With
this being an Olympic year, we’ll soon get to watch some amazing feats of
athleticism. We’ll see women and men who
truly have been born with great gifts from God – their genetics, their opportunities,
the people who support them – and who also have worked incredibly hard to hone
their skills. None of what we’ll see is
their own un-aided un-God-given achievement, but none of it comes naturally
either, not without being taught and trained.
In our gospel, we see that the disciples recognize that this is true too
in their life of prayer. Just like any
athletic skill, or musical, or literary, the disciples know that they need to
be taught, and they ask Jesus, “Teach us how to pray.”
I hope
they also recognize how great a gift it is even to be have the desire to ask
that question. Even the desire to pray
is an amazing gift. Jesus talks to them
in his final set of stories of the amazing gift of the Holy Spirit, a gift not finite
or created, frail and forgetful like ourselves, but God’s self-gift, coming to
dwell with us, comfort and direct us, pray for us and inspire in us prayer.
This is
the gift that lets us stand before our God and assures us that we will be
heard, the gift of God stooping down with open ear, and raising us up (as we
heard celebrated in the letter to the Colossians) that our cry might
carry. It’s the gift that lets us be
persistent in our prayer. Jesus tells
the story of the man who keeps on asking his friend for food, food he needs not
out of greed, but out of a heartfelt desire to be hospitable. Our translation puts it, “he will be heard
because of his persistence,” but we could more literally translate, “because of
his shamelessness.” That’s the great
gift God gives us. That through the
dignifying gift of self that Christ makes for love us, sealed with Spirit, we
need have no shame. That’s tremendously
humanizing, tremendously lifegiving, that all of our needs can be shared
shamelessly with our God. For once we
come into relationship, we are entirely unashamed to admit we are hungry, we
are needy, we want to serve, but we stand in need. And we shamelessly beg of our God, for we
know his mercy, his kindness.
Maybe
this could be answer enough for our disciples, who ask Jesus to teach them how
to pray. It’s saying, “that’s good; you’ve
recognized you need to train and hone this skill, but don’t lose sight of the
precious gift you already have.” A good
part of being taught to pray isn’t learning some esoteric technique, but
stopping and marveling in awe at the gifts God has given us: the desire to
pray, and the dignity to approach the all-holy almighty God shamelessly, like a
friend or a father.
Those
truths aren’t just communicated by Jesus in the stories he tells, but also in
the prayer he teaches the disciples (in words similar to, but not quite the same
as Matthew’s version of the Our Father
which we all know so well). The prayer
he teachers them will work as an exercise that will train them in prayer. It starts with awe, it starts with just
gazing up and saying, ‘Wow!’… addressing God as Father and declare his name
holy, hallowed. That’s quite the claim
that Jesus bids us make: that the All Holy one is close to us as Father. It’s a grand statement of God’s dreams for
humanity, that he will bring us into his holiness, equip us to live lives of
holiness and integrity, with love for God, for neighbor and for creation, forever,
for that’s what heaven is.
But we
know we don’t live that way yet, so as well as “wow” he tells us our prayer
should include “sorry:” a recognition that we aren’t living heavenly yet, with
a commitment to open ourselves up to God’s healing grace, and a commitment to
live lives of forgiveness, extending the mercy that we know we need.
“Wow”
and “sorry:” to these we must add “thank you” to our prayer. Jesus’ stories consistently portray God as
the giver of all good gifts, and stopping and giving thanks for these is the
natural next step before we move to asking for more. Practicing gratitude, to our brothers and
sisters as well as to our God, is another humanizing, life-giving
practice. It roots out pride (so we don’t
give ourselves all the credit) and it roots out envy (as we recognize how many
gifts we have been given). It helps us
to again have awe that an almighty God would concern himself with humble
us. And he does, so intimately and
lovingly.
“Wow,” “sorry,”
and “thankyou:” now we get to “please.”
Four words that make up a very full prayer life on their own, and that I
try to use daily before going to sleep, sharing God’s blessings and my missteps
of the past day, and my needs for the next.
Jesus tells us to ask for what we need.
And he promises us bread to be hospitable with and the Holy Spirit to
guide and comfort and sanctify us, but no need is too mundane or too grandiose
for prayer.
Sometimes
sharing our needs, putting them into words in prayer, transforms them. And sometimes it doesn’t, and we actually get
what we’re praying for! And sometimes it
doesn’t and we’re left waiting.
Sometimes we know what we’re praying for is good: we’re praying for
virtue, or for another’s health or just life.
And we still sin and people still die.
But our God is the God of life and the God of holiness. It will come.
We will live in holiness and integrity and love with all, including
those who now sleep in God’s peace, but not yet. So we keep praying. “Wow, sorry, thank you, please:” we trust
that this is part of how we hone that gift, how we prepare for eternal life.
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