Teach Us To Pray | Good Shepherd Lutheran Church (ELCA) Manchester MO

Pastor:

Pr. Tom Schoenherr

Sermon audio:

“Teach Us To Pray”

Pr. Tom Schoenherr

July 24-25, 2010

What is “Prayer?” How do we understand it? Do we pray? Why do we pray? Why do we not pray? The topic of “prayer” may raise a lot of questions for us depending possibly on our experiences with prayer in our lives. Jesus says “Keep on asking and it will be given to you, keep on searching and you will find, keep on knocking and the door will be opened; for everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.” I don’t know about you but that has not always been my experience with prayer.

I think about all the time that our family spent in praying for the healing of my mother and she died. I think about those other children who keep on praying for their parents’ health or the healing of their marriage relationship, but one of their parents dies or their marriage ends in divorce. I think about a woman who came to me many years ago who had been praying that her father would stop abusing her, but the abuse continued and she wanted to know why. Unanswered prayer or prayer that seems to be ignored leaves us with questions about Jesus’ words here.

But if we stop here, we are left feeling empty. Does God know who we are, and does God care about us? Is God just a God who is out there somewhere, or is God with us here and now, in the midst of what we are praying about, or want to pray about? Does God know what we are going through?

I have been giving a lot more attention to prayer and drawing close to God in my own life, and I have sought to be of help to others who may be seeking a closer relationship with God in their lives too. There are two things that I believe and trust about God and prayer, even though there are many things I do not understand.

One is that God wants us to pray. Jesus prayed. Jesus was attentive and aware of the need for the rhythm of activity and service and teaching and preaching, but also the time spent alone in prayer. He would leave the disciples for a while and go off by himself to pray. Jesus’ disciples may have seen some positive changes in Jesus when he returned from prayer. Maybe he was more refreshed and attuned to the people. Maybe they wanted to learn more about what prayer meant for Jesus, and so they bring the request that we might bring to Jesus; “Teach us to pray.”

Is part of our struggle with prayer, and maybe some of our misunderstanding of prayer related to our lack of trust that God can do anything about our situation, or that we don’t want to be dependent on anyone else, especially God? Maybe we see God as a vending machine, dispensing what we need when we need it, but when we are left empty of what we think we need, we blame God for it. We are struggling to understand prayer and sometimes we feel very empty and alone.

I believe God wants us to pray and I believe God wants us to ask for anything. We don’t have to have all the right words, but we can come to God with anything. Anne Lamott in her book, Traveling Mercies, says that the two best prayers she knows are “Help me, help me, help me,” and “Thank you, thank you, thank you.” Someone once asked me, “Do you believe in prayer?” I said, “It’s not so much that I believe in prayer as I believe in God who is the one I am talking to and listening for, and who listens to my prayers.”

Second, I believe that God listens to our prayers. When our children were born, I was immediately drawn to them and wanted to care for their every need. I did not always recognize what those needs were at the time, but my heart was drawn to love them because we were family and they were gifts of God to Barb and me. I tried to listen to their eyes, their cries, their belly laughs and their words. God is there listening to us in the darkest and most painful times of our lives, and God knows what may be best for us.

Our Father is not out there somewhere who does not know us or care for us, but is one who goes through pain and suffering, fear and loss in Jesus Christ. There is nothing we can do that God can’t forgive and redeem. Maybe the opening of the Lord’s Prayer, “Our Father”, is not focused on God’s gender as male or female, father or mother, but on the approachability and relationship with God who cares so deeply for us as parents care for their children.

The “our” in Our Father, may also be showing us that we are not alone in our praying. Even in the depth of our fears, doubts and pain, we are connected to God and to many others. Whenever you pray the Lord’s Prayer you may want to ask yourself, as Wayne Muller in his book Learning To Pray , suggests, “With whom am I praying?”. You may imagine inviting someone you love, living or dead, to sit beside you in prayer, or perhaps a person who has cared for you spiritually, or in another time of need. You may invite all the children of the world who are in deep distress to be part of your circle of prayer, or you may invite those who have a particular illness or need for care to be there with you as we pray, “Our Father…” Imagine that we are all praying together for the healing of the whole world.

O Lord, hold us close to you and teach us to pray. Amen.