Our Rector at Grace and St. Peter's is out on maternity leave, and various members of the congregation are filling in as guest preachers. Today was my turn. For my text, I used the Gospel lesson of the day, Luke 11:1-13, where Jesus give the disciples The Lord's Prayer. Below is the sermon I preached.

This week, we celebrated the birth of a baby boy in England as we awaited news about Amanda's expected baby. We enjoyed the cooler weather after the heat wave and some of us left for vacation or planned imminent departures. We may have read stories about earthquakes, accidents, or some ill fate befalling a friend, and perhaps prayed a little bit about any of these. Before Amanda left for Maternity leave, she asked if I could be the guest preacher for today. I agreed and started looking at the texts.

I didn't get as much time as I would have liked to contemplate today's texts. It was a busy week. It seems like it is always a busy week. There is so much to be done, just getting by. We work hard all week, every week, and then use the weekends to catch up. Week after week, we put our shoulder to the wheel, our nose to the grindstone, until we are tired and need a break from it all off on some vacation or another.

On Sundays, we find time to take time for church. For some of us, it may be a break, yet for others of us, even Sunday morning services can become yet another task, another chore to complete.

Today's Gospel is one of the most quoted texts from The Bible. We say part of it every Sunday at the Church. And yet, it is, perhaps for some of us, something that has become just another thing we do, saying it too often by rote without thinking about the words. “Our Father, who art in heaven...” Jesus gave us The Lord's Prayer, in response to a request from one of the disciples for him to teach them how to pray. How are we really praying today? Are we just saying the Lord's prayer, or are we really praying and living it?

The question of how to pray still gets asked to day. Last year, Anne Lamott's book, “Help, Thanks, Wow: Three essential prayers” came out. I heard an interview with her on NPR recently talking about the book. She spoke about how we all, at times, cry out for help, perhaps as a prayer to God, perhaps as a request to anyone that will listen. When our requests for help our answered, some of us stop to say thanks. And then, there are times that we are overtaken by the beauty or awesomeness of what is around us, and we just have to stop and say, “wow!”. We all pray for time to time, sometimes, even directing our prayers to God.

But as Christians, we are called to much more. In his first letter to the Thessalonians, Paul writes, “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” We need to move beyond just praying when we are in trouble, and perhaps remembering to stop and say thanks afterwards, or on rare occasions saying “wow” when we are overcome by awe. We need to experience the Lord's Prayer in all aspects of our lives, and not just repeating it on Sunday mornings. We need to constantly be trusting in God for help, thanking God for what he has done for us and appreciating the beauty of God's creation.

In today's lesson, Jesus tells the disciples, ‘So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.”

Next weekend, at this time, I hope to be sitting on a sunny, but not too hot, hill in upstate New York, listening to folk music at the Gospel Wake Call session of the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival. It is a festival I've been going to for twenty years. On Sunday morning, there will be some inspiring music and some that is perhaps irreverent. There is a good chance that someone will sing, “O, Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz”.

Yet I don't think this is what Jesus had in mind when he said, “Ask, and it will be given to you”. Instead, I think it is important to look at the context of this weeks lesson. In recent weeks, we've heard the story of Jesus sending seventy people out to proclaim the Gospel, and they came back rejoicing at their success. Then, we heard the story of the Good Samaritan in response to the question, “Who is my neighbor?” and we heard the story about Mary sitting at Jesus' feet and Martha's worries and distractions.

How do these stories fit with the lesson about prayer? In today's lesson, Jesus says, “Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish?” Yet what if we are asking for a Mercedes Benz instead of for our daily bread? What if we, as a children who don't know better, ask for things that don't help us love God and our neighbor better? While Jesus says, “For everyone who asks receives”, his final words in the lesson are not about receiving something material, but receiving something much more important, “how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?”.

God will give us the desire, and power, to do great things in God's name. On July 14th, Bishop Gregory Brewer of the Episcopal Diocese of Central Florida delivered a sermon about the Good Samaritan. In it, he said,
"I want to live in a world where George Zimmerman offered Trayvon Martin a ride home to get him out of the rain that night. Come Lord Jesus!"
I believe this is the sort of prayer that God is calling us to, a spirit of justice and compassion.

Yet, another issue with prayer is that too often it is viewed as an excuse for doing nothing. Too often, we feel, when we've prayed about something important, that it's all we can or need to do.

Yet I don't believe that is at all what God has in mind for us. Prayer is linked with mission, with going out to proclaim the Gospel. One of the things I've learned from much time working with various well run volunteer and non-profit organizations, is that when a person says, “I think we should....” and goes on to talk about one task or another, the wise leader responds, “Thank you for the great idea. Does this mean that you are willing to head up a group to make this happen?” Suggesting is volunteering. Prayer should be too.

To me, this fits nicely with Bishop Gregory's desire to live in a world where George Zimmerman offered Trayvon Martin a ride home to get him out of the rain. I imagine God hearing this and saying, “Thank you for the great idea. Does this mean that you are willing to head up a group to make this happen?”

And, staying with the Gospel lesson, God not only saying, “thank you”, but God giving us the Holy Spirit, the power, courage and desire to make it happen. Be careful what you pray for, God just might call on you to help bring it about.

There is one other aspect of the Lord’s Prayer, I’d like to look at briefly. When I was in college, I had a professor who encouraged us to say the Lord’s Prayer as a contemplative exercise. Instead of saying the whole prayer, as we so frequently do, in less than thirty seconds, spend a minute or two on each word. There is so much in there. I’ll spare you the exercise right now, and not drag this out to a two hour long sermon, but I thought I’d hit a couple points.

What is the first world of the Lord’s Prayer? ‘Our’. It is word repeated a few more times in the prayer. The Lord’s Prayer isn’t a solitary individual prayer. It is something we do together, like so many other aspects of our faith.

The second word, “Father”, is another that people spend a lot of time talking about To some, it is a problematic word, reminding them of their conflicts with their own earthly fathers. To some it perpetuates a male dominated religion. Theologians often talk about Jesus saying “Abba”, an intimate term for father, more like ‘daddy’ or ‘papa’, suggesting that this is a model for the relationship we are called to have with God, a very intimate, trusting relationship. Others argue that this is stretching the meaning of the word. Whatever translation is best, they do all seem to agree that we should be seeking a close, loving and trusting relationship with God.

Another word I like to look at is ‘daily’. We aren’t taught to pray for this week’s bread, or today’s bread plus enough to put into a retirement account. It is another reminded to put our trust in God and take things a day at a time.

As make prayer more and more part of our daily lives, our lives change. Our focus changes. When you experience a moment of silence, what comes rushing into to your mind to fill the gap, is it, “The Edge of Glory”, or “To God Be the Glory.”

So, in a little while, we are going to pray for all people in their daily life and work. We are going to pray for those in positions of authority. We are going to pray for our community, for the poor and the lonely, for St. John's Church in Sandy Hook, for the ministries of our church and for the needs of people close to us. Just before communion, we are going to say the Lord's Prayer and to pray for our daily bread.

I pray that we all think deeply about these words we say, about what God is calling each one of us to do, how the Holy Spirit will inspire and sustain us and that prayer becomes an ever stronger part of our daily lives, and that we all find more time to stop and thank God for all that has been given us In Jesus name, Amen.