Seventeenth Sunday of the Year July 24, 2022
Genesis 18:20-32; Colossians 2:12-14; Luke 11:1-13
Bill was a notorious and troublesome boy in the class. The Teacher was always finding it hard to control him and it was disturbing the whole class. She was sad. One day as the boy entered the class he found the teacher writing something in short-hand and the boy asked her out of curiosity, what she was writing. She told him quietly that it was a prayer. The boy asked her whether God knows short-hand and she said God knows everything and reads every heart. As she looked at the board the boy took the letter and hid it in his book. After several years when Bill was a successful man when he looked through his past materials found this note and out of curiosity took it to the office to translate. The clerk told him that the note said: Dear God I am finding it difficult to control Bill and he disturbs me. Please touch his heart. He is capable and he can be very good or very evil. Bill had tears in his eyes. He knew the prayers of his teacher were heard.
A businessman who needed millions of dollars to clinch an
important deal went to church to pray for the money. By chance he knelt next to
a man who was praying for $100 to pay an urgent debt. The businessman took out
his wallet and pressed $100 into the other man’s hand. Overjoyed, the man got
up and left the church. The businessman then closed his eyes and prayed, “And
now, Lord…, now that I have your undivided attention….”
Robert A. Cook, president of The King’s College in New York,
once spoke at the Moody Bible Institute. Cook said that the day before, he had
been at a gathering in Washington and had talked with then Vice President
George Bush. Two hours after he spoke briefly with President Ronald Reagan.
Then smiling broadly, he said, “But that’s nothing! Today I talked with God!”
Our prayer life is a reflection of our true faith in God.
Prayer is understood as a form of communication, a way of talking to God,
raising our hearts and minds to God. In
our prayer, we strengthen that recognition of the presence of God, which draws
us closer to Him. If we truly have come
to know God in faith, then this spiritual encounter has created a growing bond
between the Father, Jesus, and us as individuals. The Gospel invites us to encounter God in
prayer, to experience his generous love, forgiveness, and compassion. Jesus
gives us the Lord’s Prayer and teaches us to pray for the kingdom, our daily
needs for life, forgiveness, and perseverance.
The above examples of prayer, a teacher, a businessman and a
college president, can teach us a lot about Christian prayer. Positively, it
shows us that even top-level executives and professionals still make time to
pray. But in a very subtle way they also highlight the problem that today’s
gospel seems to focus upon, that of the right disposition for Christian prayer.
In both instances we see that God is portrayed as the big boss. Is that the
best disposition for Christian prayer? The request of the disciples to Jesus,
“Lord, teach us to pray” (Luke 11:1) can be understood as a quest for the
proper disposition for Christian prayer. The reply that Jesus gives them can be
summarised in one sentence: the right disposition for Christian prayer is the
disposition of a child before its father.
Prayer is the acknowledgement that our need is not partial;
it is total. So if we ask the Lord to teach us to pray, He may put us in
situations where we are so overwhelmed that we recognize that we have no choice
but to pray! So, if you dare, you can with fear and trembling say, “Lord, teach
us to pray.”
What a beautiful request from one of the disciples to Jesus:
'Lord, teach us to pray'. Who taught you to pray? Have you ever taught anyone
to pray - children, perhaps?
'Give us each day our daily bread'. This is the most basic
prayer of the vulnerable people living precarious existence: the subsistence
farmers and the day-labourers that Jesus lived with and taught.
'Forgive us our sins'. Jesus makes a clear connection, here
and elsewhere, between God's forgiveness, and our own readiness and capacity to
forgive. One is not possible without the other!
'Do not bring us to the time of trial'. Does Jesus already
have a sense of how his life will end? Can he already see, ahead of him, the
Garden of Gethsemane, where he will pray to be spared the cup of suffering,
even as he also prays 'Not my will, but yours'
Let’s be clear about what prayer is. Prayer is not having
special skills and saying the right words so that we can reach God’s ear. When
would we sinful, weak humans ever get it right? We would never be able to say
the right things to move God to answer us. Prayer is not humans taking the
initiative and trying to reach up to God attempting to speak in his ear. The
picture that comes to mind here is one of a small child who wants to tell his
dad something really important. What does dad do? He bends down, lovingly puts
his arm around the child and lets the child whisper in his ear. In this sense
then prayer is not so much us reaching up to God with special words or
techniques, but it is God reaching down to us.
Happy Sunday
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