Teach us to pray Luke 11:1-4

The disciples start off the discussion of this element of teaching from Jesus. No doubt they were drawn to the way Jesus prayed. They were with him and saw and heard what he did. They got excited. Luke is concerned to highlight the prayer life of Jesus…..

In Luke 3:21 – it was as Jesus was praying at his baptism that the Holy Spirit came on him and the voice of God spoke from heaven. Quite a baptismal service!

In Luke 5:16 Luke tells us that in the midst of a very busy ministry of teaching and healing Jesus often withdrew to lonely places. He went on retreat.

In Luke 9:28, 29 – as he was praying on the mountain he was transformed.

Or Luke 12:12-16. Jesus spent the night praying up on the hillside before choosing those who would be his core group of disciples.

But when these same disciples ask Jesus about prayer his response is a very brief one. He actually leaves them with plenty of freedom to explore this for themselves. The freedom is important. The Cloud of Unknowing in the fourteenth century said: Seek a way of prayer that is suited to you.

Nevertheless, there are guidelines.

1 Prayer is directed to God

Prayer is a journey of discovery of God. Prayer is coming to God who is Father, who is holy and who is ruler. Desire to recapture intimacy with God – Father. Holy Father – a term used by P.T. Forsyth. To know God ‘associate much’, Forsyth advised, ‘with the great spiritual masters…especially with the Bible; and chiefly with Christ. Cultivate His Holy Spirit.’ What Forsyth says reminds us that our prayer to God is to God as Trinity. Going back earlier in our Christian story in this country this emphasis on the Trinity was very important. It was characteristic of those whom we call the Celtic Christians.

So we need to know God as Father. His love stimulates our love. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, spoke about this. ‘Contemplation of God, adoration and worship are’, he affirmed, ‘the highest expression of our love to God.’ They are only possible if we believe that God is our Father.

God is also the holy one. This is expressed in the gift he has given us – the Holy Spirit. A wonderful eighteenth-century writer from America, Jonathan Edwards, speaks about holiness and the Trinity, talking about the beauty and harmony there is in God. The ultimate expression of holiness, ‘the highest beauty’, is found in the inner life of the Trinity. Holiness is not to separate us from God. This holiness is expressed in the creation - in the form God originally intended. It is expressed in people. A holy person who was ‘like a garden planted by God’ with the Spirit a gentle breeze and ‘where the sun is Jesus Christ’. All these things help us in prayer.

This brings us to the third part of prayer directed to God. We pray for God’s kingdom – the rule – to come. We easily get this wrong. Rule is not about domination. It is about liberation. The king is Jesus. He is strong, but gentle. Luke is full of his concern for people. The passage just before in Luke – Mary and Martha. Jesus was helping these two women to be leaders in the community – Mary being taught so that she could teach, and Martha a deacon, serving. This is the transforming kingdom.

So we pray – to God as Father, the Spirit as enabler to live the holy life, and Jesus as the one of has come to transform. This is the main focus of the prayer.

2. Prayer is for our needs

We might be tempted to dismiss prayer for our personal needs as quite selfish. Sometimes we dismiss such simple prayer. Yet we have real needs. We are like children. We bring ourselves before our heavenly Father as we are. This is a prayer which brings us to reality.

It has often been said that the prayer for daily bread means more if you don’t know where the next piece of bread is coming from. But there is appropriate prayer for all aspects of our daily lives. In this church we place stress on praying for people in their daily work. This is in line with a long tradition.

Here is an example of ‘prayer and work’ from the Celtic Christians of the past.

This is the art of praying through the day and for the day.

3 Prayer is about our relationships with others

This is our calling - to bring help and healing. To see others experience God’s love. We do this in part through prayer. The Message has this paraphrase for this part of the Lord’s Prayer – Lord, keep us forgiven with you and forgiving others.

Such an atmosphere makes a huge difference in a community. Julian of Norwich wrote in the fourteenth century in Revelations of Divine Love (the first book ever written in English by a woman) : I saw that whenever our Lord appears among people, peace reigns, and anger has no place.

We are forgiven by God. This is the basis for us to have a relationship with him. At the same time, we are wounded people. We live in situations of pain. Henri Nouwen's book, The Wounded Healer, is a classic here. Although Nouwen concentrates on the way in which a minister can pray for others out of his or her own experience of pain, the concept can be broadened to include all Christians. The forgiveness that we receive can flow out to others. But it is always costly.

There are amazing stories of how those who have been able to forgive, through receiving power to do so from God. Whole communities can be and have been transformed.

4 Prayer is for the hard times

Again I like the Message version about what it means to be kept from temptation. It says: Keep us safe from ourselves and the devil. The Celtic Christians spoke about the encircling. God is around us. Patrick has his great hymn about this.

All Christian have a sense of this spiritual warfare and the need to be kept by God’s power. It is with Christ that we overcome temptation – as he overcame. There are dark times. Yet God is not absent. In Christ he is powerfully present. We pray often in the dark times.

We pray for the coming of God’s kingdom in saving power, as people have prayed through the centuries. Often the dark times have been the times when highly significant spiritual changes have taken place.

What changes do we anticipate? The kingdoms of this world are ultimately to give way to the kingdom of our God and of his Christ. We sometimes call times of power and growth revivals, and such times are a sign of the kingdom to come, for which we pray.

So - Prayer is a journey – with God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We do not know in detail where the journey will lead in this life, but ultimately it leads to union with God himself.