Teach Us to Pray
Philippians 4: 4-7; Luke 11: 1-13
In Confirmation classes, students and I spend time discussing prayer. We look at the bulletin to identify and count some of the prayers that are prayed in worship. Then, I ask “What are some other times you pray?” “I pray while I’m in the car going some place with my parents”, one student says. “I pray at night before I go to bed”, says another. “At mealtimes”, “before I take a test”, “while I’m waiting for my turn to bat”.
I come away from those discussions reassured that someone is teaching our children to pray: a parent, Sunday school teacher, grandparent; or perhaps they are learning to pray from reading the bible and those recorded instances Jesus prayed-on the mountaintop or in the garden, alone or while holding five loaves of bread and two fish with thousands of people looking on.
The gospels are chock full of examples of Jesus at prayer. In today’s gospel reading, Jesus has just finished praying. Apparently the disciples are struck by the impact prayer has on Jesus. They want to experience that same impact in their lives. One of them says “Teach us how to experience what you just experienced.” “Teach us to pray.”
Jesus responds with an abbreviated version of the prayer that has been prayed by millions of people over the centuries. It is a model prayer that is intended to help the disciples in the formation of an authentic life of prayer and service. John Claypool says the prayer is like a piano teacher giving a set of scales to a beginning pupil and saying "If you will follow this directly, it will increase your capacity to become a musician."[1] It was never intended to be the best prayer or the only prayer, but a prayer that might increase the disciples’ capacity to pray and to live as Jesus’ followers.
First, we notice that this prayer is not the same prayer we pray on Sunday mornings. The prayer we pray during our worship services is closer to Matthew’s lengthier version of the prayer. There, in Matthew’s gospel, the prayer falls in the middle of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount and it seems to be directed to the crowd. Here, in Luke the prayer is prompted by a request from the disciples who are seeking a mode of praying that will distinguish them as a community of Jesus’ followers.
The disciples wanted a prayer that would not only be descriptive but also prescriptive of their life as Jesus’ followers. In other words, they wanted a prayer that would help direct and shape their ethics, their behavior, and their manner of living.
No part of the prayer is more prescriptive than the second phrase: “Your kingdom come.” Do we realize the magnitude of what we are praying when we utter those words? It has been called a radical request and it is.[2] What does that kingdom look like? Jesus says that we catch a glimpse of God’s kingdom when children are welcomed. What’s so radical about that? We do that around here-through children’s sermons and a well staffed nursery and quality youth programs. Our children are well taken care of. But there are other children in the world who are not. There are children who have been left behind for a variety of reasons-poverty, neglectful parents, unjust governments. In a kingdom of David or Sally or Tom or James, children in trouble might be someone else’s sole concern. But in God’s kingdom, the kingdom we pray will come, we are responsible, not only for our own children, but, also, for the world’s children. Jesus says the act of welcoming them is a mark of God’s kingdom. The kingdom of God also is seen when one master is served not two; when talents are used wisely; it is seen when people love their enemies and do good to those who despise them. It is seen in the life of Jesus, a revolutionary who dared to live a countercultural life where the first are last and the last are first.
Father, your kingdom come. Do we know what we are praying?
Sometimes we think of prayer like going to a vending machine, putting in a few quarters, pressing a button, and, like magic, getting what we desire.
I’m reminded of the story of a mother who sent her fifth grade boy up to bed. In a few minutes she went to make sure that he was getting in bed. When she stuck her head into his room, she saw that he was kneeling beside his bed in prayer. Pausing to listen to his prayers, she heard her son praying over and over again. "Let it be Tokyo! Please dear God, let it be Tokyo!"
When he finished his prayers, she asked him, "What did you mean, 'Let it be Tokyo'?"
"Oh," the boy said with embarrassment, "we had our geography exam today and I was praying that God would make Tokyo the capital of France."[3]
Prayer is not a magical means by which we get God to do what we want. Sometimes we get what we are requesting in our prayers. But sometimes we don’t. Sometimes our desire does not match God’s desire. The implication of praying for the arrival of God’s kingdom is that we will surrender to God the answer and trust God to respond to our prayers according to God’s wisdom.
In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus prayed the prayer now so familiar to us. Facing his own death on the cross, Jesus prayed: “Father remove this cup (this cup of suffering) from me; nevertheless not my will but your will be done.” The next day nails were hammered into his hands.
In his book entitled The Christian Life-A Geography of God, Presbyterian pastor Michael Lindvall tells of a friend who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease when he was in his fifties. “He is a man who prays. He prayed that he might be healed. But he has had Parkinson’s disease for a decade.” “Yet, he once told Lindvall that his prayers have been answered. He looked at Lindvall and said: “I have been healed, but not of Parkinson’s disease; I have been healed of my fear of the disease.”[4]
When we pray for the coming of God’s kingdom, we are really praying with Jesus “Father, not our will but your will be done.” We are surrendering to God the answer to our prayers. We are placing God, not ourselves, at the center of the map of our spiritual geography.
At the end of the text Jesus says to his disciples:
“Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish? Or if the child asks for an egg will give a scorpion? 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.”
In the goodness of the Father’s kingdom, we are given what we need. We are given the Holy Spirit. In the Father’s goodness, the disciples are to place their trust.
Indeed, as we pray for the coming of God’s kingdom, for daily bread, for protection from times of trial, the Holy Spirit intercedes and gives us strength to trust and believe.
Day by day, in both small and large acts, in people we know and in people we have never met, we will witness the arrival of the Father’s kingdom. The Father’s kingdom will come, not as the result of our own request, but because of the Father’s goodness and love for his children. Amen.
[1] John Claypool, To Whom Do We Pray? (Day 1, July 25, 2004)
[2] John Cairns, Phrase Two (Preached at Fourth PC of Chicago on July 25, 2004)
[3] Robert L. Allen, Greatest Passages of the Bible, CSS Publishing Co.,
[4] Michael Lindvall, The Christian Life-A Geography of God, (Geneva Press, Louisville, KY, 2001), p. 74.
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