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Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Brothers and sisters, the text for this morning comes from the Gospel reading. You may be seated. Last Sunday, the Gospel lesson was about Mary and Martha, and was really teaching us about what worship is. Worship is not in the doing that we all are a part of on a Sunday morning. Worship really is receiving the gifts that God has given us by faith. That’s why this is called a divine service. It’s God working in you. Just like Mary at the feet of Jesus was not busy about the house like Martha was, she was receiving God’s gifts through Jesus who taught her at his feet.
In the same way is this morning’s gospel reading about prayer. It is not about how to pray, when to pray, forms of which to pray. It is really about your status as a son or daughter of the Father. Why? Because look at how you, and all of us were a part of this, look at how you asked your mom and dad for things when you were younger. Oh, we can giggle at the inappropriateness at times, but the bald face brazenness at times, but that’s prayer. It’s based on your status and not in the manner or form.
In fact, if anything, you perfected it before you began to grow up into adolescence, God willing. And this perfection was the ability to sidestep any kind of obstacles your parents would put up in order to wiggle them down and weasel your way in. That’s impudence. That’s shamelessness. And that’s exactly the kind of prayer that your God wants. Your Father seeks in you His child. He wants you to be so bold and shameless, impudent, in your praying to Him.
Isn’t it interesting, as we’ve grown older, we kind of have set that part of our life aside. Why? Why? Are we not as confident of our status in God’s sight as his son or daughter? Do we not have the confidence that a young kid has to ask his dad or mom for almost anything, even those things that are well beyond the reach of his parents to provide? Why is it? The focus is on our status, who we are.
If you really are God’s son or daughter… that’s what God’s son or daughter does. Ask with boldness, impudence, and shamelessness. Sometimes we overanalyze. Her name was Dolores. She was a prayer. She still is. When I met her, she was in her late 50s. This was 20-some years ago. She was in my first parish, and she was a simple woman. Simple not only because of the lifestyle that she led, but simple because her mind was. She had a brain aneurysm when she was in her early 20s, and it left her a little mentally impaired, still capable of functioning. She just wouldn’t remember things very well.
But she put me to shame as to what a prayer is. She was vigilant. Vigilant not because of her being vigilant, but because she took seriously her status as son or daughter of the king. She knew whose daughter she was, and she knew her father wanted to hear her. And so she deliberately set aside time, not because she was so convinced that it would impress her father, but because she was the daughter of the Father in heaven.
And that’s what kids do. They tell their parents what they need. They pour out their hearts when their hearts have been crushed. They cry out for mercy when they know they ought not to receive it. But they have that boldness because they know whose they are. Dolores was that kind of a prayer, teaching me that I think too much about it, and I don’t act on it. Sound familiar in your life? Prayer begins with the giver of these good gifts, and that’s the Father.
He makes it very clear in the two little parables following the Lord’s Prayer being presented here. He makes it clear to us that He is the giver of all good gifts, and He loves to give. He’s waiting to give to us and to pour it out upon us if we would but seriously take seriously our status as son and daughter of the King.
This is the only place in all of Scripture where the disciples asked Jesus to teach them something. There is no other place recorded in Scripture where the disciples asked Jesus to teach them anything. They didn’t ask, “Lord, teach us to be missionaries.” “Lord, teach us to be an evangelist.” “Lord, teach us to be faithful communicators,” which you would think would be important. They didn’t ask that. The only place recorded in all of Scripture that they did ask to be taught, they asked to be taught how to pray.
Now that seems crazy because these are men who grew up in the synagogue, who had prayers already listed for them in their liturgy. No different than you’ve been given that upon your lips. Yes, in all the aspects of the liturgy, which is nothing more than God’s word put to music, you’ve been given the same thing. And yet they ask Jesus, “How do you pray?”
Can you imagine the ridiculousness of asking a little kid, how do you ask your mommy and daddy for things? They would look at you as if you were from another planet. They know how to ask their mommy and daddy because they know who they are. They’re their mommies and daddies. And they know their mommy and daddy is good.
Now sadly, you and I as mommies and daddies know that we are not good. And we teach our children the same thing, that they too are conceived in sin. Sinful mommy, sinful daddy, give birth to sinful children. Jesus made that very clear. If we as evil people can give good gifts to our children, we know how to do that. Why would not the Father of all, who is good, period, give birth to good children?
I’m going to read it to you. So your Lord has given you words. And the words that he’s given you, we sang about in the Lord’s Prayer, in that hymn. They are full of meaning. They cover everything, not only of the world to come, but also here in this world. But the main thing that he gives them is the impudence. Be persistent, shameless in your asking. Quit analyzing it and thinking how. Quit thinking the manner, the oftenness, or any other aspect, but ask.
A child does not sit back and think, “How can I do this?” He just does it. God has given you those words on your lips to just do it. And God answers. In fact, so promising is He of these answers. He has given it to us in those words of the Lord’s Prayer. Everything that we’re praying for, regardless of whether we pray for it, He gives us.
Well, now that seems counterproductive, doesn’t it, Pastor? If He already is going to give us, why ask? Why does your child ask you? Why did you ask your mom and dad? Because deep down, a sinful child asks a sinful parent questions. For sinful motivations most of the time. God knows his children are sinful. That’s why he sent Christ Jesus.
And he wants his sinful children to have that same sinful shamelessness as earthly children with earthly fathers. So, heavenly children with our heavenly Father. And the greatest gift is the gift of the Holy Spirit that you receive at your baptism. That’s the gift that he continually gives us as we pray to Him and ask for it. It is that which helps us to hallow his name. It is that which brings his kingdom to us. It is that which accomplishes will in us.
Such a great gift is this that David made it very clear to us in that excerpt or pericope from the 51st Psalm. You know the one we sing, “‘Create in me a clean heart, O God, renew a right spirit within me.'” “Take not your Holy Spirit from me. Uphold me with your free spirit.” Because that gift is that which brings us all these other things that occupy our hearts and minds because of our sinful nature.
And it is also that which suckers us and brings us comfort and peace because it reminds us of his promises. As a father only can remind his children, “It’s okay, they’re there now.” He gives that to us here in this place.
Prayer begins first and foremost with the giver of all good gifts. Then and only then does it proceed to you and me in our requests. But it’s all wrapped up in your status before the Father. When Jesus teaches his disciples, he does not teach them to say, “Oh God.” He teaches them to call him Father, placing us on the same plane as himself, who refers to God as his Father.
You and I are sons and daughters of the Heavenly Father. We have been given the words to speak. Be impudent. It’s okay. Unlike how we grew up, where it was punished. Not with your God, who is your Father. He rejoices that you have such boldness and rejoices that you have such impudence.
In the name of Jesus, amen.
