Life is given to us from
God. We also recognize in this short phrase that we are not God.
Say to God “Hallowed
be thy name”. In response to the grace of being welcomed into God’s community,
bowing humbly and acknowledging our created nature, we recognize the holiness
of God. We proclaim that God’s name is hallowed and that we are not holy.
Remember and
ask for God’s kingdom to come; “Thy kingdom come”. The words of Jesus remind us that, like the
disciples’ own desires to sit at the right and left hand of Jesus, this is not
our kingdom. The reign of God is not what you and I have in mind. We ask God:
by your power bring your kingdom into this world. Help us to beat our swords
into ploughshares that we might feed the world.
Say, “Thy
will be done”. We bend our wills to God’s, following the living example of
Jesus Christ. We ask for grace to constantly set aside our desires and take on
the love of God’s reign. Let our hands and hearts build not powers and principalities
but the rule of love.
“On earth as
it is in heaven”. Ask God to give us
eyes to see this kingdom vision, and then ask for courage and power to make
heaven a reality in this world. May our homes, our churches, and our
communities be a sanctuary for the hurting world to find shelter, to find some
small experience of heaven.
Then pray, “Give
us this day our daily bread”. In prayer
we come to understand that we are consumers. We need, desire, and just want
many things. In Christ, we are reminded that all we need is our daily bread. And as we surrender our desires, help us to
provide daily bread for those who have none today.
Ask God to “forgive
us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us”. Sanity and
restoration are possible only because God forgives us. Because of that
sacrificial forgiveness--made real in the life and death of Jesus--we can see
and then share mercy and forgiveness. Help me personally offer sacrificial
forgiveness to all those I feel have wronged me. I want to know and see my own
fault in those broken relationships. May I be a sacrament of your grace and
forgiveness to others.
“Lead us not
into temptation”: As Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge and replaced
God with their own understanding of reality, we need help turning away from our
own earthly and political desires and turning toward the wisdom of God in
Christ Jesus. So we remind ourselves how we are so tempted to go the easy way,
to believe our desires are God’s desires. We have the audacity to assume we can
know God’s mind. Show us your way and help us to trust it.
Please God, “deliver
us from evil”. Only God can deliver us
from evil. There is darkness in the world around us. We know this darkness
feeds on our deepest desire: to be God ourselves. That deceptive voice affirms
everything we do and justifies our actions, even when they compromise other
people’s dignity. It whispers and tells us we possess God’s truth and no one else
does. Deliver us from the evil that inhabits this world, the weakness of our
hearts, and the darkness of our lives, that we might walk in light.
“For thine
is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen” I want to remember that I am powerless. Help me
give my life up to an higher power and devote my life and love to God and my neighbor. Help
us to see your glory and beauty in the world, this day and every day.
So, in Lent…perhaps
as your Lenten discipline, say good morning to God again for the first time; like
you might say hello to an old friend.
Pray simply,
maybe just use the Lord’s Prayer every day.
Pray simply. And let your prayer
bridge the gap between heaven and earth.