A new prayer

When I served a little Methodist church back home in Pennsylvania, the congregation kept asking me to preach a sermon on prayer.

"We just don't know how to pray.  Could you teach us how to pray?"

It's one of the jobs of a pastor to be able and willing to pray whenever asked.  At every family gathering, I am asked to bless the food.  In many cultures, on special days the priest is brought from place to place and paid to offer up the prayers that we can't make on our own.  As a student pastor, I would put a lot of thought into my "pastoral prayers" to make sure that they were beautiful and theologically correct.

The truth of the matter is, this probably isn't right.  I'm not saying it was sinful for me to work so hard on writing a moving and beautiful prayer.  Or that it is wrong for me to bless the table at every family gather.  But it teaches the wrong idea.  As Christian leaders, we always have to think through what message our actions send.

When I prayed a well written prayer, I accidentally taught the congregation that prayers should be prayed in fancy words.  When I pray at family functions, I send the signal that God listens more closely to me because of my profession.  Now - these are obviously not intended, but the message gets out by accident, and we must work to fix that.

The disciples come and ask Jesus to teach them how to pray.  They have spent some time following and observing Jesus.  And they see that he is a man of prayer.  He sits and spends a lot of time in prayer.  It is as though he is having a conversation with God.  And there is also this sense that the disciples are frustrated.  They have become disciples, and they want to learn a skill.

In a movie from my childhood, The Karate Kid, a young child goes to a karate master to learn how to defend himself.  The karate master spends weeks teaching him how to clean a car, how to paint a house, how to sand a floor - but not how to fight.  In the end, the young man is incredibly frustrated, feeling that he has been treated as a slave - only to learn that he has learned all of the fundamental skills he needs in order to be a karate master.  [Show video clip]



And the disciples have followed this teacher for so long, but they feel that they haven't learned how to pray yet.  I think this idea is a bit frustrating to Jesus as well - because they have had every opportunity in the world to observe and to learn how to do things the correct way.  But, the disciples ask for it to be spelled out for them.

Jesus gives them some words to speak, but before that he addresses the attitude or prayer.  He begs his disciples to approach prayer with humility.  He asks us to cast aside the big, professional prayers that sound so nice - and to instead pray from our hearts.

This is the simplest instruction, but it is the very hardest.  Sometimes I start talking in one of my classes at the University, and I instantly regret that I opened my mouth at all.  The other day I started talking about my irrational fear of leaving a voice message for someone's cell phone.  Luckily, most people here don't use this setting - but back home, almost everyone has an answering machine that you are supposed to leave a message with.  I am unbelievably bad at leaving messages.  I don't know what it is about taking to a machine that freaks me out, but as soon as I am left alone with the recorder I turn a bit crazy.  I will forget who I am talking to, say Uhmmm about twenty times, and even when I'm calling some shop or company I will accidentally end the phone call with "Ok, love you, bye."

And after embarrassing myself terribly in front of my class, I began to think about why I have such a problem with such a simple task.  I think it is because people leave such good answering machine messages for me.  It seems like everyone is completely professional.  They leave their name, number, and a quick message explaining the need and asking for a call back.  They make it sound so simple, and I think this is what freaks me out more than anything.

I wonder if we feel we are bad at prayer because we hear such nice prayers by those around us.  I have this small memory of one of my first prayers.  My grandmother was praying with me before going to bed, and I prayed "God bless mom, and dad, and Rebecca, and the whole world. Amen" and I remember my grandmother corrected me and told me that I needed to be more specific.

I know my grandma meant well, but what I learned that day was that I was praying wrong.  I didn't pray for a while after that, because I thought my prayers were wrong or not good enough.  As a Christian, I've heard countless people ask me to pray for them because they don't know how to pray.

And here is the message I want to give everyone about prayer.  There aren't any wrong words to a prayer.  There simply aren't any words that are wrong to use when you are praying.  Your prayers could be long or short, pretty or plain, deep or simple.  Your prayers can be in any language, or no language at all.  Your prayers can be four hours long or four letters long.

Because when we pray, we connect with God.  It is not the words of our prayer that matter, but the one to whom we pray.

A long time ago, a friend told me that in the face of some situation we needed to have strong prayer.  What does it mean to have strong prayer?  There is nothing in our words that makes our prayers strong.  The strength comes from the one to whom we pray.

And this is where the attitude and position come into play.

Because, the problem that people have, is that they forget who they are talking to.  They start a prayer, and as soon as there are a few people to listen - they forget that they are talking to God, and they start talking for them people around them.  As soon as we have an audience, we forget the audience of one we are talking with.

The pastor of the largest church in Korea was praying in his office when the secretary knocked and said that the President of Korea was in the office to meet with him.  After a few more minutes, the secretary knocked again and said that the President was sitting in his office waiting to speak with him.  When she knocked the third time, she was afraid that something terrible might have happened and he might have died in his office, so she charged in.

He looked up, and asked why she had disturbed his prayer time.  She indignantly replied, "Didn't you hear me?  The president of the country is sitting in your office and is here to meet with you!"  The pastor slowly turned to his secretary and smiled kindly saying, "Why would I stop talking to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords just to talk to the president."

This is the new prayer that we pray.  When we pray we are talking with God who is the creator of the entire universe, and we also talk to God who is our loving father.

The new prayer that we pray is based on our attitude.  We are never afraid of saying the wrong words.  We are never praying for the admiration of anyone.  God knows our hearts, we do not need to try to impress God.

I think one of the greatest tricks of the devil is to make us feel that because we do not have deep enough faith, that we should try to hide that from God.  The devil tries to trick us into thinking that if we don't have the prettiest words coming from our heart that we should be silent.  This is a lie.  From the devil.

Here is a prayer from Mother Teresa:

"Lord, my God, who am I that You should forsake me?  The child of your love - and not become as the most hated one -- the one You have thrown away as unwanted -- unloved.  I call, I cling, I want -- and there is no One to answer - no One on Whom I can cling - no, No One.  Alone.  The darkness is so dark- and I am alone.  Unwanted forsaken. The loneliness of the heart that wants love is unbearable.  Where is my faith?  Even deep down, right in, there is nothing but emptiness and darkness.  My God -- how painful is this unknown pain.  It pains without ceasing - I have no faith ... "

This woman was a saint, and one day soon she will be officially recognized as a saint by the church.  One of the men who stands against her becoming a saint, he is an atheist who stands against all people of faith, he quotes this prayer to show why she should not be declared a saint.

Well, this shows how little he knows and understands how Christianity works.

The idea is that we should hide these dark feelings of doubt and pain from God - but our new prayer, our new attitude of prayer is one of a humble, gentle child coming to a loving parent.  We can say anything.

Jesus gives us these words, will you pray the Lord's prayer with us.

   Our father who art in heaven, hallowed by thy name.  Thy kingdom come, thy will be done - on earth as it is in heaven.  Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.  And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil - for thine is the Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory forever Amen.

Our father who art in heaven, hallowed by thy name.  We are reminded that our God is holy.  We come to God filled with humility.  

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.  We want to expand the Kingdom of God.  We want to see more of God's will in our own will.  We pray for the opportunity to live as God would have us to live.  We don't just sit and wait to die so that we can experience heaven - we fight to create heaven here.

Give us this day our daily bread : we are reminded that everything we have is a gift from God.  It is not ours, it is on loan from God.  We take only what we need and we give the rest to others.

and forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. We are as great as our forgiveness.  We are as weak as the power of hatred we have for our enemies.  If you hate someone, or if you can't forgive someone - they have full power and control over you.  Don't let this happen.  Be reminded that God has forgiven you of your great sins and expects you to forgive others of their great sins.

 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil : Our lives are difficult enough.  There is temptation enough.  We find enough trouble on our own, we don't need to challenge God to test us!  We pray that God would deliver us from the evil around us - but this us, it calls all of us together.  Deliver us from the evil that surrounds all of us.  The war, the poverty, the hunger, the abuse, the sin.  Deliver all of us from all evil.

for thine is the Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory forever, Amen.. : This was likely added a bit later, but it is a good reminder that God is able to do all of these things.  We do not come to God in prayer in vain.  We come to God who is willing and able to answer our prayer.

This is our new prayer.  In Lent, we are called to renew - we are called to pray.  Please pray for this community.  Everything our leadership team tries will fail unless you all hold this ministry up in prayer.  Pray for me, for one another.  We need it.  Pyro Night will be Monday at 6:30.  Please come and spend some time in prayer - whether you have pretty words or not, come and let your hearts be quieted and filled.

In the name of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.  Amen.