Sermon 27th January 2008

Today, Sophie Corlett, a member of St Saviour's congregation (and former Churchwarden), looks at The Lord's Prayer

Give us this day our daily bread

Just recently Paris Hilton was disinherited by her grandfather – who saw that story? – no need to be shy, it was in the financial pages as well as the celeb gossip! Paris Hilton will not now be inheriting the $51m (£25m) she was due to see on the death of her grandfather. I gather that her comment when she heard this was that it didn’t really matter to her – ‘I’ve always earned my own money’.
Is that our attitude to prayer? Do we really believe that God has a role to play in our lives? Do we look on God as a good back up but essentially, not central to our day to day survival, because, like Paris Hilton we can say ‘I’ve always earned my own money’ - I work, I save, I’ve got my children into the right schools, I’ve put money away so they will be able to go to university, I’ve a house, health insurance, buildings insurance, contents insurance, car insurance, holiday insurance, pet insurance, a pension, an ISA, an education, good health, good taste – if I’m doing ok in my life, isn’t it down to me?
And it’s good to work hard and save sensibly and plan for the future. It’s good to look after ourselves and our families. But if this cushions us from realising our real dependence on God, these things become a distraction, a barrier.
We are a mixed congregation here. Some of us will know what it is to have experienced real poverty, or to be dependent on the kindness of others for food or for freedom. Others of us will never have known what it is to feel powerless; will never have been truly dependent since we were children, may not really understand what it is to know our future is in the hands of others. And as a society, we see dependence as something shameful; we use the term dependence culture as a way of disparaging people on benefits.
I don’t know enough about Paris Hilton to say how much she owes to her grandfather. But I do know that we owe everything to God. Despite appearances, we are not in control of our own destinies. The things we build up to protect us are not foolproof – even banks can collapse, our health will decline (unless we die first), our children can turn out bad despite all our efforts. We are frail, human, ephemeral, small and, at root helpless within a big wide universe that all our science hasn’t really understood. Although we are overwhelmingly fortunate to live in the century, continent and country we do, and many of us overwhelmingly fortunate to have the things we have, that fortune is in God’s gift. And we remain reliant on God every day for it.
And the first few lines of the Lord’s Prayer help us to remember this – they put us in the right attitude – they are bowing down before God. They remind us that we are not God’s equal, very far from it – we do not approach him as a casual friend, or even a millionaire grandfather, who might be able to help out with a favour, or worse, like an assertive customer approaching a shop assistant. We come on our knees, with an understanding of our complete dependence on God – even for our daily bread.
So – give us this day our daily bread.
That’s all it says. It doesn’t even expand on the bread much – just raises the request and moves on.
So why so short? Perhaps, because it keeps to the necessary. Bread - not steak, just bread – that would have been the most basic food in Jesus’ day. And today’s bread - not even enough for this week – just today’s.
Do we really need to be so Spartan in our requests? Surely if God cares for us, shouldn’t we be able to pray for all the things on our hearts? And we are so caught up with desires, and fears and anxieties, lots of different emotions. We may have debts to worry about, or family difficulties. Or we really want a better job or a new coat. We are worried about the state of the world, famine, terrorism. Huge global things and tiny things that in more rational moments we would admit are trivial. I don’t know about you, but when I pray, I usually get to the asking bits much earlier proportionately, than the Lord’s Prayer does. My requests just come tumbling out in a mass - or a mess! How could we begin to untangle them all anyway?
Well, I’m sure we shouldn’t be censoring our prayers to the things we think we ‘ought’ to pray for. But I do believe that if we spend some time bowing down before God, praying to see His Kingdom come on earth as in heaven, perhaps we can get our requests more into perspective. Jesus’ pattern in this prayer helps us focus on what is important; the less important things begin to drop away. I think this is what prayer is essentially about – as we spend time with God and we see things more and more from his point of view, our prayers become more in-line with what He wants, and as well we become more like Him.
I think the other reason that this request is so short is because it just doesn’t need to be longer. If you look back at the passage that immediately precedes this one there is a reminder that ‘your father knows what you need before you ask him’. We need only to lay our earnest request at his feet and leave it there.
So why do so many people not have what they need? Why does God still not seem to answer prayers that he can’t help but think are good? I can’t answer that – but I will say two things
First, God’s Kingdom hasn’t come yet – the world and the people who inhabit it are twisted out of shape. Bad things happen and they happen to good people.
And the second is, in praying for God’s Kingdom to come and for people to have what they need, we commit ourselves to action to help these things come about. Prayers are answered by God through people – that means me, you.
Awi Tong, a woman I met in Burma who runs an informal children’s home is an example of prayer at work. She looks after 25 children in her own house. Every morning the children and she get up and pray for an hour. Then they set about their day. And every day they have enough to feed the household – sometimes food they have grown, sometimes food they have bought, sometimes food that has been left on the doorstep. That’s how prayer should be; her and the children’s prayers, and the prayers of those who act to bring her food.
Forgive us the wrongs we have done as we forgive the wrongs that others have done to us.
There is no way around this, this is hard. God asks us to forgive those who have wronged us. And he doesn’t just mean people who wind us up. He means people who have really wronged us, hurt us. And forgiveness is not just about ignoring, or setting to one side, but it’s rubbing out the wrong and welcoming back the person who has hurt us. To quote a book I was reading forgiveness is ‘rich, hard, shocking, even reckless’, like the forgiveness that the father offered to his wayward son when he ran down the road to meet him.
Why and how can we do this? Why, because God says we must, or we won’t receive his forgiveness. How? Where does the strength come from to do this? From realising how little we can afford to be self-righteous. From knowing that God ran down the hill to meet us, from being so sure of God’s generosity to us that we can afford to be generous to others.
This may not be something that we ever achieve fully. And I think it’s probably a bit of a virtuous circle – the more we know we are forgiven, the more we forgive. And if the hurt and damage is very deep, it may take many years, and you may need to talk it through with someone who can help you.
I also want quickly to say, forgiveness does not mean returning to an abusive relationship or leaving yourself open to unnecessary exploitation. But it may mean giving a person some scope to wrong you again – the Sermon on the Mount is really uncompromising about this. We are called to be open, and sometimes vulnerable, to other people. Forgiveness is hard, shocking and reckless. But the rewards are rich – for God does heal hurts, and can mend some of the twisted aspects of our relationships and our world when we have the courage and love to forgive.

Our prayers, Cameron said at the beginning, reflect our beliefs. I think too, our prayers can affect our beliefs. The way the Lord’s Prayer is structured, the way it focuses on who God is, what he has done for us, changes our understand of our dependence on God and it puts our needs and ours and others’ wrongs into perspective. It brings us round to God’s way of thinking
And our prayers should also affect our actions. A big message of the Sermon on the Mount, which Jesus’ teaching on the Lord’s Prayer is a part of, is that what you do practically and what you do spiritually are part and parcel; either without the other is hollow. As we pray for God’s Kingdom to come, it should lead us to action – to help feed those who don’t have bread or the other essentials for a good life. As we remember God’s forgiveness to us we take practical steps to forgive others – by letting go of grudges, being open hearted to people. As we pray we change. And as we change, God’s Kingdom comes..

Sermon 13th January 2008

Today, our Associate Vicar, John Itumu, preaches based on the reading from Matthew 6: 5-15

Jesus presumes that his followers will pray. He starts this teaching about prayer with the words ‘when you pray…’

I will assume that we are in the category of the people being addressed. But even if you are not and don’t pray, I hope that you will find encouragement to start, even in a small way.

You see God desires to have an enduring and growing love relationship with us. He grieves that we have forgotten him. He longs and mourns and desires that we draw near to him. And he invites us to come home to that for which we were created – home to peace, serenity, joy, friendship, acceptance and affirmation.

The key to this home, this heart of God, is prayer. A relationship of love expressed through prayer. And he invites us all – everyone; his love is so amazing that it demands a response. I believe most of us can testify about God’s amazing love in our lives. God invites us all to pray! Everyone.

This includes you who has already tasted God’s love in the past but now feel disillusioned, disappointed, even almost faithless. It does not matter – our Father’s heart is still wide open.

You may be feeling bruised and broken. May be others have said terrible/untrue things that won’t just go away – old painful memories that keep haunting you.

You feel scarred for life, defiled, unworthy – and you have avoided prayer in trying to get away from all that. I have good news! Our Father’s heart is open wide- and you are welcome.

You probably have prayed for many years – nothing seems to change the situation. God feels remote and increasingly inaccessible. Please hear this. He still loves you and holds his arms open wide – for you. We can trust his wisdom.
May be you can attest to the Lord’s goodness and faithfulness in answered prayer – and you long for more. Our Father welcomes you to delve in deeper.

If the key to this home is prayer, then Jesus Christ is the door. God has provided a means of entrance through Jesus, the perfect and righteous one, who died in our place and rose again and stands victorious over sin and powers of evil.

Jesus Christ who showed his disciples then, and us today, how to pray; how to unlock the riches that our Father in heaven has kept for us. No longer do we need to stand outside; there is a key, prayer, available and given to us all. The onus to accept this invitation is our business.

The way to unlock the riches that God, our Father, who is in heaven has kept for us, is by asking that his kingdom come among us – and that his will be done in us.
But, since Jesus taught this prayer to first century Jews –how would they have understood ‘God’s kingdom’ coming among them?

We read that since the last king in the old Israel monarchy, life had been very hard for this small nation. The kingdoms had divided (north and south) they had been exiled to Babylon, and now were under a brutal Roman rule. All these events created a strong longing for an end to political dominion. They needed their freedom again as a nation.

When Jesus therefore speaks of the ‘coming of kingdom of God’ this evokes an entire story line that everyone knows so well. Kingdom language was bound up with the expectation and hopes of Israel. When will this suffering come to an end? It had nothing to do with the understanding of kingdom of God as a place where souls go to live after death. It was the simple Jewish language of Israel’s god becoming king. When this god became king then everything would be put right. They had been waiting for this a long time.

But Jesus subverts this Jewish world view of the kingdom. Early in his ministry the disciples of John the Baptist ask him ‘Are you the one who was to come or should we expect someone else’?

Jesus replies; Go back and report what you hear and see: the blind receive sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleaned, deaf hear, dead are raised and the good news is proclaimed to the poor…

This is what characterizes the ministry of Jesus – he went about loving, affirming, accepting the marginalized, pointing people to his Father in heaven.
But even after the resurrection they had not still got it
Acts 1:6
Lord are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?
All this betrays a doctrinal confusion about the kingdom. You see, the kingdom of God is not a territorial, geographical concept – like the UK. The kingdom of God is his rule, set up in the lives of his people. At another instance puts this in the context of our lives/existence. He says I have come that you may have life to the full John 10:10. That is the kingdom of God. In other words, when life is lived in Christ that is a full life! It is the best there can be.

Part of his answer as to whether he (Jesus) was going to restore the kingdom to Israel was that the power of the Holy Spirit would come upon them and the same would energize them to spread God’s rule over all the earth.

This kingdom would have broad international membership – beyond Israel, to the ends of the earth. Race, nationality, rank, sex cannot are no barriers to membership. This is the kingdom Jesus launched and proclaimed.
And this is what he teaches his followers to pray for.

Praying that God’s rule is established in our lives is simply revolutionary. May your kingdom come, may your will be done….

Let me explain. When God sets his rule upon our hearts, it changes us. If you want and greatly desire a change in your life, dare to pray this sincerely. May your kingdom come, your will be done…

When God’s rule is established, he gives us new lenses to see:
our enemies,
our unpleasant colleagues at work,
our spouses,
our families,
other people,
our commitment to the church fellowship,
he redefines our relationship with our money/wealth
he shows us Godly ways to deal with our anger

When God’s rule is established he gives us new perspectives/understanding about our unanswered prayers. And Jesus himself is our perfect example. When he agonized in Gethsemane, he left the final decision to his Father in heaven. Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will but yours be done. when we struggle with our unanswered prayers, it is helpful to remember God’s words in Isaiah 55:8-9: …his ways and plans are far beyond our thoughts

It is a very radical thing to ask for God’s kingdom and his perfect will. The good news is that this is possible if we desire and pray for it. We can start by reclaiming some of our day – waking hours (5 minutes for beginner?) to talk to our Father in heaven, who has instructed us to ask that his kingdom come among us, that his will be done. He wants us just as we are, to share simply and unpretentiously our joys, pains and concerns; to pray that his rule becomes the heartbeat of our lives.

But who does not know that our lives are very very busy – the kids, my job, the housework etc. Well, have you noticed that our busy schedules do not stop us from spending hours dining with friends, sleeping or taking a day off/holiday. Assuming we have nearly 1000 minutes in approx. 16 hr day, we can’t wait until some ten minutes appear from nowhere and then start to pray. We must create and reclaim these minutes from our day. It is our choice.

We can’t either wait until we feel right with God, become expert in praying to start praying. We can’t wait until all our motives are pure, eloquent like so and so, until we know the bible well enough to quote extensively in prayer.
Listen to the good news: God can handle our selfish/mixed motives, our lopsided views and hidden agenda in prayer. We will never be good enough or pure enough to pray rightly. We must simply just start praying. This has been sometimes described as simple prayer – the prayer of a child. We need not pretend to be more holy and saintly than we really are. And God meets us in that naivety, simplicity, innocence.

Is it not instructive that the teaching of Jesus in this passage concludes with ‘seeking God’s kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. This is God’s formula – if we really trust him, we shall start using it.

How exciting that we have a key available, to unlock God’s riches – forgiveness, tolerance, patience, self-control, generosity…name it. God can fix it –ask that his rule be established in your life!

This must be the single most important thing we can pray for – may your kingdom come, and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Asking for heaven’s values, God’s principles to touch us, influence us, engulf all that we are and do is revolutionary. So God may your kingdom come and may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Amen.

Sermon 6th January 2008

Today our Vicar, Cameron Barker, gives a sermon based on the reading from Matthew 6:5-15

Have you heard the one about a Vicar's five year-old daughter – and it wasn't my own, I promise! She noticed that her father always paused briefly, lowered his head, and closed his eyes before he preached. One day she asked him why he did it. Clearly proud of her powers of observation, he explained gently: “I'm asking God to help me to preach a good sermon”. After a brief pause of her own she asked, “Well how come God doesn't do it, then?”

Despite the obvious inherent dangers, I do want to pray before I go any further. It's a prayer by Eddie Askew, from his book called A silence and a shouting, in which he prays:

“Lord, teach me to pray.

It sounds so exciting, put like that.
It sounds real.
An exploration.
A chance to do more than catalogue
And list the things I want
To an eternal Father Christmas.
The chance of meeting you,
Of drawing closer to the love that made me,
And keeps me and knows me.
And, Lord, it’s only just begun.
There is so much more of you,
Of love, the limitless expanse of knowing you.
I could be frightened, Lord, in this wide county.
It could be lonely, but you are here, with me.

The chance of learning about myself,
Of facing up to what I am.
Admitting my resentments,
Bringing my anger to you, my disappointments,
my frustration.
And finding that when I do,
When I stop struggling and shouting
And let go
You are still there.
Still loving.

Sometimes, Lord, often –
I don’t know what to say to you.
But I still come, in quiet
For the comfort of two friends
Sitting in silence.
And it’s then, Lord, that I learn most from you.
When my mind slows down,
And my heart stops racing.
When I let go and wait in the quiet,
Realising that all the things I was going to ask for
You know already.
Then, Lord, without words,
In the stillness
You are there …
And I love you.

Lord, teach me to pray!”

I wonder if that's a prayer that you can say 'Amen' to – as in: is it one that you want to pray yourself? Would you like God to teach you to pray like that? Of course I hope that you do, because we're starting this new year by studying prayer! More than that, over the next four weeks we're asking God to teach us to how to pray. And I'm sure that no matter how many years any of us have been praying for, we all feel the need to do it better. I've never come across anyone who'd claim to be an expert in prayer, with nothing more to learn about it. Quite the opposite, in fact. I've only ever talked to people who feel like beginners at prayer. All Christians know that we need to pray, to communicate with God; but most of us don't think that we do it very well!

We're in good company, it must be said. In Luke's gospel Jesus taught this prayer that we're going to be looking at in response to his disciples asking him to teach them how to pray! That's why it's called The Lord's Prayer, of course – because Jesus himself taught it. And isn't it amazing that these words have stood the test of all that time? How great that this prayer is still as relevant and helpful today as it was nearly 2 000 years ago! It has so much to teach us about how to pray today, as we'll be learning over the next four weeks. But it's important to see and know it for what it is – and for what it isn't. So my task today is to introduce all that, as well as to talk about the first two lines of the prayer itself.

Now I know that we pray this prayer in church every week. But it's not meant to be used 'just' in that way. What Jesus was doing – as is particularly clear in Matthew's account – was giving his disciples a framework for their praying. The Lord's Prayer is in itself a way, or a pattern, for prayer. It could and should help us to avoid alling into some of the most common pitfalls of prayer. And, of course Jesus was talking to his disciples about precisely those pitfalls when he taught them how to pray like this in Matthew. We'll get to those pitfalls shortly; but first let’s also note where in Matthew Jesus taught this prayer, because that's also really crucial.

Chapter 6 is right in the middle of what's known as the Sermon on the Mount. This was Jesus teaching his disciples what it meant to be his disciples. It was about teaching them – and us, of course – how to be distinctive: in how we speak; in how we act; in how we relate to material possessions; in how we relate to one another; and, above all, in how we relate to God. Prayer is, of course – or should be – primarily about how we relate to God. It’s part of our worship of him too. And so it’s a key part of us being mission-shaped as well. But it has also been said – very accurately, I think – that what we truly believe about God shows most clearly in how, in what, and even in where we pray.

And that was at least partly the point that Jesus made when he pointed out the pitfalls of praying here in chapter 6. He warned his disciples not to follow the examples they saw around them, from fellow Jews, and from people of other religions. Yes, prayer was, and is, vital for relating to God. So think carefully about how you do it, Jesus said. Don't do it ostentatiously in full public view with many, big, long, or repeated words. This is about relating to God; so go and do it in private, where it is for and with him. Go and do it knowing that God knows not just what you need, but, as the Psalmist wrote, what you're going to say even before you speak! So, go and do it like this, Jesus said ...

We've almost got to the prayer itself; but there are still a few more things to be said before we do. The main thing to say is that this is hardly the definitive sermon on prayer – and nor could it ever be! So many people have got so much to say about prayer. A Google search (that took all of 0.15 seconds) came up with – wait for it! – 99 200 000 links on the subject! Yes, there’s much that has been said and written about prayer. And you could certainly do worse than to read Gill’s very helpful sermon on prayer from last November. She covered ground that I can’t now, though, like her, I'll also recommend Philip Yancey's very good book called Prayer, does it make any difference?

I’ll also recommend any Eddie Askew book, as a resource to use to help you to pray. We all need help with prayer, in different ways at different times. That’s precisely why Jesus taught us this pattern of prayer, of course. And so we come to the first 2 lines of it now – briefly, obviously, but still crucially. The opening of the Lord’s Prayer, like any beginning, is crucial. It’s crucial, because it sets the pattern for the rest of it – and so for our praying itself. The absolutely vital point to note, even though it is stating the obvious, is that prayer begins – as it must end – with God!

That’s so important, I’ll say it again: prayer begins, and ends with God. It’s so very easy when praying to jump straight to what we want to say. But, if we use this framework that Jesus gave us, then we’ll start with God instead – which is a far better place to begin our praying!It’s better because it reminds us who we’re speaking with. It also gives us the right perspective on the issues on our minds, because it puts them into context. Starting prayer with God instead of us reminds us too that we are coming to our loving heavenly Father. He is always more ready to listen than we to pray. He’s far from indifferent, to us, or to our prayers. And, because he is God, in heaven, he has the power to answer our prayers in the way that is best, for us and for him.

The other thing not to miss about the start of the Lord’s Prayer is that we’re speaking to ‘our’ Father. Yes, Jesus did say to go and pray in private – and that is where we are to do most of our praying. But this is a prayer that he taught us to pray together too. There is both power and encouragement to be had from praying together – as long as we don’t turn it into a hypocritical show, of course! The Lord’s Prayer is for both public and private use. That's reflected in the differences in the versions that we find in Matthew and Luke. Luke’s version is probably earlier, but it’s less user-friendly. The words that we read in Matthew in the NIV are pretty much as we say them today. They had likely been adapted for public, corporate use, even by this early stage of the church's life.

So, what is it that Jesus said we’re to start off praying for, whether on our own, or together? Jesus said that we’re to pray first for our heavenly Father’s name to be ‘hallowed’. The GNB does us the favour of explaining what that means in its translation of verse 9: ‘may your holy name be honoured’. That’s what it means for God’s name to be ‘hallowed’: that God is honoured in the way that he should be. And all the commentators agree that 5th line, ‘on earth as it is in heaven’ apply to all the first three petitions of the Lord’s Prayer, by the way. So we start by praying to our heavenly Father. And we pray first for his name – which sums up all of who and what he is – to be respected and honoured and valued. We pray for that to happen as much on earth as it does in heaven. And that’s a pretty big prayer in itself, if you stop and think about it!

Not surprisingly, there are plenty more big things to come yet in this prayer. But we’re going to have to wait for those, as they’ll be spread out between now and the start of Lent. These are more enough to be getting on with for now, though. So I have no hesitation in challenging us to spend the next week thinking about and praying to God as our Father. What does it mean that we can come to the God who made the world as our Father? What impact does it have, on us and on his world, that he is in heaven? What does that say about who he is, and what he’s capable of? What does it tell us about what he wants if we focus on him? And what does it mean for his name to be honoured here on earth as it is in heaven? And, if you finish all those, then try asking him how you can be the answer to your own prayer in making that happen this week!

The Lord’s Prayer is a wonderful tool, that we can use to help us to pray. As this year begins I invite us all to use it then, as God intended – to pray. And let's be ready to be amazed by what God can, and will, do. So let’s pray …