Sermon on July 27, 2025
“Teach Us to Pray”
By: Rev. Debbie Hawkins

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‘Lord, teach us to pray,’ someone said. ‘John teaches his disciples. We are your disciples. Teach us how to pray like you. You chose us but we also chose you. You have something we can’t quite put our finger on, but we want it too and it has something to do with prayer. Should we hold our hands like this or like this. Should we stand or kneel or sit? Do we dare be as bold as Abraham? Lord, teach us to pray.’

So, he does. A few short declarative statements. Say this. Ask for that. Then he tells a funny story and gives a few explanations, all of which come down to just pray, don’t worry how you look, or what other people think, or about getting things right. Just pray.

The prayer Jesus teaches us comes in different versions. Ernie read us Luke’s version this morning. Matthew has one, too. It is a tad longer. I suspect Jesus didn’t always say the prayer in exactly the same way every time he prayed or taught it.

There is another version in the Didache, that early church combination book of common prayer and vestry handbook. There are two translations in our BCP. Other Christian traditions use other translations.

The Lord’s Prayer is used in different circumstances. We pray the prayer alone, sometimes in the dark. We pray it in gathered groups at weddings, and funerals, at corporate worship on Sunday mornings and other days, and as a closing rite at a lot of 12-step meetings.

Depending on the context, we can hear slightly different meanings in the phrases. They have a lot of depth. Regardless of the circumstances, the basic outline is the same.

We begin by reminding ourselves to whom we are speaking: Our Father. Jesus uses the word ‘father’ as an indication of intimacy. A relationship as close, as loving, as trustworthy as any we can imagine. We are addressing the one who delights in us, to whom we can bring anything.

Luke just begins the prayer with ‘Father’ but the ‘our’ is important. Not my father or your father but our father, the God and father of all.

‘Our Father’ ‘In heaven.’ The one who is unfathomably beyond and unknowable. ‘Hallowed be your name.’ We are awed by the wonder and mystery of the one we approach.

‘Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.’ Jesus said the kingdom is among us, but is it? It is hard to see sometimes so there is a yearning in our hearts for God to hurry up and fix things.

Here’s the tricky bit, though. According to Professor Herman Waetjen, (Vate-yen), Professor emeritus of biblical studies at San Francisco Theological Seminary and author of Praying the Lord’s Prayer, if you pay attention to the tenses of the Greek verbs in both Luke and Matthew, then this phrase, like the previous one, is addressed to us.

It is not a plea for God to do something. It is a reminder to us of who we are and what we as Christians are called to be. Jesus said the kingdom is among us. In our baptism we have been buried with Christ and raised to new life in his resurrection.

We live in God’s new creation, in God’s Kingdom on Earth. We are to incarnate that reality in our daily lives. I don’t know about you but I forget that a lot.

As fr. Greg Boyle has said, “‘the Lord said my ways are not your ways,’ but they sure could be.” The prayer Jesus taught us has been saying the same thing for a long time.

When we pray the Lord’s Prayer, first we remind ourselves of who we are and then move on to ask for God’s help to become it.

‘Give us this day our daily bread,’ the bread necessary for our existence. What might we need? Today and regularly we Christians need to gather at the table, extend our hands to, as St. Augustine said, ‘receive what we are’ so that the many may be gathered into one body in Christ Jesus. 

The Kingdom of Heaven is among us but it isn’t quite here yet, either. Is it? Living in the world is neither simple nor easy. If we are to incarnate Christ in our lives we need help with spiritual gifts to get us through each day.

I like to try to remember the list in Galatians 5:22 – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

I run through the list and whichever one I forget, and there is always at least one I forget, figure that is one I am most especially in need of help with that day.

For what do you find yourself praying, ‘Oh dear Lord, please help?’

And there are physical needs for food and shelter and safety. These are overwhelming for so many.

All things come of God so we bring those needs to prayer and as we find we are fed, we look around, notice those who are without, and pass the breadbasket around.

Whatever it is, seek, ask, knock, Jesus says. If we take Jesus’ instructions seriously, we need to, one, pay attention, so we have at least a vague idea of what we need as opposed to what we want, and then, two, pray today, and then tomorrow and then the next day, and the next day. Before you know it, we will be praying all the time. Perhaps that has something to do with praying like Jesus, too, praying all the time.

‘And forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.’ And. This is part of daily bread.

Forgiveness is a deep need in us and it is a defining quality of God’s Kingdom. We cannot incarnate the Kingdom of God on earth when we are filled with a spirit of vengeance; we cannot be released from our sins if we barricade ourselves behind self-righteousness thinking we are loved and judged worthy by God but others are not. A spirit of forgiveness is part of our daily bread. Help us, Lord, please.

‘And.’ Another ‘and.’ ‘And lead us not into temptation, save us from the time of trial, and/but deliver us from evil.’ We know the presence of the Kingdom of God as an already/not yet reality. We know our personal and corporate transformation into members of Christ’s body is in an already/not yet state, too. Jesus faced temptations and trials in the world. We shouldn’t be surprised if we do too. Temptations abound. Evil is real. Help, help, help.

‘For yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory. Forever and ever.’

Bishop N. T. Wright says that when we pray as the Bible teaches us we are standing at the intersection of heaven and earth. They are joined. Through prayer we grow closer to God. We change and our wants and needs move closer into alignment with God’s wants and needs for the life of this world God so loves.

And all God’s people say, “amen.”

Teach us to pray, we ask. It has struck me that when we gather for Holy Eucharist, we enact much of the Lord’s Prayer. We pray for ourselves and the world. We ask for and receive forgiveness. Then we turn to one another to share God’s reconciling peace. We tell the story of how we became who we are and then we recite the Lord’s Prayer.

It is a recap of much of what we have just done and it helps us remember, as we are fed the bread of life, we are being knit and re-knit together so that at the end of the service, when the deacon tells us all to go out that door and get to work, we can, with confidence, say,

‘Lord, we are your disciples. We are part of the body of Christ, chosen to be a people through whom you are manifesting your kingdom in the world. Rejoicing in the power of the spirit, out we go.’

Thanks be to God.

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