Investing In Hope

The Sermon Study Guide is here.

Matthew 6:5-15; 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24

May 5, 2013 • Portage First UMC

VIDEO INTRO

It began with one college student, a computer and a goal of connecting people. Mark Zuckerberg wondered why there wasn’t an easy way for the students at Harvard to get to know each other, to be connected to one another. The university didn’t have a centralized database, and they said it would take them a while to create one. So Zuckerberg starting writing code. “I think it’s kind of silly,” he said, “that it would take the University a couple of years to get around to it as I can do it better than they can, and I can do it in a week.” In January 2004, Zuckerberg launched his website, thefacebook.com, and told a couple of friends. Then they put it out on their house’s mailing list, and by the end of the evening, they had “somewhere between twelve hundred and fifteen hundred registrants.” Within a few months, thefacebook.com had expanded beyond Harvard to other Ivy League schools, and then on to other schools in the United States and Canada. In October 2005, it reached Great Britain, and today what has become Facebook has somewhere over a billion subscribers. Zuckerberg tapped into a great need, or a great longing: this desire we have to connect with others. No matter how much we pretend we prefer to go it alone, do it by ourselves, we have within us a hard-wired need for community, for connections—even if that community and those connections are virtual. Facebook was only among the first attempts at such connections. In March 2006, Twitter was born, and other services keep popping up like Google+, Instagram, Vine, LinkedIn and so on—all of them capitalizing on our need as human beings to be connected to someone else.

We have become a well-connected—or some might say, over-connected—society. Who remembers a time before cell phones? Eighteen years ago, my brother was selling cell phones, and he was trying mightily to convince me to buy one. I remember clearly telling him I didn’t want one of those things. There ought to be some times when I can’t be reached, I told him. Be careful what you say, because sometimes you have to eat your words. I remember why we did get our first cell phone. It was a bad winter in Muncie, and Christopher was just about three months old, and we lived out in the country. I got to thinking about what would happen if Cathy slid off the road with just her and Christopher. How would she get ahold of me? How would she call for help? And so we gave in and got a cell phone—and it’s been a slippery slope ever since! Now, I love technology. I use it a lot. But there are still times I want to be unconnected, unplugged. It’s hard to do that today. So much noise, so many people and things clambering for our attention. But as we have become more connected to each other, even to people we don’t really know, what does that do to our spiritual lives? For the next few weeks, we’re going to be talking about connections on a spiritual level—specifically, what are some of the ways we can connect better with God? “Liking” a page called “God” on Facebook doesn’t connect us to the creator of the universe. I’m pretty sure that’s not actually Jesus sending out tweets on the name @jesus! So how do we connect? Previous generations called these practices spiritual disciplines—and “discipline” is an important word because connecting with God takes work. It takes focus—something we often lack today. It’s hard simply because there are so many other voices calling for us to pay attention to them. Paying attention to God means we have to turn away from those voices, unplug and log off, and focus on the one who loves us more than anything else. And the primary way we do that, the way we start, is through prayer.

Prayer is, quite simply, conversation with God, and we tend to go to one of two extremes with it. Either we avoid it (we at least avoid praying out loud or in public) because we don’t think we know “the right words to use,” or we become so formal in our prayers that they just become words, or even worse, magic words. Jesus said, “When you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words” (6:7). He’s criticizing both extremes there. He says don’t just keep using lots of words as if you were trying to wear God down; that isn’t what prayer is for. But there’s also the assumption in his statement that we will be people of prayer. He doesn’t say “if you pray” but “when you pray.” Prayer, as Jesus understood it, is vital to our connection with God the Father.

Prayer was, of course, an important part of the religious practice of Jesus’ day. Jewish prayers were said twice a day—in the early morning and at the ninth hour or about 2:30 in the afternoon (Wilkins, NIV Application Commentary: Matthew, pg. 273). The disciples would have known that form and timing of prayer since their childhood, as would Jesus. But they notice that John the Baptist’s disciples have received special teaching about prayer, and so in Luke’s Gospel, the disciples come to Jesus and ask him to teach them to pray. You seem to have a natural prayer life, Jesus, so teach us how you do that. In Luke, Jesus gives them a bare-bones version of what we call the Lord’s Prayer (Luke 11:1-4). It’s much shorter than the version we most often use. The more well-known version comes probably a bit later, when Jesus is teaching on a mountainside overlooking the Sea of Galilee. He’s teaching what we call “The Sermon on the Mount,” and in that sermon he’s redefining what it means to be a person of faith. There, he teaches those gathered the prayer we know so well, “The Lord’s Prayer.” It’s really misnamed, though, because it is meant to be “The Disciples’ Prayer,” a prayer that we pray, a prayer that models what connecting prayer looks like. Many of us learn it by heart early on, and we pray it often/weekly here in worship. As I said last week, sometimes this prayer can be words for us when we don’t have words of our own, but there is also the danger of knowing it so well that we just say the words without any sort of meaning or connection to the one we’re supposed to be praying for. While Jesus doesn’t tell us not to pray it word for word, I think he also gave it to us as a framework or a scaffolding on which we can build our own prayers (cf. Wright, Matthew for Everyone, Part One, pg. 58). Either way, the goal or the point of prayer is connecting with God, not just saying rote words. Prayer is connection with God. Prayer is conversation, and as Jesus’ model prayer shows us, it’s not so much about us as it really is about God.

Now, we could easily spend several weeks just on this prayer, but I want to just give us a quick overview this morning. So forgive me when I rush past your favorite part, but the prayer really breaks into two parts: three things about God and three things about us. We start with God, and the first line of the prayer is about God’s name: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name” (6:9). Father is a very intimate word; it’s not a word anyone in first-century Judaism would have used to describe God. Jesus called God, “Abba” (Mark 14:36), which essentially means “Daddy.” But it reminds us that God is not just off somewhere else. God is not an absent supervisor. God is our Father. It’s a relationship. In the best of father-child relationships, the father is involved in the child’s life, present when important things are happening, and constantly showing love toward the child. Now, I recognize that’s an ideal, and it doesn’t always that way happen here on earth. But God is a father, Jesus says, who can be trusted and who is, in fact, interested in the smallest of details of our lives. God is a father who loves; later, the disciple John will reaffirm that truth: “We know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them” (1 John 4:16). God is closer than we can imagine.

But Jesus also prays for God’s name to be “hallowed.” That means “to set apart, to treat as special.” Now, it’s not “special” like Grandma’s china that you only get out once in a while. It’s a recognition that, as close as God is to us, he’s also absolutely other than we are. God is not just a big human being, and we have to recognize that. He’s also not the same as the other gods that were around at the time. The Roman gods, for instance, had many prayers that you would repeat over and over and maybe have to say in just the right way in order to try to trick or manipulate the god or goddess to do what you wanted them to. There was always an uncertainty with that kind of prayer; you never knew if you were getting it right (Wright 58). No, God is not like that. We cannot manipulate God with a magic prayer. We can’t even manipulate God by getting lots and lots of people to pray for us. I remember a prayer meeting I was in during college where I heard a friend pray, “God, there are enough of us here that you have to do what we say.” Really? God is not like that. We often ask others to pray for us as a support, as encouragement to us, not so that we can force God to do what we want. God is other. God is not to be manipulated. He is holy, and part of prayer is recognizing that.

The second part of Jesus’ prayer is, “Your kingdom come” (6:10) Whose kingdom? God’s kingdom, not mine. God’s. We spend so much time building our own kingdoms that we, oftentimes, probably ought to leave that part of the prayer out. Sometimes I spend so much time building my own kingdom that I don’t have time much left to build God’s. Do you relate to that, at all? We gather stuff, build up bank accounts, pile up activities, run from this place to that constantly leaving little time for God. You see, God’s kingdom is meant to be all-encompassing. We’re meant, as followers of Jesus, to give everything we have over for his kingdom rather than for our own, for his priorities rather than ours. There’s an old story, which may or may not be true, of the time when Christianity became the legal religion of the Roman Empire, when Emperor Constantine gave his life to Christ. People were forced to convert to Christianity. Now, that has its own issues because every time the church has been in power, God’s kingdom usually loses out. But the story is that the military was also forced to convert under Constantine, and so they lined all the soldiers up along the banks of the river so that they could be baptized. One by one, they went into the water, and as they went, every soldier held his sword arm up above the water. If it wasn’t baptized, they reasoned, they could still use it to kill others in battle. What part of our lives would we want to leave unbaptized today? What part do we withhold when we pray, “Your kingdom come”? For a lot of people it would probably be our wallets. That’s the thing we have the hardest time giving over to God. We struggle to believe that God’s kingdom is a higher calling that the latest shiny thing we might want to buy. What do we want to leave out when we pray, “Your kingdom come”?

The third part of the prayer that’s about God is closely related: “Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (6:10). Whose will? God’s, not mine. How many of our prayers are about telling God what to do? A whole lot of mine are. “God, here’s the situation, and here’s what you should do about it.” And sometimes, that’s the only time we pray, when we need something, when things have gone horribly wrong and we finally realize we can’t fix it. Remember, prayer is an ongoing conversation. How would you feel if the only time your friends talked to you is when they wanted something? Maybe you have friends like that! A lot of us probably do, but think about your closest friends. What if the only time you heard from them is when they wanted something, and they told you exactly how to do it? You’d begin to dread seeing them, wouldn’t you? It’d be like, “Oh, here they come again, I wonder what they want this time.” And you’d be less inclined to help them out, to give them what they ask for. Thankfully, God is not like us, but our calling is to be praying for his will to be done, not our own. Prayer is first and foremost about changing us, not God. There are times in the Scripture where we’re told God “changed his mind,” and you can wrestle this week with what that means. But here’s Jesus’ point: prayer is about working toward God’s will being done on earth as it already is being done in heaven.

So the first three parts of this prayer focus on God, which is where our prayers should start: God’s name, God’s kingdom, God’s will. Then, when our hearts and minds are then focused on God’s way, we can turn to praying about our own lives, our own situations. But our prayers will be—or should be—changed because we’ve focused beyond ourselves first. And so the next part of Jesus’ prayer is for sustenance: “Give us today our daily bread” (6:11). Bread, of course, is a basic need. It represents what we need to get by. For many of us, it’s not a prayer we pray often enough. Most of us likely don’t know what it means to literally pray for food for that day, not knowing if we will have any, but there are people in the world who do know exactly what that prayer is like. There are people in our city who know what that prayer is like. We’ve been trying to combat that need in a lot of different ways, including Feed My Lambs and Smart Choice Food Source. But, on a deeper level, this is a prayer of trust—saying we will trust God for what we need. Said another way, this is a prayer for fighting against anxiety, because by praying this, we’re placing our most basic needs (daily bread) in the hands of God—a God whom we’ve already called “Father,” a God we’ve already acknowledged knows best, and who loves us. We’re choosing to trust, to believe Jesus when he says, “Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own” (6:34). If we can trust God for daily bread, can’t we trust him with the rest of our life as well?

The next thing we pray about is our sin: “Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors” (6:12). Of course, we’ve spent the last four weeks talking about forgiveness, so I don’t want to spend a lot of time on this one. But suffice it to say again that forgiveness is at the heart of what it means to follow Jesus. We forgive, and we are forgiven. As we’ve talked about the last few weeks, it’s common for us to be thankful that God has forgiven us even while we refuse to forgive someone else. But forgiven people are called to forgive others. In fact, forgiveness of others is the proof that we have been forgiven; if we have been forgiven much, how could we withhold that great gift from someone else (cf. Wilkins 279)? That’s what Jesus says right after the prayer: “For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins” (6:14-15). Forgiveness is critical to who we are and who God is making us to be. How can we come before God in prayer and tell God, “I refuse to forgive that other person,” when God has forgiven us much more than we can imagine? Forgive us, God. Forgive us.

This past Thursday was the National Day of Prayer, and it’s one of my favorite days in the community because we gather together not once, but twice to pray together as brothers and sisters in Christ. It’s one of those rare times when believers from across traditions can gather together. And part of our prayer is always a prayer of forgiveness. Lord, forgive us as individuals and as a nation for failing to follow your way. After all, God told the Hebrews, “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land” (2 Chronicles 7:14). Pray, seek God’s face, ask for forgiveness—as a nation, as a church, as individuals. Do you pray about your sin when you talk with God?

Then, the final piece of this prayer reminds us that life is a spiritual battle. “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one” (6:13). The word for temptation would be better translated as “testing,” and there’s an important difference there. “Temptation,” in our modern use of the word, gives the impression that God will lead us to a place where we might sin. That’s not what Jesus is saying; in fact, James directly says God doesn’t do that (cf. James 1:13). But there are tests God allows into our lives; we see that repeatedly in the Biblical story. Abraham, for instance, was tested when God asked him to sacrifice his son Isaac (Genesis 22). Paul was tested with a “thorn in the flesh” (2 Corinthians 12:7) that he asked God to remove. God refused and told him to rest in God’s grace. So there are tests God brings into our lives, to strengthen our character and help us become the people we were meant to be. That doesn’t mean, though, that every difficulty is a test. What Jesus tells us to pray here, thought, is that we would not be tested to the point where we would sin. Life is a spiritual battle, and I don’t say that so that we’ll look for demons or angels behind every bush. When I say “spiritual battle,” I mean that the world and the culture we live in are not conducive to spiritual growth. There are always things—sometimes very good things—that threaten to take us away from the path God has for us to walk. It’s a battle to remain faithful to Christ. And so we pray for God to give us the strength to win the battle. Lead us not into temptation, and deliver us from the evil one.

So three prayers about God: God’s name, God’s kingdom, and God’s will. And three prayers for us: sustenance, sin, and spiritual battle. Those are handles we can hang our prayers on. And remember, this is a conversation. The goal in this discipline, this exercise, is to connect with God.

Now, sometimes I get asked about prayer. For instance, some people ask if there is a proper posture for prayer. Some of you were taught as you grew up that you close your eyes, bow your head and fold your hands. It’s a sign of respect, we were told. And there’s nothing wrong with that posture, but in Jesus’ day, many people prayed with their eyes open, looking up toward heaven, hands out to the side. Others prayed with their face on the floor, laying out flat. That is, in fact, the way we’re told Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane on the night before he was crucified (Matthew 26:39). I watched Muslims in a Cairo airport pray kneeling and singing their prayers, and I saw Jews stand before the Wailing Wall, rocking back and forth, in deep conversation with God. There are as many ways to pray as there are people. We pray and we praise, and sometimes we get way too hung up on the right posture or the proper method. Sometimes we need to lighten up a bit.

VIDEO: Tim Hawkins, Hand Raising

So, did that help? Another question: I never hear a voice when I pray. God never responds audibly. Am I doing it wrong? No, you’re not. There are indeed stories in the Bible of God responding audibly, but there are many other stories of people who didn’t hear a voice, who simply prayed in faith and maybe never knew for sure whether their prayers were answered or not. Even in Gethsemane, we get no sense that Jesus heard the clear, audible voice of his heavenly Father. Remember, ultimately prayer is an act of trust.

Then, maybe one of the most frequent questions I hear: why should I pray if God already knows everything? Well, here’s the question: is prayer about giving information to God or is it, rather, about expressing our dependence upon God (Wilkins 274)? Maybe we spend too much time assuming God needs information, and we spell out the situation to God in great detail, when all God really wants is for us to come near to him. Prayer is an act of trust, and when we pray, we’re acknowledging that we can’t make it on our own. We can’t do it by ourselves. We need God’s strength, power, and presence in the midst of our situation. And when we pray, God then often turns us around and calls us to be answers to our own prayers. I often go back to a question I heard Dr. Maxie Dunnam ask a number of years ago: what if there are some things God either cannot or will not do until and unless God’s people pray? It’s a fascinating question, isn’t it? What if the maker of the universe is simply waiting on us to come to him so that, through us, he can bring healing to the nations? What if there are some things God either cannot or will not do until and unless God’s people pray? I believe that’s the reason Paul tells us to “pray continually” (1 Thessalonians 5:17). Don’t ever stop praying. Every moment is a moment of prayer, and when we do that, we are investing in hope for our future and the future of those we pray for.

So here’s the challenge for this week: if you’re not already regularly praying, set aside two or three times this week when you can spend, let’s say, at least ten minutes in God’s presence. You don’t have to talk the whole time. Let God’s spirit wash over you. Pray the Lord’s prayer. Pray your own words. Pray a breath prayer. The point is to spend time with your heavenly Father, and to develop a routine that will, eventually, become daily. Is your day rushed? Make a commitment right now to set your alarm ten minutes earlier or go to bed ten minutes earlier and spend that time in prayer. I would imagine we all spend way more time than that working or connecting to the internet or watching television. Can we spend just a few minutes a few times this week in prayer? If prayer is already a regular part of your day, then extend that time. Add five minutes this week, then a bit more next week. You know, we spend an average of twenty-four minutes a day just getting up and getting ready. And Jesus calls to us, “Could you not watch with me, could you not pray with me for just a while?” So, set aside time for specific prayer this week.

Here’s another way to approach it, a great idea stolen from Church of the Resurrection: Gather your family for a prayer time and bring along a bag of M&Ms. Pass the bag around, and have everyone take some, then use the colors of the candy to direct a family prayer time. Let’s say that for each green M&M they have, they can pray for one friend. For each red M&M, pray for a neighbor. For every orange one, pray for a teacher at school or church. For every yellow one, pray for a family member. For every blue one, pray for a leader in our country or in the world. Or you can choose your own topics. Pray one color at a time; give each family member the opportunity to pray for whom he or she chooses. And then, you can eat the rest of the M&Ms to end your prayer time. I’m sure you can come up with equally creative ideas for setting aside time as a family to pray.

Then, beginning this Thursday evening, our community churches will be hosting ten nights of prayer from Ascension Day to Pentecost, each night at a different church and in a different style. We’ve had people in the past who made many of those meetings and found each of them refreshing and encouraging. It’s just good to get out of our own walls and pray with brothers and sisters in Christ in a new way—sometimes even in a different language! There is a schedule in the bulletin and on the church Facebook page. Can you make it to one…two…more? You won’t be made to pray out loud if you don’t want to, but is a joy to pray with the body of Christ, to pray together for our city and for our world. In some way this week, can you set aside some time to develop a discipline of prayer?

This morning, we’re going to take part in another form of prayer. Have you ever thought of communion as prayer? It is. In fact, the seder meal that Jesus adapted for what we know as communion is really one long prayer. Jesus gave us this meal as a reminder of what he has done for us, of the way he gave his life for our salvation, and so when we celebrate communion, it’s really one long prayer of thanksgiving. That’s why, in some traditions, it’s called the “eucharist,” which is a Greek word meaning “thanksgiving.” This morning, I invite you to come to the table in a spirit of prayer and of thanksgiving, with grateful hearts for all that Jesus has done for us. At this table, let’s pray and invest in hope as we dream of the day when every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord (cf. Philippians 2:10). Let’s prepare our hearts for the bread and the cup.