These are my sermon notes for Sunday. If you come along to St. Mary Magdalene, Belmont you will hear a different version of this depending on whether you are at the 8am BCP communion, the 10.30 All Age with Baptism, or the 12.30 Baptism service...but these are the notes for all of them.
If you are also following the Teenage prayer experiment blog then you may recognise some of the material!
Gospel Reading: Luke 11:1-13
11Jesus was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished,
one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John
taught his disciples.” 2He said to them, “When you
pray, say: Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. 3Give
us each day our daily bread. 4And forgive us our sins, for
we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us. And do not bring us to
the time of trial.” 5And he said to them, “Suppose one
of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say to him,
‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; 6for a friend of
mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.’ 7And
he answers from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door has already
been locked, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and
give you anything.’ 8I 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 whatever he
needs. 9“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. 10For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who
searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.
11Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a
fish, will give a snake instead of a fish? 12Or if the
child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion? 13If you
then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how
much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who
ask him!”Sermon Outline:
- Being in bed and not wanting to get up to answer demands for
a drink of water or a story or a lost teddy is something all parents
– indeed, all grandparents and anyone who has ever stayed in a
house with small children - know well!
- When people asked Jesus to teach them to pray, he taught them
the short form of prayer that we now call 'The Lord's
Prayer'.
There are slightly different versions of it in different accounts - the one in our reading today is the shortest - but they all are similar.
- And they all begin in a way that was revolutionary at the
time; by calling God, ‘Father’. This sounds quite formal to us,
but the original word, ‘Abba’, is very informal, more like
‘daddy’. This was a huge contrast to how people were used to
talking to and about God – as YHWH, THE LORD! Jesus was
introducing people to the amazing idea that God is someone with whom
we can have a personal, emotional, individual relationship.
- Its a lovely touch to follow this, in this story, with the
image of a dad not wanting to get out of bed! It brings it right
down to earth, doesn’t it? We may not want to get up and help,
when that little voices pipes up 'Da -ddy? Mu-mmy?' in the middle of
the night. But if we are pestered enough we will drag ourselves out
of bed and deal with the problem so we can all get back to sleep.
- And Jesus uses this example to say to us: look, God really
does hear and answer prayers. Even if you don’t think your worries
or problems are important enough for God, even if you find it hard
to believe that God loves you, just think about how you end up doing
something for your kids when they pester you enough: even if it were
true that God thought your complaint quite trivial, he would still
answer it!
- Its important to note that Jesus and the Church are not
saying that God is exactly like a dad. We all probably have mixed
feelings about our parents, and about our own parenting ability. But
Jesus knows that and his image here has a wonderful realism about
it. ‘If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to
your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy
Spirit to those who ask!’. God knows that our earthly images of
parenting are often lazy, angry, unreliable or impatient as least as
often as they are close, loving and reliable. Unless we’ve had a
very bad experience of parenting – when you might think ‘actually
you know what, my dad is exactly the kind of person who if you asked
for a fish would think it was funny to give you a snake’ - most
would agree that yes, for all their faults, our parents did broadly
speaking know how to feed us reasonably healthily most of the time.
- So, Jesus says, if even we, who know we aren’t perfect
parents, get some things right, how much more can we rely on God to
look after us. Even the best parenting is only a pale approximation
to God’s infinite and total care for us.
- So what else does Jesus
reckon we should say when we pray? Well, the next phrase he gives us
here is Hallowed be your name. Again,
this may sound fairly formal, but it just means God, we pray that
everyone may call you holy. So we are starting off by
recognising that God is close and personal – our Father – but
also totally holy.
- Your kingdom come is the next thing we ask. Jesus's
main message when he was talking to people was about God's kingdom
coming. But he didn't seem to mean a normal kind of kingdom. He
didn’t mean he was going to take over and rule the world like the
kings and presidents of our countries. This seems to be a prayer for
the world to be a better place, a place where everyone is valued
equally. What do you think would make the world a better place, more
like the world Jesus taught us to hope for? What would be different
about life in God's kingdom?
- Give us today our daily bread This line means we are
asking God for what we need, and as in the story Jesus told about
the dad in bed, we trust that God will hear us and give us what we
need. But the word ‘daily’ is interesting. It means we are not
expecting God to give us everything we would like. We are only
asking for enough for today. So we are trusting God one day at a
time, and trying not to worry too much about the future.
- And forgive us our sins We might not feel we have
'sins', as it sounds quite heavy and serious: or we might think this
just means eating too many icecreams! But Jesus included these words
for everyone. Asking God to forgive us our sins, all that we do
wrong, means admitting that we are not perfect. We can feel safe to
admit that, because Jesus promises that nothing we can do or be can
stop God loving us and hearing and answering our prayers.
- As we forgive those who sin against us, or are indebted to
us. This can be the most difficult bit! If we can trust God to
love us whatever we do, can we bring ourselves to forgive people who
have been horrible to us? If you are angry with someone, it can feel
like letting them off if you choose to stop being angry. Forgiving
doesn’t mean forgetting: it doesn’t stop us knowing what has
happened in the past, and being sensible about our future actions.
It doesn’t mean we have to trust someone who has let us down many
times in the past. But Christians believe - and scientists agree -
that choosing not to hold on to anger makes you a happier and
healthier person. So here we ask God to help us not to hold onto
resentment and bitterness for all the things that seem so unfair in
life, but to let them go and free ourselves for the future.
- And do not bring us to the time of trial; or in the better
known version, Deliver us from evil. This line is a catch-all
prayer asking for protection from bad or scary things. From illness,
people dying, people wanting to hurt us, anything we are worried or
anxious about. In this line we are praying that those things never
happen to us. There’s a famous echo of this line too in Google’s
slogan – ‘Don’t be evil’. I wonder if this line maybe also
asking for God to help not to be evil to other people?
What is not known is how Jesus meant these words to be used. Did he mean 'say exactly these words'? Or did he mean 'include these areas when you pray'. We don't know, but many Christians do both. Saying the Lord's prayer is a good way to start or end prayers, and if you go to church it will usually be said in every service.
It is a good prayer to use if you can't think of anything to say, or you don't think you know how to pray, or don't know what to pray for. Just use these words, and you know you are doing what Jesus taught his first followers to do.
- So let us pray, in the words that Jesus taught us:
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