When I was seven I began to take piano lessons. When I was fourteen I quit. During those seven years I successfully made it to level two in the four level series my piano teacher used. I hated playing the piano. I never practiced, and it showed. Practice is a “repeated performance or systematic exercise for the purpose of acquiring skill or proficiency.”[1] It was the repeated and systematic parts I didn’t like. Practice is hard work, and it takes a lot of patience. But practice isn’t only for young piano students. Practice is one of the ancient images for the journey of faith. The Disciples, the Early Church Fathers, the Saints, and on have practiced following Jesus by way of things like; giving, hospitality, justice, and of course prayer. These things are called spiritual practices because when we start out we rarely get them “right”, so we practice, doing them over and over again, working on perfecting the craft of following Jesus.
Bill Hybels talks about exercise as a metaphor for the practice of prayer like this;
You’ve decided it is high time to get into good physical shape, so you investigate a health club. When you walk in the door, you are greeted by a staff member who takes you from station to station, showing you the state-of-the-art equipment. At the end of the orientation your guide asks, “Would you like us to set up a routine for you?”
At this point you may feel like backing out. Playing on exercise equipment is one thing: following an established regimen is quite another. Seeing your hesitation, the staff member explains: “You need a routine in order to work all the muscle groups properly and consistently, to keep track of how many repetitions you’ve done at which weight, to chart your progress and avoid becoming imbalanced.”
Looking around the fitness center, you see examples of serious imbalance. A behemoth with bulging deltoids walks out of the weight room. Still wearing his weight belt, he stumbles and gasps a couple of time around the track before gratefully returning to familiar territory. Then you see a guy glide effortlessly around the track. He probably does seven miles at a time, but from his upper-body appearance, you know his wife has to open the pickle jars.
Health-club instructors know that without a carefully structured plan, we’re all likely to become imbalanced. That’s because we all tend to do what we enjoy and ignore the difficult or distasteful or untried.[2]
Does that sound familiar? I know it does for me. I’m really good at asking God for things;: Lord bless this meal; Father grant us safe travel; Come Holy Spirit Come, but other forms of prayer like meditation, contemplation, and listening to God’s soft voice is very difficult for me, so often I just don’t do it.
I think this may have been what the continuously imbalanced disciples had in mind when they came up to Jesus one day and said, “Teach us to pray.” They saw Jesus praying so often and with such vigor that I’m sure they had come to realize if they wanted to pray like Jesus, they needed some coaching and a lot of practice. As Father Keith said last week, Jesus was the master coach, and he lives up to it in this example. He gives the disciples three quick lessons.
“First,” he says, “when y’all pray (he actually uses the plural you, so maybe it is “when all y’all pray”) do it like this “Father, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread; and forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive every one who is indebted to us; and lead us not into temptation.” You’ve prayed a version of this prayer thousands of times in your life. There are whole books written to help us understand the Lord’s Prayer. Across the world today there are, no doubt, tens of thousands of sermons being preached on what Jesus meant by each phrase.
I want to note only one thing about Luke’s version of the Lord’s Prayer. As I mentioned earlier, Jesus answers them by saying, “When all y’all pray.” The assumption from the outset is two-fold. One, they are praying, which is obvious from their question. Two, they are praying together, in community. Your personal prayer life is important. Spending regular time daily with the Lord is the second greatest practice you can have as you strive to be like Jesus. The greatest practice we have, however, is praying together, regularly, in community. That is why we gather together today. Praying together, as a community of believers compounds our abilities. We pray when the person next to us is in too much pain to pray. We pray when the person who normally sits next to us is too ill to even come to church. Together, in prayer, we are made one in Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, petitioning God the Father. Pray in community.
“Secondly,” Jesus continues by way of a parable, “be persistent.” Having given the twelve a form for prayer, Coach Jesus goes on to teach them how their heart and mind should be in prayer. Be persistent. Over and over again Jesus affirms the persistence of those seeking the Kingdom; the persistence of the friends who brought their paralyzed friend to Jesus; the persistence of the women who traveled with him; and the faithful, persistent prayer of the father of the demon-possessed boy.[3] In this parable Jesus wants us to note that it is not out of the kindness of the sleeping man’s heart that he gets up, but the shameless boldness, the annoying persistence, of the man at the door that raises the man from bed.
I remember one pastoral care class I took my first year of seminary in which we had an hour long conversation about prayer lists. Should we have them? Should we read them in the Prayers of the People? How should they be updated? And then in my internship church, the debate raged for two years as the prayer list swelled to nearly 60 names. Until this week, I was on the side that said, “Don’t read it, it is too long, it makes new comers uncomfortable.” But in light of Jesus’ advice to be persistent, I’m not so sure anymore. Taking the prayer list home to incorporate in your daily prayer life is important, but how much more so is it to pray for each of these people by name over and over again as a community. Be Persistent!
“Finally,” Jesus says, “don’t be afraid to ask. God will provide his Holy Spirit to anyone who asks.” Having given them a form and advising them to be persistent, Jesus’ final lesson is to pray with boldness. “Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.” It seems as though Jesus is handing us a blank prayer check. That it pronoun can get us into deep trouble. In boldness we pray for all sorts of things, good and ill. We pray for healing. We pray for jobs. We pray for Alabama to beat Auburn or Auburn to beat Alabama. We pray for a lot of things and often use this passage in the expectation that all will be given. I do it. When I recall this passage I always mess up the last verse. Instead of remembering it as “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” I forget the Holy Spirit part. “How much more will the heavenly Father give to those who ask him!” Despite what looks like a blank check from Jesus, we aren’t promised all we could ever imagine, we are instead promised the only thing we really need, the Holy Spirit.
“Not even Jesus received all he asked for. One dark night long ago in a placed called Gethsemane, he made a request and, in the end, his Father had to say no. A certain, bitter cup of suffering would not pass from Jesus. The next time we know Jesus prayed, he was crying out, "My God, my God, why? Why have you forsaken me?" Jesus moved from an unanswered prayer to a lament and yet his prayer life remained intact. His Father had said no, had had to abandon him for a time. But before he bowed his head and died, Jesus said to this same Father, ‘Into your hands do I commit my spirit.’ In our lives, too, our every prayer contributes to the thankfulness we owe to God. Even at our most disappointed, the Holy Spirit is in us and we receive the further anointing of that same Spirit every time we pray.”[4]
Praying for God’s kingdom. Praying for bread. Praying for forgiveness. These are all givens in the faith. All in all we are called to pray for God’s Holy Spirit. As much as we think we know what we may need, God gives us the only thing which really gives life. It requires practice. It required patience. But if we are to remain in balance in our prayer life, we must practice; not only on our own, but more importantly in community. Practice makes perfect the preparation of our hearts for the Holy Spirit to fill us with peace, strength, and hope for the days that lie ahead. Pray together. Pray with persistence. Pray with boldness for the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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