“The Great Surprise”
Proper 12 C (8 Pent C) –
Luke 11:1-13
Brothers and sisters in Christ, Grace and Peace to you from the Triune God: Father Son, and Holy Spirit.
Have you ever noticed that what people tell you is “good news” is not so good for you? For example, when someone tells you “I’ve got good news, just wait until I tell you: My little Johnny’s hamster just took third place in the 4-H competition.” That good news for Johnny, and for his Mom. But is it good news for you? Or is it just news? Maybe it’s simply annoying? Does it make a difference?
It’s like those commercials where they make it sound like a broadcast weather report or a news bulletin where all kinds of terrible things are happening: it’s going to be cloudy and cold for the next week, possibility of flash floods and hail -- but I do have some good news: I just saved a bundle on my car insurance!”
Now what gets your attention in that commercial is the element of surprise. You hear bad news, bad news, bad news and then SURPRISE! “but there’s good news!” But the element of surprise alone is not enough to ensure that we hear the message as good news
If I’m watching my house float away in the flash flood, I’m not going to be saying to myself, “Hmmm. Good news: I can save $14 a month on my car insurance.” Just because a neighbor or a commercial or some politicians tell us something is good news does not always make it good news. And even when it is good news, it is not necessarily good news for you or for me. It can be just news.
And yet, as Christians, we are called upon to proclaim The Good News about Jesus Christ. We are to live our lives as bearers and models of what that good news means for others. And we do that by sharing how that Good News has changed and continues to change us.
But it can be tough sometimes to feel like you have any good news to share. You may be struggling with your own doubts about your faith? Or if you are hearing the good news for the first time, it can be tough to take it seriously.
The first verse of today’s gospel has a surprise hidden in it. Or maybe it’s more of a red flag. But whatever it is, there something there that should bring us up short when we hear it. “Jesus was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.”
Now think about that a minute. The disciples have been on the road with Jesus for a couple of years. Since chapter three of Luke and we are now in Chapter 11. He is their rabbi, their spiritual teacher. They’ve seen him work miracles and perform healings and exorcisms. The disciples have had demons submit to them at the mention of Jesus’ name. They went in to the villages and towns proclaiming the
Surprising? Shocking is more like it. You would think teaching to pray would be one of the first things they would have asked to be taught. And given what they have seen and heard and done with Jesus, you would think they would have some inkling that this is someone far greater than John, someone who John has confessed he is not fit to tie the thongs of his sandals.
But the greatest surprise is found in Jesus response to the disciple’s surprising question. Jesus answers the disciple, not by giving a tutorial or a lesson, but by giving them a prayer. Jesus reply is not a how, but a who -- because Jesus’ reply is to give them the prayer that he prays.
Think about what that means: we are to pray the same words Jesus prays to his Father who is in heaven. He has given us himself, in the form of words of the most intimate kind -- prayer. In these words Jesus shares with us what it means to be the incarnate Son of God and what it means to live as a child of God. It is no coincidence that in the last line of the reading today Jesus speaks of the promised gift of the Holy Spirit.
In response to a disciple’s simple question, Jesus pours out himself, what it has meant to live as fully God and fully human. He gives us this prayer of Himself, the Lord’s Prayer, so that we might live as humans claimed by God the Father, saved by God the Son, and sanctified by the Holy Spirit. Does this surprise you?
When we pray this prayer that Jesus gave us, we proclaim who God is: our father in heaven and the gracious source of all that we need for this life. We confess who we are: creatures of the Creator who are totally dependent upon him each day of our life. And in praying these words we act out our relationship to God -- by grace through faith.
Luther says that the position of someone praying requires utter humility as well as an attitude of boldness. We can’t be luke-warm or milquetoasty. Luther is talking about the tendency to think to ourselves, “Well, maybe I shouldn’t ask God for this.” He’s talking about our willingness to ask for some things and not for others. In other words, to not admit to ourselves that the God to whom we pray is the source of all things -- including us.
In giving us the Lord’s Prayer Jesus sharing himself at the deepest level of relationship and surprises us beyond our ability to be surprised. He includes us in the same relationship that exists between Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We are to pray what Jesus prays, to address God as Jesus addresses Him, to ask
And yet at the same time, this prayer of relationship defines us as dependant on God for everything in out life. It leaves us no wiggle room for thinking we are self-sufficient in feeding or sheltering ourselves, let alone in our ability to fight evil or save ourselves in any way. Y
Yet the Lord’s Prayer does not wall us off from the world. To the contrary, It propels us, shoves us out each day, like a two-handed push, into the world in all its grit and glory. He is in this with us in our prayer.
Have you noticed that there are no I’s, me’s, or mine’s in the Lord’s Prayer. That’s because the Lord’s prayer is the prayer of the Body of Christ, the Church, the community of believers who are Christ on earth until he comes again.
Karl Barth said, “To pray the Lord’s Prayer is to pray with the church and so to address God through Jesus on behalf of humanity.” The surprising thing is that even when we pray the Lord’s Prayer alone, we are not praying it alone. That’s why we never pray it, “My Father . . .” When we pray it in solitude there are still Christians in
As I have prayed the Lord’s Prayer with someone on their death bed that image of the gathering has occurred often. Usually if the family is present they will be praying the Lord’s Prayer. “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” has particular power.
But in the Lord’s Prayer is a sense of the summoning and gathering of the community of faith to the bedside. The dying person is joined by countless others, each speaking the same words in varied languages, confessing the same need before God, expressing the same faith that God hears that prayer and holding to the same hope that He answers all.
Prayer, especially the Lord’s Prayer, gives direct and natural expression to our great surprise that God is our Father and that we are children of God. Such prayer is the primary thing in faith and obedience. Let us be surprised daily by the promise that our prayers are heard by the Maker of the Universe, and to know that in Our Lord’s Prayer he welcomes you and loves you as his child.
Someone once said, “life begins and ends in prayer.” That someone spoke the truth. And it is good news: God hears and is moved by your prayer. It is the best news of all.
Amen.
= = =