TEACH US TO PRAY
They had been watching him, waiting for the right moment. Ever since they began following Jesus, his disciples had observed his practice of prayer. They had witnessed Jesus slipping away to deserted places to pray after exhausting days of preaching and healing. They noted he found solace in escaping into the mountains to pray. Sometimes, they knew, Jesus spent the entire night in prayer.
The disciples were still trying to make sense of their Teacher. He remained a puzzle to them. But they had observed the vital connection between his private prayer life and his public ministry. Prayer seemed to both anchor and empower Jesus. The disciples wanted to know what Jesus was saying when he prayed to God.
I wonder which disciple finally spoke up. While Jesus was praying that day, did someone volunteer to initiate the conversation or was someone pressed into service through the casting of lots? Whatever the case, after Jesus finished his prayer time and returned to the group, one brave soul stepped forward and implored, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.” Jesus’ disciples not only desired to deepen their connection to God; they also sought to strengthen their communal bonds, cementing their identity as followers of the traveling preacher from Nazareth.
Thus, Jesus uttered words his followers still repeat two thousand years after they were first spoken. In Luke’s Gospel, we find the short form of the prayer – Jesus’ response to his inquisitive disciples. In Matthew’s Gospel we read the longer form found within the Sermon on the Mount, when Jesus teaches this prayer after warning his audience not to pray like the hypocrites do. Matthew’s version is the one we prayed together moments ago, familiar words that are recited in homes and churches, in hospitals and funeral homes.
Do you remember when you first heard the Lord’s Prayer? How did those ancient words enter your consciousness? Did one of your parents or grandparents prompt you to memorize the prayer? Perhaps you recall hearing these words in the context of worship. Maybe you associate them with the funeral of a loved one.
I learned this prayer through song, long before Andrea Bocelli popularized the soaring version that begins with the gentle plucks of harp strings. The song I sang as a 10-year-old was a rock ballad that opens with drums and a tambourine. Sister Janet Mead’s catchy version of “The Lord’s Prayer” reached #4 on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart in 1974, and the melody remains lodged in my heart and mind 50 years later: “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
“Lord, teach us to pray.” The desire to discover “the right way” to pray continues to be a pressing concern for many of Jesus’ followers today. A quick online search reveals dozens of books that include “teach us to pray” or “teach me to pray” in their titles. Countless Bible study workbooks and daily journals are also marketed to those who are seeking to discover the secrets of prayer.
When I served as associate pastor at a Baptist church in Nashville, I recall initially being stunned when a faithful older woman, whose husband was a retired minister, confessed she didn’t know how to pray. As we talked, I discovered the underlying issue: She feared she was praying the wrong way. She worried that her humble, heartfelt pleas weren’t truly acceptable to God. She certainly was not alone.
Several years later, when I worked at an addiction treatment center for women, clients regularly made appointments with me to ask for advice on how to pray. Some of them had been deeply wounded in church settings in the past; their trauma had become a barrier to connecting with God. Others were angry with God because someone they loved had died, but they still longed to draw close to God again. Some felt too ashamed to even approach God at all, fearing divine rejection that mirrored the rejection they had experienced within their families and churches.
Like Jesus’ first disciples, these folks all wanted to learn how to pray. The prayer Jesus offered was instructive for them and continues to be instructive for all of God’s children - not just as a spiritual practice, but also as a guide to Jesus’ mindset and priorities. Jesus offered words that have the power to draw people closer to God and closer to each other, and he used two parables to underscore God’s approachability and receptivity.
Not long after my husband and I moved to this area, I began to regularly see 18-wheelers whose rear doors featured a frightening visage. A fierce, scowling man sketched in blue points his index finger dramatically at drivers. He almost appears to be wearing a mask, but he looks more like a villain than a superhero. The image is flanked by words in all caps – DID YOU PRAY TODAY. Interestingly, there is no question mark. A verse from the Old Testament is printed beneath the image: “Seek the Lord while He may be found; call on Him while he is near.” (Isaiah 55:6)
The first time I caught a glimpse of one of these tractor-trailers while driving on I-40, I was absolutely appalled. What do they think they are accomplishing with this face, this finger, these words? I will admit, though, that I did immediately ask myself, “Have I prayed today?” I had.
Then I thought about how this message might be perceived by people who grew up in families or churches that promoted fear-based theology. This message coupled with this image does not invite people to connect to a loving God. No, this message wreaks of judgment, condemnation, guilt, and shame.
I wonder what the designer of this image thinks “prayer” is supposed to be. Did they have a formula in mind – for instance, the ACTS acrostic I learned in my youth group: A = adoration, C = confession, T = thanksgiving, S = supplication? Do they believe God only hears the prayers of certain groups of people? Do they think prayer is something to be checked off a holy “to do” list each day to please God?
When I reflect on how Jesus modeled prayer for his followers, I see a gracious, open-ended invitation to intimacy with the Divine, practiced in varied places in various ways. Jesus spent time alone in prayer. He invited friends to pray with him in holy moments, like on the Mount of Transfiguration, as well as in times of deep tribulation, like in the Garden of Gethsemane. He offered words of blessing when he broke bread, whether he was feeding the multitudes on a mountainside or serving his friends around a table. He interceded for his disciples the day before his death – and not just his first century followers, but also for all of those who would eventually believe, as the good news of the kingdom of God was passed down from generation to generation. Prayer was a way of life for Jesus.
“Lord, teach us to pray.” Those words must have been music to Jesus’ ears. The request provides Jesus with yet another opportunity to show his disciples how they can live out and lean into their love for God and their neighbors. The prayer he teaches them is distinctly communal in nature: Our father, give us, forgive us, do not lead us. This is a prayer for all of God’s children concerning all of God’s children.
The disciples who accompanied Jesus as he carried out his earthly mission were living in a time of tumult, tension, and turmoil. The powerful Roman government oppressed the poor and suppressed voices of dissent. Government-sanctioned violence was normative. Religious leaders sought to accrue power through proximity to political leaders. Debtors were enslaved to their creditors with little hope of relief. Sound familiar?
Perhaps the disciples sought guidance about how to pray because they felt an increasing sense of desperation about what was happening in their world. That might explain why Jesus felt compelled to offer two parables urging them to persevere in prayer. In those parables, Jesus gives examples of human generosity – a friend who reluctantly provides bread for a neighbor in need in the wee hours of the morning because the knocking just won’t stop and a parent who fulfills a child’s request by appropriately meeting their expressed needs.
See that friend? See that parent? Jesus asks. God is far more responsive, exceedingly more generous. God is the giver of all good gifts, including the Spirit - the Spirit who comforts and guides, the Spirit who helps us in our weakness, the Spirit who prays for us with groanings too deep for words when we don’t know how to pray ourselves. So, Jesus urges, ask God and keep asking. Seek and keep seeking. Knock and keep knocking. Don’t hesitate. Don’t feel self-conscious. Don’t give up. God welcomes your persistent prayers.
Last Sunday afternoon while browsing in a used bookstore, I noticed a book on the table in the religion section titled A Place to Pray: Reflections on the Lord’s Prayer by Roberta Bondi. Knowing that I would be preaching on the Lord’s Prayer the following Sunday, I purchased the book. Three dollars and fifty cents seemed like a wise investment. Indeed, it was.
Bondi organizes her examination of the Lord’s Prayer through a series of letters addressed to a hypothetical pastor friend whose congregation is involved in an ongoing dispute over the ancient text. One camp does not want to use the prayer in worship anymore because of what they perceive as patriarchal, authoritarian language – father language, kingdom language. The other camp is appalled that their fellow worshippers would reject Jesus’ words outright. He said it! We must pray it!
Letter by letter, Bondi examines each phrase of the prayer, explaining how her own struggles with these words eventually gave way to renewed understanding. She now considers the Lord’s Prayer to be indispensable – a tool that helps her express her love for God and her neighbors. This is not a book of exegesis; this a story of lived experience.
Bondi’s thoughtful words have profoundly impacted my own approach to the Lord’s Prayer this week. Her example of praying a phrase and then pausing to add her own intercession is one I have now adopted in my own prayer life. The Lord’s Prayer, like many other passages of Scripture, is so familiar to most of us that we often plow right through it without really thinking about what we are reading, what we are saying, what we are asking. Bondi has given me a helpful framework for more fully immersing myself in Jesus’ words as I make them my own and join the chorus of those who pray give us, forgive us, do not lead us.
This week when you read yet another distressing headline, when you hear yet another report that causes you to cringe, when you see yet another photo that breaks your heart, I hope you will pause and pray the Lord’s Prayer, freely adding your own words to those Jesus taught us. As you recall the parables of the friend and the parent, give yourself a three-word spiritual pep talk: Ask! Seek! Knock!
When I pray, “Give us this day our daily bread” this week, I will add my own intercessions for the folks I encounter on Mondays at the Hominy Valley Crisis Center when they pick up their emergency food boxes. I will pray for the families in our state who are losing their SNAP benefits due to brutal changes in the law. I will pray for God’s beloved children who are starving to death in war-torn Gaza.
When I pray, “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us” this week, I will include intercessions for myself and others whose hearts are growing hard as we witness the pain intentionally inflicted on marginalized communities. I will pray that the Spirit will help us find ways to convert our anger into action. I will pray for forgiveness for us for our words and our deeds that have failed to reflect God’s love and compassion. I will also pray for our expanded capacity to forgive others.
When I pray, “Lead us not into temptation” this week, I will ask God to give us the courage necessary to persist in the hard work of healing our world. I will pray we will resist the temptation to dehumanize those we have labeled as our enemies. I will ask the Spirit to lead us to love.
As followers of Jesus in an age of tumult, tension, and turmoil, we are called to the work of prayer. As we strive to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength and seek to love our neighbors as ourselves, prayer binds us all together in mysterious and powerful ways. May we persevere in prayer, just as Jesus taught us. Amen.
