Sermon 22nd July 2012

Today, our Vicar, Cameron Barker, completes our study of The Lord's Prayer.

Following the fine example of the Lord’s prayer itself, I will end this series in the same way that I began it. I should then add that this one is in honour of the Open Championship that also ends today.

So, it’s a story about a golfer, now into his golden years. His lifelong ambition was to play one particular hole at Pebble Beach, California in the way that the pros do. They drive their ball over the waves, onto a green that juts out into the ocean.

He’d tried it many times before, without any success. His ball always fell into the water. So he never used a new ball on this hole. He always picked one with a cut or a nick. But one day, while playing one more round, at that fateful hole, as he teed up an old ball as usual, he muttered a silent prayer.

Before he drove, a voice from above said, “REPLACE THAT OLD BALL WITH A BRAND-NEW ONE.”

He did as he was told, with some misgivings, despite this apparent Word from the Lord. As he confidently stepped up to hit the ball, the voice said: “TAKE A PRACTICE SWING FIRST.”

Again he did as he was told. When he thought that he was ready to hit it for real, the voice boomed out, “TRY THAT AGAIN.” He did. Silence followed. Then the voice spoke out once more: “PUT THE OLD BALL BACK.”

The best that I can offer in terms of a spiritual point from that story also goes back to the first sermon in this series. Quoting from “The Lord and his prayer”, the Tom Wright book that we have based our teaching on, I said the Lord’s prayer is like a new baby’s mug-and-spoon set. It is almost the first gift that we are given as Christians – because most churches pray it almost every week. But the Lord’s prayer is so much more than that. That same description goes on to say how it’s also like a suit of clothes that has been made to be worn by grown-up. Every time we put it on – pray it – we realise afresh that we have still got plenty of growing to do. Or that’s what we should realise – if we pay proper attention to what it is that we are praying, in the way that Jesus intended, I said. And maybe that is the point in the golf story: as we get to the end of this series, we know that we really do still have lots of room to grow into, in our understanding, and in our praying alike.

As promised, it has been quite a journey that we have been on through these past six weeks. The ending of the Lord’s prayer does bring us back to the beginning of it – and it does indeed look like a very different place now that is has. I do then wonder whether you would say that of yourself: are you in a different place now, compared to when we began? I can remember inviting all of us to pray the Lord’s prayer, in full or in part, every day for these 6 weeks. Have you managed that, or something close to it? And what difference has however you have prayed made to you, would you say? How has it changed you personally; and/or changed how you pray? And so where will you go from here in your praying; and in your living?

Those are the important questions for each of us to ask: those who are Christians are called to be God’s praying people, who live out our faith in the reality of God’s Kingdom. We have been hearing how this prayer that Jesus taught to his disciples encapsulates his understanding of that Kingdom: what it looks like, what it means to live in it, and to live for its coming. To call God ‘Father’, as Jesus did, is to sign up to be his fellow apprentice. It is to learn from our perfect parent how to work for His holy name to be honoured. We are also saying that we want His Kingdom to come, and for His will to be done in the same way: just like it is in heaven, so also here on earth. These are bold, and dangerous requests and promises to make – and then to keep.

Jesus’ prayer starts – and ends – with God; but of course there is room for us in there too. Now today can only ever be a concluding summary of the whole. Visit our website, or ask for printed copies, for the detail of how to pray and live the beginning, as well as the middle parts, of this amazing prayer. But for me the 2 stand-out features of the middle part of it are these. First, when it comes to us, it is ‘us’, not ‘me’! So we go from ‘Our Father’ to ‘Give us our ...’. It’s not ‘Give me my ...’ – which is what probably comes more naturally to us humans, and always has done, I’d guess. And then, second, what stands out is that Jesus taught us to pray for what we need, not for what we want. Of course there will be times when those 2 are the same; but maybe not so often. In God’s kind of praying we are to choose what we need – daily bread; forgiveness, for us and towards others; to stand firm when tempted; and be delivered from evil, and the devil.

There may be more to say on those later; but where they have brought us is to this, the final phrase of Jesus’ prayer. “For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours, now and for ever. Amen”. And I don’t doubt that you have all noticed one obvious feature of this ending. How we pray to conclude the Lord’s prayer is not as we read it in the Bible: not here in Luke, nor where we find this prayer in Matthew’s gospel either! There is a footnote in Matthew, saying that some later manuscripts do have this ending. Scholars think that Matthew was written later than Luke, and also that his version of this prayer shows signs of regular liturgical use. No scholars say that Jesus used this ending that we do; but they are all sure that Jesus would have finished his prayer with something like it!

Jewish prayer often ended in a doxology, as this is known – in other words, a phrase praising God. The only question, then, is which one Jesus would’ve used. It’s an academic question, though: we can’t know anything other than that this is the one that the church has used off and on for nearly 2 000 years! Tom Wright says that it does chime perfectly with the rest of Jesus’ prayer; and who could argue with him? God’s Kingdom; God’s power; and God’s glory are what it’s all about. To end like this is then to pray for God’s alternative vision of reality not ‘just’ to be a vision, but to become reality, here and now.

What this ending evokes, Tom Wright says, is the cross as the ultimate redefinition of what Kingdom and power and glory are. Right from the beginning of the gospel there has been a stark contrast between God’s Kingdom coming in Jesus, and the kingdom represented by Caesar. Jesus is the true king, but his power and glory are seen in a manger, in a garden and on a cross. That is what Christians believe, we say. If we pray this prayer we are asking for this kingdom, with this kind of power and this glory to be seen in all the world. Our starting point is to submit our own life to God’s alternative kingdom-vision. But this is what Tom Wright calls a prayer of mission and commission. So we must also work and pray for this vision to come in reality, often by subverting this world’s kingdoms.

This prayer that we have, and pray, isn’t magic (though we can try to use it that way). What it is is an appeal “To the one who has taken on the power of the world, and has defeated it with the power of the cross; who has confronted the glory of the world and has outshone it with the glory of the cross”. Even so, as Tom Wright also puts it, “When we pray in the name of Jesus, we find, again and again, that what we want to pray for subtly changes as we focus on Jesus himself. So we must be ready, in great things and in small, to put our plans and hopes on hold and let God remake them as we gaze upon him, revealed in the inglorious glory of the manger, in the powerless power of the cross. But when we allow that to happen, bit by bit, and then come with holy boldness into the presence of our Father, we discover he really does have, prepared for those who love him, such good things as pass human understanding”.

It really is quite a prayer: it truly has an amazing impact when we pray it, and live it, as if we really believe it. No wonder then, that it has stood the test of time, and is just as relevant and as powerful today as it was 2 000 years ago. So, as I also quoted as we began this series, our task, then is “To grow up into the Our Father ... seeking daily bread and daily forgiveness as we do so  ... feasting at the table (of our older brother), weeping with him in the garden, sharing his suffering, and knowing his victory”. We are to do that in how we live, and in how we pray this prayer that Jesus has taught us – if we dare to.

And so it’s right to end on a note of caution, almost. I’ve not been able to find the source of this quote, but it has been around for some time, as the language of it suggests. You see, as this series ends today we are invited to commit ourselves to keep on daring to pray Jesus’ prayer. Here then is a shorthand reminder of what we are signing up for when we do. So:

“I cannot pray “OUR” if my faith has no room for others and their need.

I cannot pray “FATHER” if I do not demonstrate this relationship to God in my daily living.

I cannot pray “WHO ART IN HEAVEN” if all my interests and pursuits are in earthly things.

I cannot pray “HALLOWED BE THY NAME” if I am not striving for God’s help to be holy.

I cannot pray “THY KINGDOM COME” if I am unwilling to accept God’s rule in my life.

I cannot pray “ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN” unless I am truly ready to give myself to God’s service here and now.

I cannot pray “GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY BREAD” without expending honest effort for it, or if I would withhold from my neighbour the bread that I receive.

I cannot pray “FORGIVE US OUR TRESPASSES AS WE FORGIVE THOSE WHO TRESPASS AGAINST US” if I continue to harbour a grudge against anyone.

I cannot pray “LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION” if I deliberately choose to remain in situation where I am likely to be tempted.

I cannot pray “DELIVER US FROM EVIL” if I am not prepared to fight with my life and my prayer.

I cannot pray “THINE IS THE KINGDOM” if I am unwilling to obey the King.

I cannot pray “THINE IS THE POWER AND THE GLORY” if I am seeking power for myself and my own glory first.

I cannot pray “FOREVER AND EVER” if I am too anxious about each day’s affairs.

I cannot pray “AMEN” unless I honestly say “Not MY will, but THY will be done.”

And if you want to say ‘Let all this be so’ for you, then say ‘Amen’ ...