TowerPod: St Mary's Marston Moreteyne and Lidlington
Lord teach us to pray 1: hallow His Name
Hi, welcome to Taopod from St Mary's Master Mortain in Liddington, a weekly gospel message with a thoughtful sermon. Enjoy! Now, Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he finished one of his disciples said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray," as John taught his disciples, and he said to them, "When you pray, say, Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread, and forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us, and lead us not into temptation." When a brain tumor took away Dorothy Holm's ability to speak, a lady in America, she picked up index cards and began filling them with what appeared to be random sequences of letters. And when Dorothy passed away in 1996, her 11-year-old granddaughter, Janna, kept the cards, thinking that they might be some kind of coded message. And then as a teenager later, she thought the letters might be song lyrics, or even a secret message to the grandchildren. But eventually she gave up when she couldn't work out the meaning. Then in January 2014, she posted a picture of one of the cards to the internet site Metafilter, and had an answer within 15 minutes. Someone using the site recognized the letters, O-F-W-A-I-H-H-B-T-N. As the first letters of the words in the beginning of the Lord's Prayer, our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Janna said that she was relieved to have an answer even if she'll never know what some of the other letters on her grandmother's index cards meant. She said it's nice to know that there were prayers and kind of gave some insight into what she was thinking and what she focused on in her last couple of weeks. Prayer is a mystery, and it can have its ups and downs, its struggles, and its setbacks. And how do you even begin? Sometimes just starting draws a blank. I've got good news today. Jesus wants to teach us how to pray and what better teacher could we have. So let's have an expectant faith in these next three or four weeks that he wants to and that he'll help us with his Holy Spirit. Now Jesus' first followers were no different to us. They struggled with their prayer too, but they noticed Jesus praying and something about it made such an impression on them. One of them asked him, "Lord, teach us to pray." Notice not just teach us to pray, but as John taught his disciples, they wanted a special disciples way of praying as disciples of Jesus. So we could equally call it not just the Lord's Prayer, but the disciples' prayer. By faith and baptism we're born again as God's children through the action of the Holy Spirit. So the Lord's prayer is the signature unique way of praying for Christians. How then do you set about praying? How do you even begin? From our point of view there's a fairly obvious order of priorities. We're usually in some sort of mess and we want God to get us out of it. Then we've usually got some fairly pressing needs. We want God to supply them. Or many people feel their needs aren't worthy of Almighty God's attention, and so they may get no further. After our needs it may come to us that at that point there's a larger world out there. Again, so we probably move from our mess to our wants, something like, "Please sort out the Middle East. Please feed the hungry. Please house the homeless." But then once more it may dawn on us, there's not just a larger world out there. There's a larger God out there. He's not just a celestial cleaner up and sorter out of our messes and pains. He's not a giant paracetamol. He's God. He's the living God. And he's our father if we've chosen him to be. And if we linger here with the disciples' way of praying, we may find our priorities quietly and beautifully turned inside out. What we pray about, the contents, may remain. The order will change. And with that change, as Tom Wright says, we move at last from paranoia, kind of paranoia, stress and anxiety to prayer, from fuss to faith. Now notice that Jesus says, "When you pray, not if you pray, we are to pray daily. Give us each day our daily bread." And if you're not praying as he should daily, then be encouraged during this sermon. During this sermon series, and take this opportunity to get into the habit of daily prayer. And if at first you don't succeed, try, try and try again. Now psychologists say that to establish a new habit, it really helps to link it to something else that you already do. For example, if you have a cup of coffee in the morning, then you could link to that and use it as your kind of trigger to turn that into your morning prayer time. You could even set it up as a little sentence or phrase. You could say, "When I make my morning coffee, I'll go and sit in my prayer place." Very simple. Find something that works for you, and it can also be good to make yourself a place of prayer, a prayer corner or something with your Bible, a candle and an icon, or a picture that inspires you on a little table or shelf, especially if you like art and creativity. When then should we pray? When? Along the way, as we go about our business of course, but the church has a long tradition of setting aside special times in the day, times when we can shut out the distractions, silence our phones and quieten down. These are morning, then pausing to pray at midday, and then for night prayer. Psalm 55 tells us evening, morning and at noon, and Daniel prayed three times a day. Now many people find that praying in the morning with scripture, the Lord gives them guidance for the day somehow, and they tune into him also, which sets us up for the challenges of the day. I remember a spiritual director when I asked him, "Well, if I don't sense God saying anything to me through the scripture or through some kind of impression in the morning, what do I do then?" And he replied, "He will always speak to you later in the day, Andrew, by some means. God always speaks to his children. It's we who fail to listen, not him to speak." So Jesus begins his teaching on prayer with when you pray, say, "Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come." And Genesis tells us that in the divine image, God created them, female and male, humanity. And there are a number of references likening God to a mother, but here Jesus reveals God as father. Now just to point out that the word father can be a stumbling block. For some, father has never meant a loving provider, teacher or guardian. It has meant only an aching absence or an abusive presence. Even children who've grown up with a good father, all too aware of their failings. But God is more unlike than like any human father. And Jesus, by adding that phrase in heaven in his prayer, father in heaven, he emphasizes the difference in God's fatherhood. Unlike earthly fathers, he always has the best intentions for his children. And he always has the ability to carry them out. Jesus wanted us to know this so that we could always approach our heavenly father with a childlike trust and confidence. So if father is difficult for you, then may I encourage you to try, and in the trying, maybe opens up the possibility to discover a heavenly father, one who heals, even to the healing of what some might call a father wound. Our heavenly father is one who welcomes us as the lost son or daughter with open arms, a robe, a ring, sandals and a party. So how to begin? May I invite you to pray the Lord's prayer as a pattern, not just a prayer to repeat. After all the disciples asked Jesus, teach us to pray, not teach us a prayer. Jesus did both. He gave a pattern. So begin by hallowing his name, taking time in that first part of the prayer. And I suggest this week, declare his holiness, his worthiness, his justice, his kindness and worship him as in heaven, as we heard in our reading from the book of Revelation. Be creative and find as many ways as you can. Put on some worship music or some hints. And so let us exalt his name together as a church community this week and so look on him and be radiant. Thank you. Amen. Thanks for listening to Talpod. I hope you enjoyed it. If you like it, please subscribe and share with a friend. Have a good week and see you next time. God bless. (gentle music) [BLANK_AUDIO]