I don’t know which came first. It doesn’t matter because they were learned so closely together that they arrived simultaneously into my consciousness. One is familiar to many of you. It goes this way:  “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.” The other prayer is likely less familiar to you.  “For all we eat, for all we wear, for all we have, everywhere, we thank the Father, Amen.”

 

My wife Ann’s family prayer at meal was “God is great; God is good. Let us thank him for our food.”  Many of you know this prayer. This is the prayer we taught our children and sometimes, we still say it together. The other day, when we sat down to dinner, we joined hands for our prayer. I take the lead in our meal prayers. Instead of saying, “God is great” without knowing it, I began “For all we eat, for all we wear…” Ann joined in and when the two of us finished, Claire and Andrew looked at me like I’d just dropped in from the moon and said, “Where did that come from?”  Ann answered, “That was Daddy’s prayer when he was a kid.”  A more accurate answer might be, “Deep inside.” In fact, I said, “it just came out.” First prayers are deep inside, indelibly imprinted on our psyche. I don’t remember learning those two prayers. I’ve just always known them. The same must be said for another familiar prayer which almost all of you know.  It starts, “Our father who art in heaven.” I learned the version that we say, “forgive our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.” Most of you were trespassers or debtors. One of our elders told me this week, as we were studying for this sermon, “I remember my father getting on his knees and teaching me the Lord’s Prayer.”

 

Another prayer I don’t remember learning was an early childhood prayer. You prayed it too, I bet. It starts, “God help me.” There are many versions. “God please help me get a good grade.” “God please don’t let them find out.” “God help me get picked.”  Do you remember praying these prayers? Pretty quickly you probably added a variation to your prayer. God, if you let me, I will…. Bargaining is added to these petitions. “God if you let me get an A on my spelling test, I promise I’ll be nice to my brother.”  “God, if you get me out of this mess, I promise I’ll never do it again.” Do you remember praying these prayers?” Maybe you still do.

 

 A businessman was late for an important meeting and couldn't find a parking space. As he frantically circled the block, the man got so desperate that he decided to pray. Looking up toward heaven, he said, "Lord, take pity on me. If you find a parking space, I'll go to church every Sunday for the rest of my life, and not only that, I'll give up drinking." Miraculously, a parking space appeared.  The guy looked up again and said, "Never mind. I found one."

 

Not all bargaining prayers are answered positively. I learned in childhood the prayer, “Why God, why?” You prayed that one too, didn’t you?   We are all prayers; we all know how to pray, or at least we once did. Studies indicate that even children with little or no religious background will offer up prayer petitions. This was confirmed once again this week in an article I read online. Elizabeth DeVita-Raeburn was reared in a family that didn’t believe in God. Yet in that article she said, “Occasionally, I’d pray. Sometimes, it was a mundane request: Please make it a snow day. Other times, when I was caught in a dire spot — trying to buy beer with a fake ID, for instance — my prayers might be a little more urgent.”[1]

 

How were you taught to pray and what was left out of those teachings? Did you say bedtime prayers and prayers at meals?  “Exploring our childhood memories, the positive and negative, the instructions and the lack of teaching, helps to guide our adult prayer life.”[2] In these prayers, we are beginning to nourish and build a relationship with God.

 

The first Christians had similar experiences learning how to pray. In this third sermon in a series titled, On Promise Road, we are studying the early church formation.  Ten days after Jesus ascends into heaven, the Holy Spirit fills a Jewish festival where the disciples are in attendance.  Moved by the Apostle Peter’s powerful sermon, three thousand accept Jesus and join the disciples. What are the first things they do?  “They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” (Acts 2: 42) Last week, we looked at Bible study. For the new Christians, it was challenging because the Bible wasn’t the Bible until much later. They had to rely upon the witnesses to remember what Jesus taught.  Still, they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship.

 

They also devoted themselves to prayer.  Prayer wasn’t as challenging as studying the apostles’ teaching.  The three thousand converts are new to following Christ but they aren’t new to believing. They were Jews. They had a background in faith. Just like you, they had a history with prayer. Depending on how devoted they were as Jews, they likely had a lot of information about prayer. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if pretty quickly, someone asked, “What did Jesus have to say about prayer?” The disciples would have immediately thought about the Sermon on the Mount because most of what Jesus says about prayer comes from this sermon. Unfortunately, what we read and often interpret in that sermon isn’t what Jesus meant. You’ll see what I mean when I tell you about prayer in first century Jewish life.

 

In Jesus’ time, there was both corporate prayer in the synagogue and Temple and personal, private prayer that surrounded the Temple ritual. It was customary for Jews to pause in whatever they were doing at 3 pm in order to offer prayers in conjunction with the evening sacrifice in the Temple and the prayers that were going on in worship. You could pray wherever you were. Some would stand outside of the synagogue or Temple but if you weren’t near those worship centers, you prayed where you were. The structure and content of these prayers was not prescribed. You prayed your own, private prayer.  Unfortunately, the ritual got out of hand. It became common for some to literally leave their homes or shops, go to the street corner or show up in front of the synagogue and pray long and loud prayers to impress others. About this Jesus says, "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.”  (Matthew 6:5a)  What’s their reward? Recognition by others. The intent of the prayer isn’t to address God; it is the impress others. So Jesus adds: “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.” (Matthew 6:5b)  Without this background, you might think, “Jesus is saying our prayers are to be in secret and not public” but he’s not saying this at all. He’s not against prayers in public such as what we’ve had in the worship and Jesus isn’t really saying you need to find a private prayer closets in your home because most of the people listening to Jesus lived in simple homes that lacked private rooms. They couldn’t do what Jesus is saying if they interpreted it verbatim. Rather, Jesus isn’t against public prayers. He is against private prayers that are intended to impress others instead of nourish and build your relationship with God.

 

Authentic prayer nourishes and builds your relationship with God. This can’t be accomplished when you are worried about what others are thinking. God has no interest in what we do in God’s name when we do it for show. God sees the heart and knows our desires, or to use Jesus’ words, God sees us in secret. Jesus adds, “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. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.”  (Matthew 6:7-8)

 

That’s a barrier for a lot of people. It’s not so much that they are trying to impress people with their prayers. It’s that they aren’t really honest about what they need. So their prayers have a lot of empty phrases that don’t really mean anything. If prayer nourishes and builds your relationship with God, you have to be honest and you might as well be honest because God already knows your needs.

 

For a lot of people that’s a barrier too. If God already knows your needs, why do you have to pray? Again, prayer nourishes and builds your relationship with God. Parents know this. Lots of times we know what our children need but it is important for the child to say, “Dad I screwed up and I need your help.” Or “Mom, I’m struggling and I need your advice.”

 

If prayer nourishes and builds your relationship with God, no subject is off limits. We can pray to God when we are angry. Jeremiah did this.  God, you deceived me and because of it, I’m mocked and laughed at.[3]  We can petition God to change the future. Jesus does this in the Garden of Gethsemane “….he (Jesus) threw himself on the ground and prayed, ‘My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not what I want but what you want.’” (Matthew 26:39) Countless men and women including Jesus feel as if God has abandoned them pray “My God, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Psalm 22:1) No subject is off limits with God in our prayers.

 

Is this a barrier for you? Are there some things you feel as if you can’t pray about? For instance, I know people in our congregation that struggle with petitions, prayers which ask God to intervene in the natural order and change things. One of members said to me recently, “I would never pray for a new job or a raise or even to be healed of cancer. I don’t think God works that way. That’s magic.”  I said to her, “If my son or daughter needed something, even if I couldn’t or wouldn’t give it to him or her, I’d still want to know. You are the same as a mother. You want to know about your children’s needs.  Did you think our heavenly parent is any different?”

 

Moving back home after my freshman year in college, I blew a rod on my Chevy and pretty much trashed the engine of my seven year old car. My dad and I spent much of the summer before my sophomore year looking for a car. I immediately found a three year old white Firebird with custom wheels that I absolutely had to have. There was nothing I wanted more. I pleaded. I begged. I promised all sorts of things. I schemed about the ways I’d pay for what my folks were willing to give me for a car. I ended up with a four year old Mercury. I was disappointed and I probably felt let down. But a few years later when I bought my first car on my own, I remember laughing about it with my Dad, knowing how much I learned and how much closer I was to him because of the experience.

 

I like what Philip Yancey has written about prayer. “Life is not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be lived. Prayer offers no ironclad guarantees—just the certain promise that we need not live that mystery alone.” [4] Prayer builds and nourishes a relationship with God and prayer can build and nourish a relationship with others. This is something too many people miss. Prayer isn’t just vertical. It’s also horizontal. Our prayers have the potential to change the relationships we have with others.

 

Over the past fifteen years, there have been a number of scientific studies trying to quantify the effect of intercessory prayer for others. Does the prayer actually help the person being prayed for?  There are problems with all of these studies because how much is a prayer dose--one prayer or one hundred prayers. Some of them have shown remarkable effects; others have shown little or no effect. Trying to scientifically prove a spiritual matter is next to impossible. What is possible to demonstrate is the positive benefit for building and nourishing relationships. We see this every week in this congregation. The prayer circles and elders offer up intercessory prayers and send out cards and letters telling of these petitions. Each week, we receive word from those who we have prayed of the overwhelming power of these prayers. The notes speak of encouragement received, of hope in healing, of support in bereavement, of strength to face what is ahead. I can’t tell you the number of times when I’ve been at the bedside of someone who was ill or dying when I’ve heard, “Thank you for your prayers. They mean so much.”  Each week during my recent sabbatical, I received a letter from the men in my prayer group who meet Wednesday morning. Knowing that they paused to think of me, to ask God’s blessings on my rest and study was wonderful.

 

I have found in my own life that prayer is an effective tool in dealing with difficult people. The more I pray for and about someone with whom I have a difficult relationship or a problem, the more I gain insight into how to manage that relationship with the charity of Christ. You might try this. I’m sure this is why Jesus said, “pray for those who persecute you.” (Matthew 5:44b)  Prayer nourishes and builds relationships with others.

 

What is important for each of us is to find our way, to find our way to pray that we might build and nourish our relationship with God. Our adult education committee has once again displayed materials including books on how to pray as well as books on understanding prayer. In addition there are sign-up sheets for a new prayer group which will meet on Sundays after nine o’clock worship and a class this is offered at CTS on Thursday evenings beginning this week. We are also excited and planning a class in November to watch and discuss the new PBS documentary titled Prayer in America. There are all sorts of opportunities for you to find your way to pray.

 

Let me say it one more time. Prayer nourishes and builds your relationship with God and it can nourish and build relationships with others.  With that, it seems fitting that we close this sermon with prayer.

 

God, you are great and you are good. Now we thank you for our food, food for the soul and our relationship with you. Amen.

 

 

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