A sermon preached at St Patrick’s Mt Lawley and St Luke’s Maylands on 4th October 2020
Prayer is the easiest, and the hardest, and the most confusing thing in the Christian life. A group of atheists and Christians were discussing various life-issues. Someone mentioned prayer “You don’t pray, do you?” one person exclaimed. “They’ve proved it doesn’t work!” I had to smile. I can’t say every prayer I’ve prayed has been answered, but overall it has worked for me. But then, I’m not sure that’s what prayer is all about: getting enough hits to know you’ve got through. I wonder how you could possibly test out prayer other than by submitting to God’s rule and starting to do it. The Bible is clear that God does not regard with favour the prayers of those who are not his children; it is also clear that he objects to being put to the test.
However confusing or difficult you may find prayer, do not give up on it. Our reading starts with the observation that Jesus was praying. Read through Luke and see how often he prayed. It unsettled his disciples; they could see that whatever he was doing, they were on the outer. They wanted to understand. He wanted to help them in.
They questioned him about what they should pray; at least Jesus’ answer was not a method, but an actual prayer. It is important to see this. We often get bogged down with methods of prayer. As far as method goes prayer is easy. A chap in his middle fifties met some Christians at a festival in a park. They referred him to me because he wanted to become a Christian. We talked for a while and I suggested that he pray. “What me; what now?” he said. Many people expect a clergyman to pray for them. “Do you mean just talk to God like I’m talking to you?” And that is what he did; he opened his mouth and it came naturally. A child doesn’t say to his father, “Dad teach me to talk!” If you know how to talk, you can talk to God. So, I want to say as we begin: that if you wish to follow Jesus, pray and do not give up praying? He prayed and so do all God’s children. Give up on prayer, and you have given up on God and on being a Christian.
Luke introduced us last week to the puzzle of law and grace (gospel), and the very next thing he turns to is prayer. He answered his disciples’ question with this special prayer we call the Lord’s Prayer. John the Baptist had taught his disciples a special prayer. I guess it encapsulated what their mission was all about. Jesus’ disciples wanted to know what was the prayer of their movement.
All real Christians pray. But I wonder what sort of prayers you pray. I hope you pray to God about all the things in your life – not like the man, who would not pray for anything physical, but only for courage and things like that. But we can bring all our needs and wishes to God, because that’s what the Bible encourages us to do; his is our father. But you may have reached a point in your life when you begin to be dissatisfied with your prayers. You find you are always focused on your own needs, and your family’s and friends’; you wonder whether that’s all there is to it. This is an important frustration, because it may open you for the first time, to thinking about what God may want for you, and not just about what you want for you.
I haven’t space here to unwrap the Lord’s Prayer itself. There is an explanation of it on my website which you can download if you want to know what I think (www.davidseccombe.com). I just want to make one important point about it. It is a prayer for the coming of God’s kingdom: “Your kingdom come.” Not “my kingdom come!” If you are like me, you spend a lot of time and energy and, yes, prayer, on your personal kingdom. If you think of your life as a castle with turrets and battlements, and a moat and a drawbridge … well we take a lot of care keeping it repaired, well-defended, and hopefully impressive. But here Jesus wants us to pray for God’s kingdom, not ours. Doing that can prove to be a turning point in your life.
But what does Jesus mean by “the kingdom of God”? In Mark 1.14-15 we read that Jesus came into Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe the gospel.” In the ancient world a gospel was a very important announcement, such as the accession of a new government. This is exactly the kind of announcement Jesus was making. A new kingdom – the government of God – was about to break in. Jesus was telling people to get ready to accept the new kingdom and the new king.
To understand this properly we would need to read the whole Old Testament. God promised Israel that one day he would send them a man-king, and under that king the world would be renewed. He would banish suffering, and humans would live in harmony with God for ever; even death would cease. And now Jesus was announcing that the time had come: this new world without suffering or death was at hand. This was his mission: to establish God’s kingdom on earth and rule it as king, forever. It didn’t work out, of course. Instead of being invited to form a government he finished up on a Roman cross. That is a story for another day; what we need to fix in our minds now, if we are to follow the gospel story, is firstly that the kingdom was there where Jesus was, because he is the king. Second, the kingdom is present in part wherever someone acknowledges him as king. Third, it will be established openly and visible and totally when he comes again, and fourth, everything that happened, despite what seemed to be an upturning of Jesus’ mission, was and is according to God’s predestined plan. For now, he is asking us to be part of his invisible kingdom, and pray that it should come in its entirety. The prayer of the Jesus-movement is a prayer for the coming of this kingdom.
People ask whether you can pray for a Mercedes. You can, if you need one, or if you specially want one, but what we need to get straight here is that Jesus asks us to pray for God’s future for the world, a whole new world, no less. We need to ask ourselves whether we are doing that – really.
Think of the next parable as the Parable of the Three Friends. Jesus was still answering their question about what to pray. Friend number one arrives unexpectedly in the middle of the night. Friend number two has no food in the house and wants to be hospitable. He goes over to friend number three’s house and bangs on his door. If you know anything about the third world, you will know this is a problem. Firstly, they have lots of children. Second, they don’t have many beds. When my sister arrived in Mauritius (many years ago) with nowhere to go a kind taxi driver took her to his home, where there were Mum and Dad, four kids and my sister – sharing two beds. I don’t know how many kids friend three had but you can imagine getting them all settled, hoping no one will wake in the middle of the night to use the pot, taking one last look around (so many details to attend to), going downstairs to bolt the door, and finally easing yourself into the bed beside your wife, and sleep, blessed sleep. And now this clown is thumping on the door wanting a loaf of bread. Jesus poses a question: will he get up and give it to him because he is his friend? No way! Someone once told me they didn’t think Jesus had much of a sense of humour. When you reconstruct some of the scenes he painted, you see that is far from the truth. After tonight it is doubtful friend three will ever speak to his neighbour again. “No,” says Jesus, “He won’t get up because he is his friend, but because of his dot dot dot, he will get up and give him whatever he needs.” There is an unusual word here (anaideia). What it means is a lack of a sense of shame. The cheek of the man to bang on my door in the middle of the night, waking all my children. Does he know how long it will take to settle them all again? But because of the shamelessness of his request, says Jesus, he will get up and give him whatever he needs. Jesus was also a great observer of human nature.
I worked for a while for an Indian minister in Perth. He told me that when he started in the parish he discovered they were in considerable debt. He didn’t want to start his ministry that way, so called on a friend and explained the situation. The friend (a businessman) knew he was about to be stung for a donation, so reached for his cheque book. “Sure, I’ll help?” he said. I don’t know what the total debt was, but it was considerable, and the minister wasn’t looking for a helpful contribution, he asked for the lot. His “friend” was so surprised that he gave it all. That is anaideia: the lack of a sense of shame.
What is the point of this parable? The point is, with God you don’t have to worry about asking for too much: ask for the world and he will give it to you. Jesus is telling them to pray for the world, and he is saying that is OK; you can ask God for the world and he will give it.
Moses made just such a request in the one psalm of his in the Book of Psalms: Psalm 90. In it he grieves over the shortness of human life, and the suffering that often accompanies it, and the futility of life shadowed by suffering and death. And then he does what we would never do; he blames God. We see death as natural; it doesn’t occur to ask God to do something about it. But Moses knew that death was inflicted on us by God. “You turn us back to dust. You sweep them away like a dream, We are consumed by your anger. All our days pass away under your wrath.” It sounds horrible to say God is responsible for all this, but there is hope in it. For if God has inflicted it, he can also remove it. And that is just what Moses prays. “Turn, O Lord! How long! Have compassion on your servants. Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us. Let the favour of the Lord our God be upon us, and prosper for us the work of our hands. O prosper the work of our hands!” A giant prayer, and very similar to what Jesus is asking his disciples to pray!
But Jesus and his disciples lived at a very different time to our own. Jesus knew that for the new, deathless world of the kingdom to come he would need to die a hideous death. So, when he asked his disciples to pray for God’s kingdom to come, he was asking them to pray that he would stay true to his mission. In the Garden of Gethsemane he asked them to pray that they not fall into temptation, just as in the Lord’s Prayer. They didn’t, but he did. And God helped him and steeled him to do his will. At the cross he met the great enemy of the human race head-on. Defeating him by his faith and obedience, he took away Satan’s power to drag human beings down to eternal death. Then God raised him from the dead and established him as the firstfruits of the new creation – that is how the Bible describes it. God then exalted him to the place of highest authority in the universe, at his right hand and poured out his Holy Spirit. Though they did not know it, the disciples were praying for all of this whenever they prayed his prayer. And and it worked!
The last part of this section of teaching is about praying for the Holy Spirit. “Who, if his child asks him if they can have fish for dinner, will give a snake? If you, evil as you are, 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!”
To follow the connection here we must remind ourselves that for the Jews before Jesus, the coming of the Holy Spirit and the coming of the kingdom were one and the same. To pray for the Spirit was to pray for the kingdom. And to pray for the kingdom was to pray for the Spirit. It would be the pouring out of the promised Spirit that would make the desert bloom like a rose. It was the Spirit’s power that would bring about the great restoration and renewal of the world. Each time the disciples prayed for the kingdom to come, they were also praying for the Spirit. And now the Spirit has come.
So, I want us to see how much of this amazing prayer has actually come true. Does prayer work? Jesus’ death on the cross, his resurrection from the dead, his ascension into heaven, his pouring out of the Holy Spirit and much more have all come about because of this prayer Jesus prayed with his disciples.
What about us, then? Should we go on praying this prayer. Yes, we should, until the day Jesus returns in glory to reveal his kingdom and to make all things new. What are we praying for now when we say, “Your kingdom come?” We are asking that the news of Jesus’ salvation should go out into all the world, that men and women and children should learn of his lordship and come under his kingship and protection. We are praying for the Holy Spirit to be active in our lives and the lives of others. We are praying that Jesus will return to judge all that is wrong, and banish evil from his creation. We are praying that he will destroy death and transform this suffering world to be the new heavens and the new earth where righteousness dwells – just as the whole Bible promises and looks forward to.
Of course, we should pray for all the things we think we need to improve our lives now. Some of these things may be harmful. We should not think that if we unknowingly ask for a snake, God will give it to us. He is concerned for the present happiness of his people. But we should not forget what his will is for the ultimate happiness of his whole creation. We should pray “Your kingdom come.” And if we seek we will find. If we knock the door will be opened. If was ask we shall receive.