Sermon 24th June 2012

Today, our Curate, Gill Tayleur, preaches about The Lord's Prayer

THE LORD’S PRAYER 

YOUR KINGDOM COME, YOUR WILL BE DONE, ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN

Have you heard how young children are said to have mis-learned the Lord’s Prayer?

There’s Our Father who does art in heaven! Howard be thy name! Give us this day our deli bread! Or jelly bread – they must both be American. Lead us not into temptation

but deliver us some email. Groan.

Today we’re taking our second look at the Lord’s Prayer. Last week Cameron started us off, introducing the Lord’s Prayer as we read it in Matthew’s gospel (chapter 6). This morning we’ve just read from Luke, and straight away we see that the prayer is shorter in Luke. Some of the lines we are used to saying in the LORD’S PRAYER, are from how it’s given in Matthew’s gospel, and aren’t in this one in Luke. For example, Luke has “your kingdom come” but Matthew has “your kingdom come, may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

 Most scholars say that’s probably because Luke wrote earlier than Matthew, and by the time Matthew was written a few years later the prayer was already in liturgical use, that is, being prayed in group worship. But of course as Jesus gave this as the model for prayer, it’s very possible that he did so on more than one occasion, sometimes an expanded version, sometimes not.

Anyway, this is our first look together at the Lord’s Prayer in Luke, and I want to start by looking at its context. In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus teaches his followers to pray the LORD’S PRAYER having spoken about the importance of integrity and humility, saying not to pray loudly and proudly, for everyone to see and be impressed. Instead, Jesus says, go do it in private and with sincerity.

Here in Luke’s gospel, Jesus gives the LORD’S PRAYER to his disciples in response to a request. One of the disciples asked him to teach them to pray. Presumably this was partly because they’d seen him pray, as it says the disciple asked when Jesus had finished praying. But the request says, “teach us to pray, just as John (the Baptist) taught his disciples”. It was a normal thing for followers of a rabbi or religious leader to have their own set prayer or prayers. It was an expression of their common identity as a group, and brought a sense of unity and family.

Jesus replies, “When you pray, say...”. The words used for ‘when you pray’ are you plural, when you all pray, or pray together. And of course every single aspect of the LORD’S PRAYER, as we have it from Luke and from Matthew, is also in the plural. OUR father, give US OUR daily bread, forgive US OUR sins/debts, lead US not into temptation/or evil, and so on. Prayer, like so many aspects of Christian discipleship, isn’t just a solitary thing we do alone, we also do it together. We follow Jesus together, as a community, as a family.

One more introductory thing about the Lord’s Prayer in Luke’s gospel. After the prayer, Jesus tells a story to encourage his disciples to be confident in prayer. It’s a funny little story about a man who wanted bread for an unexpected guest in the middle of the night. This story or parable reflects the culture of the time. In the ancient world, food wasn’t as readily available as it is today. Most food was prepared daily, as there weren’t preservatives. That culture valued hospitality very highly indeed, and hosts were expected to provide for even unexpected guests. So the man who received a late-night guest had a problem - he had a guest but no food. He had to make a choice: either to be rude by not welcoming this guest with food or to get food from a neighbour, who may be able to help but would be asleep in bed. And of course most ancient Palestinian homes had only one room and one bed, so waking the father would mean waking the whole family.

And that’s what happens. The man does go to his friend, does get him up and does get bread for his guest. And Jesus uses this story to teach about being bold, unashamed, and persistent in prayer. And he follows the story up with exhortations to further encourage confidence in prayer: “ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find

knock, and the door will be opened to you.”

This kind of prayer has holy boldness, an insistent asking, a search that refuses to give up. They should be the hallmarks of our prayer too. We can be confident that our loving heavenly father is ready and waiting to respond to us, not to give us everything we want, but in the context of the Lord’s Prayer, to give us our daily bread or needs. More about that next week.

Back to the beginning then. Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come.

The prayer starts with God, with his name and his kingdom, not with us and our needs or wants. It starts with the desire that God’s kingdom becomes fully present, for the beauty and glory of heaven to be turned into earthly reality as well. We’ll look at what that means in more detail in a moment, but in the places and situations where God’s kingdom reign is an earthly reality, his name, his character, reputation, his very presence, is held in high honour everywhere.

So the first half of the prayer is all about God. It’s not about me, it’s about God. Prayer that doesn’t start there, with God, is always in danger of concentrating on ourselves, and very soon it stops being prayer altogether and collapses into the random thoughts, fears and longings of our own minds.

What a lesson for us! I so easily slip into prayer being my list of my requests, rather than starting with recognising who God is, our loving heavenly father, and what he’s like, for his holiness to be honoured/hallowed, and what he has done and will do, in bringing in his Kingdom reign. Prayer must be centred on God, not me.

...

Now, to look at the particular phrase we are focusing on this week: your kingdom come. In Matthew, it says, “your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

Scholars say that the grammar of this sentence means that the phrase, “on earth as it is in heaven” actually applies to all 3 parts that go before:

(Our Father in Heaven)

honoured be your name, on earth as it is in heaven

your kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven

your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

“On earth as it is in heaven” applies to all 3 parts.

So, first let’s clarify what’s meant by heaven and earth.

Heaven and earth are the 2 interlocking arenas of God’s good world. Heaven is God’s space, where God’s authority rules and his future purposes are waiting in the wings.

Earth is our world, our space. The two are separate, but touching, for now. But think of the vision at the end of Revelation, about the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from heaven to earth when Jesus comes again. God’s space and ours, heaven and earth, will finally be integrated. That newly renewed and recreated earth, with God and his rule central, is what we have to look forward to for all eternity. That’s what heaven will be. But now, it’s God’s space, where his rule, his glory and his love abound, and earth is our space.

Your kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven. So what’s God’s kingdom?

Well let’s start with what Jesus’ listeners would understand God’s kingdom coming to mean. The idea of God coming as King was a familiar and welcome one. They were fed up with the other kings they’d had for so long. As far as they were concerned, the Roman emperors were a curse, and the Herodian dynasty was a joke. They were longing for God to come as the true king, to step into history and claim the crown and the kingdom for his own. Prophets had promised it. Ezekiel, Zechariah, Isaiah and Malachi had all prophesied about God coming in power to rule his people. And when Israel’s God came as king, the evil empire would be defeated and God’s people would be set free at last. And bring God’s healing and light to all nations through them. This idea had echoes of the Exodus story, when God’s people were brought out from Egypt and freed!

So Jesus’ listeners were familiar and eager for God’s kingdom to come, anticipating it bringing bread for the hungry, forgiveness for the sinner and deliverance from the powers of darkness.

Now, this side of the death and resurrection of Jesus, we know that Jesus did fulfil these prophesies in bringing in the kingdom of God, but not in the way the people expected. The freedom he brought wasn’t freedom from the oppression of Roman rule, but from the tyranny of evil, sin and death! Jesus spoke and acted as if evil’s long reign would finally be defeated through his own work. And Jesus spoke of his work in these same terms, of the new and right king coming. He told stories about a king or a master returning to his servants to see what they were up to.

In his life, death and resurrection, Jesus did indeed bring in the kingdom of God. He defeated the power of sin and death, and paved the way for the complete and full reign of God forever, when heaven and earth will be fully united.

But that’s not yet. God’s kingdom has come, and still has yet to come fully. Which explains why there is still evil, still sin, injustice, guilt, hunger and everything else that won’t be part of God’s kingdom when heaven and earth are united as one.

Tom Wright says think of it like this. Think of Jesus as the medical genius who discovered penicillin. And think of us as doctors, ourselves being cured by the medicine and now applying it to those who need it.

Or think of Jesus as a musical genius who wrote the greatest music of all time. Think of us as the musicians, captivated by his music ourselves, who now perform it to a world full of muzak and cacophony.

The kingdom did indeed come with Jesus, but it will only fully come when all the world is healed, when the whole creation finally joins in the song. But it must be Jesus’ medicine, must be Jesus’ music. And the way to be sure of that is to pray his prayer.

To pray for God’s kingdom to come, on earth as it is in heaven. We’re praying for that final marrying of earth and heaven when Jesus comes again, and we’re also praying for God’s kingdom rule on earth even now, even as it is. It’s like praying for the spread of that healing medicine, for the spread of the glorious music. Praying for God’s kingdom rule of his love and justice and mercy and grace and glory and delight and joy and goodness and kindness, for them to be manifest, to be happening, here and now, on earth as it is in heaven.

At its simplest, God’s kingdom is everywhere God and his traits, his values, reign as king.

So when we pray your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven, we pray seeing the world as needing his kingship: we see the world as the spectacularly beautiful creation that it is, but we see it battered and battle scarred, needing to be saved from evil.

And we pray for it to be brought under his kingship, saved, evil defeated, for heaven and earth to be united at last, for God to be all in all.

Tom Wight says praying like this is the way we sign up for the work of the kingdom. It’s the way we take the medicine ourselves, so that we may be strong enough to administer it to others. It’s the way we retune our instruments, to play God’s music for the world to sing.

And if we pray this way, we must be prepared to live this way. To be kingdom bearers.

Which brings us to ‘your will be done’. It’s another way of saying I’m up for it, I’ll join in! I’ll pray for it and I’ll act for it. It’s not just a resigned, “Oh well, if God’s really determined to do something then I guess I can live with it”. Praying your will be done is an active commitment to join in making it happen, an active commitment to instant, complete, joyful obedience to God and his will. Your will be done – in my life! Your will be done – in the situations I face today! Your will be done in the people I meet! By MY love and service for them. By MY fighting for justice. By MY involvement in God’s purposes anywhere and everywhere I perceive them to be.

Your will be done is the phrase of an apprentice. Last week Cameron said that praying this prayer is a way of signing on as an apprentice of Jesus, as one who learns by watching and doing. Jesus prayed ‘your will be done’, to his Father God, in the garden of Gethsemane, when faced with the agony of death by torture on the cross. If he could pray it in those circumstances, surely we can in ours?

So, here we have a model or framework for prayer given by our master, Jesus himself. It isn’t just a string of petitions. It’s a prayer for people who are following Jesus on a kingdom journey. This prayer grows out of the mission of Jesus himself, and is ideal both as it stands and as a framework for wider praying, for his followers ever since.

So, how are we going to pray it? We’re going to pray it together a bit later, as Jesus said to in Luke’s gospel, when you plural pray. But how are we going to pray it individually, as Jesus said to in Matthew’s gospel? Last week Cameron gave 3 very helpful suggestions on how to pray this prayer from Tom Wright’s book, and in case you weren’t here last week, may I say them again?

Maybe you’d like to try breathing it 3 times daily, say. If you’ve never prayed in this way before, you focus on one phrase as you breathe in, and on the next as you breathe out, until you’ve gone through the whole prayer. Or perhaps you’d rather try praying it phrase by phrase, each day, adding to these headings that Jesus gave. The third option is by taking the Lord’s Prayer a phrase a day, as this series divides it. Or try all 3 of these ways of praying the Lord’s Prayer over the next few weeks.

One very practical tip in this week’s chapter of Tom Wright’s book, is about how we include our bodies in our prayer. Your kingdom come on earth as in heaven – we who pray it are also bits of that earth, made from lumps of clay. And so our bodies are included in how we pray, in the physical act of prayer. What posture helps you pray best? Kneeling, lying face down, standing, walking, crossing your arms, lifting them?!

The ideal posture, we’re told, is relaxed but not slumped, poised but not tense, alert but not fidgety, humble but content in the presence of the creator we are learning to call Father. Find the posture that suits you, gestures that express and symbolise the life and love of the Father for you and you for him, and you’ll teach your body as well as your mind, heart and soul to pray too.

So, let’s get praying. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

As Tom Wright says, if we learned a bit better how to do this, to pray it and to live it, the medicine and the music of the gospel might make fresh inroads into the sick and cacophonous world all around us. So let’s get going!

Sermon 17th June 2012

Today, our Vicar, Cameron Barker, preaches based on the reading from Mark 6 verses 5 to 15. 

So, have you heard the one about when Little Johnny was having Sunday lunch at his Granny’s with his whole family?

Well, they were all seated at the table with the food being served. As soon as Little Johnny got his portion, he started to eat.

“Johnny! Wait until we say our prayer, please,” his mother said.

“I don't need to,” he replied.

“Of course, you do,” his mother insisted. “At home we always pray before eating.”

“Yes, we do at our house,” Johnny explained. “But this is Granny’s house; and she knows how to cook.”

Believe it or not, I do think that is a very good introduction to this new series on prayer. It’s honest: not just in a child-like way, but in the way that I think the Bible encourages us to be in, and about prayer. And, if we can’t at least start out with a decent bit of honesty, then we might as well not start at all, I’d say. So I’ll continue in the same vein, then: with the admission that we have indeed been here before. This isn’t a memory test: so, we last studied this, Lord’s, prayer 4½ years ago. Some people may even remember the series of midweek workshops that was based on this prayer, way back in 2001. Even if you do remember every detail of both series, though, there is one thing that is for sure: we still haven’t anything like plumbed the depths of this amazing prayer.

My reading this week included a description of the Lord’s prayer as being like new baby’s mug-and-spoon set. It’s almost the first gift that we are given as Christians – not least because most churches do pray it almost every week. The Lord’s prayer is so much more than that, though. That description went on to how it’s also like a suit of clothes, that has been made to be worn by a grown-up. Every time we put it on – as in, when we pray it – we realise afresh that we have still got plenty of growing to do. At least, we will realise that if we pay proper attention to what it is that we’re praying, in the way that Jesus intended us to. So this prayer is like an entire journey in itself, then: the end brings us back to the beginning of it – which will then be a place that we don’t recognise.

The source of all those thought-provoking ideas is part of the reason why this series on the Lord’s prayer will be so different to the previous ones. This is the first time that we have based it on a particular book. If you didn’t put in an order for Tom Wright’s “The Lord and His Prayer”, you may well want to buy one. Of course you’ll pick up plenty if you ‘just’ listen to the sermons each week, and/or visit our website. But you’re more likely to learn life-changing praying habits if you have this book to return to time and again in the years ahead. Of course you are most likely to learn life-changing praying habits if you pray regularly; and most specially by praying this prayer in particular!

So there’s the series’ first challenge: to pray more regularly than you do now: starting today. I’m prepared to bet that there is nobody here who thinks they pray enough – let alone well enough! Tell me I’m wrong, if you can: I can’t myself. So how about we all start with a clean slate, from today? How about we use one of Tom Wright’s three particular methods to pray this prayer? Maybe you’d like to try ‘breathing’ it, three times daily, say. If you’ve never prayed in this way before, you focus on one phrase as you breathe in, and on the next as you breathe out, until you’ve gone through the whole prayer. Perhaps you’d rather try praying it phrase by phrase, each day, and adding to these headings that Jesus gave. The third option is by taking the Lord’s prayer a phrase per day, as this series divides it – though these are far from the only three ways of praying it, of course. But how about we each sign up to do one, or some combination, of these methods for the 6 weeks until the summer, and see what happens? It’s always possible that we’ll never be the same again!

That is possible because prayer so often changes the pray-er – and not least because it’s meant to! As Tom Wright points out, however firm, or vague, our faith may be, we usually start out with some big mess, or a pressing need that we want God to sort out, or supply. In the process of telling God about that – as we are so good at doing – we start to realise Who it is that we’re speaking to. Our thoughts begin to shift, a little: it might even become a 2-way conversation. Perhaps our priorities start to change, as we realise we have been not a little selfish, demanding even. And, before you know it, we may find ourselves asking God to make us the answer to our own prayers!

I’m more convinced than ever that this is why the Lord’s prayer begins as it does. Jesus’ intent was to set us off on the right path, in two ways. First, it’s by not thinking about ME, but rather about us; and then, second, by very quickly getting us to focus on God – who is our Father, in heaven. There is plenty enough in there to change our perspective – and to take up the rest of this sermon, but still barely scratch the surface of what’s here. Our standard hope as preachers – following the example of our great Teacher himself – can only ever be to help people want to dig deeper, or go further with God. Yes, prayer, like so much else in the Christian life, is something that we can, and must, do together. But prayer is very much something we must each take responsibility for ourselves too.

I hope you’re already enthused about the idea of doing it. Tom Wright has a wonderful description for prayer: yes, when we pray we are pursuing a mystery: what is it, how does it work? But it is also about “Listening, and responding, to a voice that we think we’ve heard; it’s following the light that beckons us around the next corner; it’s laying hold of the love of God – which has already somehow laid hold of us”. And so we start praying in the right place: by focusing on God: our Father; in heaven. By definition, He is able to do all things: but knowing that as a reality is a goal which we are working towards in prayer, rather than where have we already reached. It’s by praying that we get to know our Heavenly Father better.

Tom Wright has plenty to say about the meaning of God as Father – very appropriately so on this Father’s Day. No, that’s not always a helpful concept for some: too many of us earthly fathers are too imperfect. But it’s an idea that’s still worth engaging with for what it teaches about God. I’ll then point you to the book for the detail, with the trailer that Jesus didn’t invent this idea. God as Father goes right back, to Exodus; it also runs through the promise of Messiah; so there are themes of revolution and liberation, and clear strands of a sure hope in it. What Tom Wright majors on, though, is the idea of Son as the Father’s apprentice – which works just as well for both genders. Isn’t it so true that we learn best by watching – and then doing, under the guidance of – someone who knows how to do that particular task?

As ever, Jesus is the prime example of this key principle in practise. Where we see it most clearly is in the Garden of Gethsemane. In blood-soaked prayer the Son checked with his Father that he was doing it right, doing what it took, to fulfil those centuries-old promises. Together the Father and Son rescued the whole world from evil, injustice, fear, and sin. On the cross that awaited Jesus’ obedience as his Father’s Son, the good news of God’s kingdom of freedom and justice became real – at such a cost. Jesus came to bring in that kingdom, in this way; as well as that, he came to teach us how to live in that kingdom, and to pray it in – like this.

Over these next 6 weeks we’ll examine how what we call the Lord’s prayer is Jesus’ summary of his kingdom. It describes both what it looks like, and how it is to live in it – now and eternally. We’ll look at this prayer in both of the shapes that it appears in the New Testament. We’ll think about the settings of each, and what else they teach us about prayer. We’ll take it phrase by phrase, and use it as the scaffold that Jesus intended us for to build our living and our praying of his kingdom around. But that all starts, and goes from here, with our Father, in heaven. Tom Wright says calling Him that isn’t just the cheeky boldness of walking into the presence of the living God and saying, “Hi Dad”. It’s the bold risk of saying to Him, “Please may I too be considered an apprentice”. To call God Father is nothing less than signing up for the kingdom of God.

To conclude this series opening, I really can’t do any better than an extended quote from Tom Wright’s book. It reads: “When we call God ‘Father’ we’re called to step out, as apprentice children, into a world of pain and darkness ... If we take the risk of calling Him ‘Father’ then we are called to be the people through whom the pain of the world is held in the healing light of the love of God. Then we discover that we want, and need, to pray this prayer. Father, our Father; our Father in heaven, may your name be honoured. That is, may you be worshipped by your whole creation; ... may the world be freed from injustice, disfigurement, sin, and death ... And as we stand in the presence of the living God, with the darkness and the pain of the world on our hearts, praying that He will fulfil His ancient promises ... then we discover that our own pain and darkness is somehow being dealt with as well ... ”

Prayer isn’t “shouting into a void, or getting in touch with our own deepest feelings ... It is the rhythm of standing in the presence of the pain of the world, and kneeling in the presence of the creator of the world; of bringing those 2 things together in the name of Jesus and by the victory of the cross ... When we call God ‘Father’ we are making the same astonishing, crazy, utterly risky claim [that Jesus did] ... Our task is to grow up into the Our Father ... seeking daily bread and daily forgiveness as we do so ... to feast at the table (of our older brother), to weep with him in the garden, to share his suffering, and to know his victory. So, [as some formal liturgies introduce this prayer] as our Saviour taught and commanded us, by his life and death, we are bold, some might even say crazy to pray” ... If you are that bold, and that crazy, then pray with me now:

Our Father in heaven,

hallowed be your name,

your kingdom come,

your will be done,

on earth as in heaven.

Give us today our daily bread.

Forgive us our sins

as we forgive those who sin against us.

Lead us not into temptation

but deliver us from evil.

For the kingdom, the power,

and the glory are yours

now and for ever.

Amen.