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Luke 11: 1–13
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Lord, may we hear your voice in the words spoken in your Name. Amen.
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The prophet Zechariah once promised that a day was coming when people
from every nation under heaven would grasp the sleeve of any Jewish man
or woman they could find, saying, “Let us go with you. For
we have heard that God is with you.” And this morning, Luke
says that’s how the disciples greeted Jesus when they saw him
come back one morning from an all–night prayer session with God
the Father. They had seen him do amazing things after he had spent
time in prayer — so now they cried, “Lord, teach us to
pray. Take us with you. Let us tag along with you so you
can show us how it’s done.” And that’s exactly what
Jesus did – not with long–winded pious phrases and flowery
language, but so simply and directly that the prayer he taught them
has become the prayer we’ve learned to depend on for two thousand
years.
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Now, it’s not that Jesus’ disciples had never prayed
themselves. Like all devout Jews, they were familiar with
morning and evening services in the Temple and weekly prayer services
with readings in their local synagogues. Besides that, they had
been taught that wherever they found themselves — morning, noon
and night – they were to pray on their own. But now, as
they watched Jesus minister to others, they began to realize that
prayer – for him – wasn’t simply important – it
was crucial. In order for him to live out the life God had called
him to live he needed to be connected to God continually in
prayer. And if his disciples wanted to follow in his footsteps,
they needed to pray in the very same way.
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Given all that, the amazing thing about the prayer Jesus taught them,
especially the one we read this morning in Luke, is its simplicity and
its tenderness. For they were to begin, he told them, as a child
might speak to his or her own beloved father – in simple trust
that he loved them utterly. In Aramaic, the name Jesus offers
them is not even as formal as our word “Father”. And
in Luke’s version, it’s not even our Father.
It’s simply “Abba”, which is our equivalent of
“Daddy” or “Papa”. So we are to begin as
the children we are — calling on the One who made us, from whom
all our blessings flow – our own heavenly Father.
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And yet . . . this Father is holy,
utterly divine, utterly set apart. In heaven the angels,
surrounding him, continually cry out, “Holy! Holy!
Holy!” And faithful Jews hardly dared say – much
less write — His Name. So even while Jesus tells us to call
on him with child–like confidence in his love for
us – crying out Abba or Father – we
are also to acknowledge his holiness as his identity.
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And so, Jesus says, begin by saying, Abba, Father, holy is your
name. Is this a paradox? Of course, it
is – but it’s the same paradox we see all the way through
our Gospel accounts. Earlier in Luke’s Gospel, when Jesus
helped Peter bring in a miraculous catch of fish, Peter —
recognizing Jesus’ holiness — cried out, “Lord, depart
from me, for I am a sinful man!” Yet, he fell at
Jesus’ feet and clung to him. And that’s right where
we suddenly find ourselves at the beginning of this prayer –
recognizing our smallness, our insufficiency, our inadequacy – even
as we acknowledge God’s holy love for us and hold on tight to
him, as children cling to a beloved father.
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Now at this point, after naming the One we are addressing, we might
expect to praise God, to soften him up, as it were, as we begin to
bring our petitions before him. But in Luke’s version of
the prayer there are none of the pious interjections we might
expect – no “O dear Father” or “blessed
Lord” or “sweet Jesus”. There’s none of
that. Instead, surprisingly, there’s a whole string of
demands, voiced as imperatives –
Bring in your kingdom . . .
Give us this day our daily bread . . .
Forgive us our sins . . .
Do not bring us to trial . . .
and in some versions — Rescue us from the evil one.
So we might wonder, what’s going on here? Hasn’t
Jesus just told us that God is holy, utterly high and lifted
up? How do we dare make such demands on Him? We
dare because, like small children everywhere, we are needy and
dependent – and we see our need as urgent. We dare because
we know we are guilty – and there’s no point in pretending
that we don’t need his forgiveness. We dare because we
know – somewhere — that we are lost and vulnerable. So
we need for him to lead us. We need for him to deliver
us. And, last but certainly not least, we
dare . . . because we know he loves us.
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That’s the genius of this prayer. It establishes who God
is – utterly holy, utterly high and lifted up — and it
clarifies who we are – needy, dependent children. And
invites us, nevertheless, into relationship with him. In fact,
our very weakness becomes the occasion for us to find in Him the source
of our strength. And maybe the best part of all this is that we
can discover our love for him as Papa, as loving Father – no matter
how old we are.
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As I prepared this sermon, I read one account a pastor offered of his
own need for his father’s wisdom and guidance – when,
technically speaking, he was far beyond childhood. The
pastor’s name is Jim Somerville, and he told a story about his
own relationship with his father when he was a 20–
year–old. In 1979, he says, when he was 20, he had taken
a semester off from college to figure out what he was supposed to do
with his life.
“I had come home for a visit from the farm in West Virginia
where I had been working and was planning to go back to college in
the fall, but Mom didn’t think that was a good idea. She
was trying to talk me out of it, and I was trying to talk her into
it, and we had worn each other out with our reasons. I finally
climbed the ladder to the loft to get some sleep, exhausted in more
ways than one. And then, sometime in the night, I got up to
look at the fingernail I had pinched in a log splitter on the farm
a few weeks earlier. It had turned black almost immediately,
and then, in the last few days, had gotten loose. As I tugged
at it in the bathroom it came off completely, revealing a red,
grotesquely wrinkled nail bed. I stared at it in horror, and
finally went back up to the loft imagining it would always look
that way, that friends and family would shun me, that I would never
get back to college and would have to work on that awful farm
forever. And finally, in a blubbering fit of adolescent
self–pity, I cried myself to sleep.
Early in the morning Dad came creeping up the ladder to that
loft. Knowing that he wouldn’t be back by the time I
left for the farm, he had come to say good–bye. And
as he knelt beside my mattress on the floor I started to cry
again and poured out all my fears and frustration. I told
him about my long talk with Mom. I told him how lonely I
was on the farm. And finally, between sobs, I showed him
my finger. ‘Is it always going to look that
way?’ I asked. He took my hand in his hands and
looked at my finger in the early morning light. ‘The
nail bed looks healthy and pink,’ he said finally.
‘I don’t see any sign of infection. I think it
will be just fine.’ And then he did something he
hadn’t done in a long, long time. He leaned down and
kissed me on the forehead.
I was twenty years old, a junior in college, but in that moment I
felt like a little boy again . . . My
big strong daddy was right there with me, and because of that
everything was going to be all right.
‘And because of that,’ Jim says, ‘everything has
been – always.’
Now, I don’t know if your dad was like that, ever. But I
think Jesus would say if even one earthly father can be like that, can
care for his child like that, then How much more can your heavenly
Father care for you?
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Amen
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