Joel D. Kline
July 25, 2004
Highland Avenue Church of the Brethren
The Eighth Sunday after Pentecost
Oliver Wendell Holmes once observed that “many people go to their graves with their music still in them.” It’s a tragic commentary on life, and yet, who among us has not had times when it feels as if the light within us has faded and the music has been stifled? Who among us has not known times when we have become so focused on tasks to accomplish and responsibilities to fulfill that we little remember the purpose behind those tasks and responsibilities? Even within the church, are we not tempted, in our passion to get things done, to act as if our faith involves little more than a checklist of items to be completed? Along the way, faith gets reduced to a matter of rule keeping, and we may well find ourselves asking, “Is this all there is?” I heard someone recently say, “I’m sick and tired of feeling sick and tired!”
So what do we do at those times when our resources seem depleted, and the very things we hope might provide sustenance for us begin to feel empty? Could it be that the small band of disciples were beginning to feel much the same way, on this day when one of them approaches Jesus, requesting, “Lord, teach us to pray” (Luke 11:1)? You may remember that Jesus and the disciples are journeying to Jerusalem, with the disciples apparently little prepared for the growing opposition to Jesus’ ministry along the way. In their uncertainty, the disciples marvel at Jesus’ sure purpose. In their confusion, the disciples yearn for the sense of clarity Jesus displays about his mission and life. And in their fear, the disciples crave the level of intimacy they see Jesus experiencing in his relationship with God. For in Jesus the disciples encounter one whose very life exudes a song of peace and hope, a song of gracious love and joy.
Even though the faithful of Jesus’ day made use of set prayers, repeating those prayers in the morning and in the evening, we sense that the disciples are eager to embrace an alternative experience of prayer, a deeper familiarity with prayer—one that goes well beyond the mere recital of words. The disciples want what Jesus has, so convinced are they that his experience of prayer has a markedly different quality than does theirs.
More than any other Gospel writer, Luke stresses Jesus’ practice of prayer. Luke underscores the rhythm Jesus exhibits between times of quiet reflection and times of active involvement in ministry, between times of solitude, drawing upon God’s wisdom and strength, and times of lively interconnection with the world around him. Luke particularly emphasizes that Jesus withdraws for prayer before many of the significant turning points of his ministry. In the aftermath of baptism, anticipating the beginning of public ministry; when choosing the first disciples; when seeking confirmation on the mount of Transfiguration of the direction his ministry is moving; in the Garden of Gethsemane, with confrontation and death looming before him—these are but a few of the times when, according to Luke, Jesus prayerfully seeks guidance and strength from God. And at those moments, the disciples recognize that Jesus experiences a power and a presence, a peace and a purpose, far beyond anything they had personally experienced. In prayerful encounters Jesus’ life and ministry are blended with God’s, and the model prayer Jesus offers—the prayer we commonly call the Lord’s Prayer—prods us in like manner to merge our life purpose into God’s holy purposes. It is a matter of embracing our role in God’s unfolding kingdom.
And so when Jesus responds to the request, “Lord, teach us to pray,” the Lord’s prayer and the subsequent parable he tells are each designed to point us towards a life of connectedness with our creator God. Jesus begins the model prayer by addressing God as Father. For some of us, the masculine image is limiting, for we are increasingly aware that God’s boundless love, without measure and limitations, includes every bit or more of those qualities we are prone to equate with the feminine as it does the masculine. Yet Jesus’ use of Father is telling. The Greek word is Abba, a term of familiar warmth and intimacy not unlike our Dear Daddy or Dear Mommy. It is a term reflecting the kind of intimacy with God for which the disciples are yearning.
At the same time, notes Tom Wright in his commentary, Luke for Everyone, addressing God as Father would have raised for the original Hebrew listeners a remembrance of the time when Israel was in slavery and needed rescuing. “Israel is my child, my firstborn,” God declared through Moses and Aaron to the Egyptian Pharaoh, “so let my people go!” (Exodus 4:21-22). “From then on,” asserts Tom Wright,
to call on God as Father was to invoke the God of the Exodus, the liberating God, the God whose kingdom was coming, bringing bread for the hungry, forgiveness for the sinner, and deliverance from the powers of darkness.
God is not a God of rule keeping, but a God whose love liberates us, a God whose gracious acceptance frees us to become far more than we ever dreamed possible. Ours is a God whose gracious love frees the music within us to emerge, empowering us to experience purpose and joy, peace and hope, in our daily living.
Jeanie Miley, a leader of spiritual retreats, in a book entitled Creative Silence speaks of our need to surrender ourselves to God. This matter of giving ourselves over to relationship with God, surrendering ourselves in trust, is far from a once-and-done event. Much more, it is an ongoing challenge. Writes Miley,
Surrendering myself to God is a process of losing myself to find myself, an emptying of all that is old and harmful so that I may be filled with power and peace, joy and love. Surrendering is letting go of all that is not worthy of me and taking on a new life … . It is the challenge of practicing the presence of God. It is trusting God completely.
Surrender is not resignation. It is not turning back on my problems or shirking responsibility. It is turning toward God and releasing my tight grasp on life.
This is what it means to pray the prayer, “Thy kingdom come.” In Matthew’s version this line is expanded to read, “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” It is a prayer that grows out of the mission of Jesus himself, who is in the midst of his journey toward Jerusalem and invites us to walk with him in discipleship. Jesus sees his task as that of accomplishing a new Exodus in which the long-awaited kingdom of God becomes reality. And by the manner of our living—compassionately serving those in need, going the extra mile in relationships, loving and forgiving even our enemies, seeking the things that make for peace and justice, embracing life lived in the light of God—in all these ways, we begin to live now as if God’s kingdom is already fully among us.
To pray this prayer, then, is an act of submission, turning toward God and releasing our own grip upon life, trusting that God will replace the old with new vision, new passion, new purpose, new hope, new joy. Confident in God’s grace, we continue to pray that our inner hungers, and the hunger of all creation, will be filled: “Give us each day our daily bread.” “Forgive us our sins.” “Save us from the time of trial.”
Once again, these are not once-and-done gifts, but involve a lifetime of asking, seeking, yearning, praying, aching, hoping, hungering, struggling, searching, embracing, growing. Faith is not something achieved, and then forgotten; faith involves ongoing journey, movement, process, and growth. No doubt that is why Jesus tells this parable which leads to the admonition, “So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you” (Luke 11:9). The Greek verbs suggest continued action—keep on asking, keep on seeking, keep on knocking,
The story Jesus tells highlights persistent asking and seeking. Late at night a friend receives an unexpected guest. In the Palestine of Jesus’ day, hospitality was viewed as sacred duty, but there is a problem. In order to avoid waste, bread was baked daily, and generally only enough for each day’s needs. Not surprisingly, then, the friend who receives an unexpected guest finds himself empty-handed. But since bread was baked in ovens in common courtyards, village residents would know who might most likely have bread left at the end of the day. And so, caught in a dilemma, the friend goes to his neighbor, even though it is midnight.
The situation is further complicated because families in that day lived in simple one or two room structures. To knock on the door is to wake not just the neighbor, but his entire family, and likely, his animals as well. Is there any wonder that the disturbed neighbor cries out, “Do not bother me”? But the determined borrower will not be deterred, and the story concludes, “I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, at least because of his persistence he will get up and give him what he needs” (11:8).
There are some suggest that the lesson of this story of Jesus is that the more we badger God, the more likely we are to receive God’s blessings. But in a world that extols instant gratification, this story reminds us of our need to keep on asking and seeking, to keep on growing in the faith, to keep on surrendering ourselves, heart and soul, to our gracious God. The story is a reminder that embracing life in God’s realm is a lifelong process, that prayer is not simply the words we recite, but relationship with a loving God who yearns that the music within us might be released.
I read the story of a woman unexpectedly fired from her job, an experience few of us would relish. But the experience sent this woman into a downward spiral, and in her despair, she cut herself off from the very relationships that could offer her support and strength. Said a friend who attempted to offer encouragement, “Poor thing. When it came time for her to let down her bucket, to dig deep down, she found out that she had no water in the well.”
What about us? What’s in our wells? Have we released our tight grip on life, enough so that we encounter the God whose love will not let us go? Have we found the music within us, music that comes from a lifetime of seeking and searching, hoping and hungering, yearning and aching for wholeness and meaning? Faith is so much more than keeping rules; faith is a life journey with the God who created us, the God who loves us, the God who sets us free to live for God’s glory and the good of our neighbors.
Thanks be to you, O God, Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer of our lives. Thanks be to you for your gracious acceptance and love, for the strength you provide that empowers us to put on another way of living—the way of forgiveness and grace, compassion and service, peace and self-giving love.
O God, we celebrate the gift of forgiveness, even as we confess how difficult it often is for us to forgive. We confess that we are often burdened by the memory of past hurts and slights, that we are frequently more familiar with resentment than with forgiveness, that we find it difficult to forgive those closest to us, let alone our enemies. Loving God, heal our broken hearts, for we cannot experience healing on our own strength alone. Melt us and mold us, and grant us grace to live the words of faith we speak and sing.
God, may your kingdom come, your will be done, here and now among us, even as it is in heaven. May love replace resentment, hope overcome despair, peace fill our hearts, compassion become our way of relating with our neighbors.
O God who provides us the daily bread we need, fill our hearts with gratitude. Break through our self-centeredness, and bind us together in perfect harmony. May the peace of Christ rule in our hearts, and in our world. Bring healing, Lord God, to the peoples of Sudan, Iraq, Israel and Palestine, Afghanistan—to all who live with fear and violence and suspicion as companions. We pray for the leaders of our own nation, that they might look beyond selfish interests to the good of all, and we pray for the leaders of all nations, that they might have hearts for peace.
God of healing, we pray now for those in our midst who have special need of your healing touch. Hear our prayers for…
Great is your faithfulness, O God—you who are worthy to be praised! Accept these prayers in the name and spirit of Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.