| Matthew 6: 1 and 5-15 "The Spiritual Habit of Prayer" |
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| Written by Rev. Wendy Curran | |
| Saturday, 01 March 2008 | |
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1 "Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven. 5 "And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 6 But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. 7 "When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard because of their many words. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. 9 "Pray then in this way: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. 10 Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us this day our daily bread. 12 And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13 And do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one. 14 For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; 15 but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. Please pray with me: Lord, teach us to pray. God teach us to listen. We are your children. Mold us. I was blessed to have a wonderful person early in my life teach me how to pray. His name was George Albert Stine and he was my great uncle. Everyone called him “Uncle Ab” and Uncle Ab taught me to say the prayer “Now I lay me down to sleep”. Remember that prayer? Surely it was one that everyone first learned as a child. ..Now I lay me down to sleep; I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake; I pray the Lord my soul to take…. Well, my precious Uncle Ab, who also had a great sense of humor, also taught me ANOTHER version of this prayer and it went like this: …Now I lay me down to sleep; around me the bed bugs shall creep. If one should bite before I wake; I pray the Lord his jaw would break… Even as a kid, I remember being appalled by his making fun of the prayer and I seriously worried what would happen to him because laughing while you were praying was something you just DID NOT DO! I learned that amidst all the Roman Catholic members of my family, he was the sole Methodist. Here I am…following in his footsteps In addition to his wonderful humor, Uncle Ab was a gentle and loving teacher for me. In the scripture we just heard, Jesus is being a gentle and loving teacher for his disciples. In Matthew’s gospel, the story of Jesus teaching the correct way to pray is actually part of the Sermon on the Mount. It’s a big day for Jesus, teaching-wise. He has given the beatitudes (blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are the meek, etc.) and has taken some of the 10 commandments and ‘updated’ them by correcting misconceptions about them and instructing on the right way to follow them. He continues on with his great mountain lesson by teaching the disciples how, what and where to pray. He also gives the format for the “perfect prayer” because it is obvious that some are just plain getting it wrong when they pray. Ever feel like that? Like you’re not praying the correct way? Jesus picks on the self-righteous Jews who call attention to themselves by praying aloud in the synagogue and the Greeks who verbally go on and on and on when they pray. He calls them hypocrites. Interesting to note here that the word “hypocrite” when translated from its original Greek – means ACTOR. Jesus doesn’t want us to be actors but to be AUTHENTIC in our prayer to God. So – he’s correcting bad prayer habits and replacing them with new – acting as our prayer coach and helping us to have a better, closer relationship with God by telling us the how, where and what to pray…eliminating the guess work. We’ve been talking about spiritual habits over these past few Sundays of Lent, we’ve learned that by focusing our lives on God and paying attention to what draws us to God so that we can hear God’s voice, we become more spiritually centered. And if our goal is to practice the habit of simplicity and experience childlike wonder, joy and compassion as we live in God’s world, then prayer is the way to get there. There’s a wonderful story in the book called Wrestling With Grace by Robert Morris about a man who he had to rethink all his ideas about God and prayer because “after all, what good did prayer do for all those people who died on 9/11 in the collapse of the twin towers? Robert Morris – who’s an Episcopalian priest – said in response to the man that “Prayer is like water filling a sponge….Prayer immerses you in spirit like the sponge is immersed in water. When that happens, things inside you start opening up and becoming flexible, soft and pliant and usable – like the fabric and holes of the sponge. Morris says when we don’t pray, something deep in both body and soul dries up like the sponge – and we become less flexible, less spacious inside. That means our responses to life may be less resourceful, less resilient, less grounded in grace, less inspirational.” Have you experienced this? I’ve noticed that if it’s been a few days since I spent time with God or read my Bible that I’m not nearly the type of Christian I want to be. I’m not as nice or patient or forgiving as I am when I have spent time in conversation with God. I feel an actual physical change going on inside me. Jesus knew that having a conversational, loving 1:1 relationship with God develops through honest; heart felt prayer that comes when we look outside our own self-interests and self-righteousness and instead look toward the kind of life God wants for us. The type of prayer God wants from us is one that is authentic, unceasing and helps us understand ourselves better.
Don’t know if you all saw the movie Bruce Almighty when it came out a few years ago – It’s about a guy named Bruce, played by Jim Carrey, who complains about God too often and is given almighty powers to teach him how difficult it is to run the world. In the movie, there’s a scene where he keeps hearing voices. God, played by Morgan Freeman, explains to Bruce that the voices are prayers and that each prayer that someone prays comes in as an email on his computer. Bruce finally gets fed up hearing all the voices and decides to answer ALL of the prayers to God by sending one massive YES email reply to them all, giving everyone the answer they seek to their prayers. This causes 400,000 people to win the lottery, riots break out, chaos ensues… The most important lesson Bruce learns is that receiving everything on our self-centered list leaves us empty and dry like a sponge w/no water. Prayer is not providing God with a laundry list of things we want. Prayer isn’t getting God to do something for us; nor is prayer about making ourselves look good in front of everyone else. Prayer is an on-going conversation with our creator and our savior and seeking the life they meant for us to live. God bless you in your dialog with God. Wendy’s Resources for Prayer: Books: Talking to God by Rabbi Naomi Levy Web: |
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