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Our passage today follows last week’s episode of “Hell’s Kitchen” featuring Mary and Martha!’ This whole section of the Gospel of Luke, Chapters 9-11, focuses on what disciples of Jesus need to do to be faithful in their daily living. What we read in these Chapters can sound very contradictory, because the message chops and changes between action and devotion, between doing and being, between deeds of mercy, and inner pursuits. Immediately prior to Martha and Mary’s kitchen squabble was the story of the Good Samaritan that concludes with Jesus instructing us to follow the example of the Samaritan: “Go and do likewise! Act like the Samaritan” In the very next breath, Mary is praised for taking time to be quiet and receiving Jesus’ message, and now in today's passage the disciples come asking Jesus to teach them to pray.

I read one Pastor’s comments on today’s scripture: He shared how he was preparing to go on a weeklong prayer retreat and had told members of his church that for the next seven days he would immerse himself in scripture and prayer; for the world, nation, city, and church, as well as for his family and himself. He noted that some of his parishioners were incredulous, asking him, “Is there really that much to pray for?”

We might also pose the opposite question: Is there in fact enough time to pray for all that needs to be prayed about? Do we ever have enough time to pray? Do we have enough time to say everything that is really on our minds and do we have near enough time to be thankful for the many things in our lives?

Is there really that much to pray for? Do we ever have enough time to pray? Two questions we should hold on to as we investigate Luke’s version of the Lord’s Prayer and as we allow two brief parables to help us think about the character of the God to whom we pray and the need for persistence.

I hope you may all have noticed the repair work and re-striping in the church parking lot. As we look into the Lord’s Prayer today, I suggest that not only the words of the prayer, but the sentiments represented by these words and the faithful lifestyle imagined by this prayer are like the stripes outlining where we need to be! The Lord’s Prayer is our guide helping us to do what we should when we park ourselves in God’s presence. In response to the request of the disciples, Jesus offers them a “model prayer” that we know as the Lord’s Prayer. It is a model prayer because it is modeled after the prayer life of Jesus Himself.

As we immerse ourselves in this prayer, these are not only the words of Jesus, they are the words of Jesus to and with God, His Father and our Father. The prayer is revolutionary. Jesus has us address God as “Father”, Dad, Daddy, Pa. Think about it: we are being offered the opportunity to address God in the same way as Jesus! We are to pray to a God to whom all can come as children to a parent, a God who desires an intimate relationship with all who trust in Jesus as Lord. To approach this God all we need is baby talk. We do not need to come up with wordy or flowery language to impress God. We come as we are, asking God for guidance and forgiveness. Not that this “baby talk” means we are to bumble into God’s presence. No, we begin with reverence and a plea that the Father’s kingdom will come to us through the doing of the Father’s will ‘on earth as it is done in heaven.’ Only through the lens of divine purpose can we then ask for our ‘daily bread.’ Only to the extent that I have been merciful can I request mercy.

To ask God for bread is to recognize one’s absolute dependence upon God for the most basic requirements for human survival. The precise meaning of the term epiousios is not fully clear and a helpful suggestion is that it means bread “necessary for existence,” a powerful reminder that we are absolutely and utterly dependent on God. As such it makes sense that the prayer would end by placing our future into the Father’s hands, trusting in the Father’s capacity to ‘deliver us from evil.’

The two brief stories that follow the prayer in Luke employ the "from the lesser to the greater" form of reasoning used in both Greek and rabbinic circles: In these parables, Jesus talks about the character of God in prayer; that God welcomes our prayers and that persistence in prayer is a good thing, as it helps us refine what it is we ask for, seek for and expect, till it is in line with what is pleasing to God.

The first parable uses a common example from Jewish daily life. The man who asks for three loaves of bread at midnight from his neighbor can indeed expect to receive this night-time snack, and not because the Super Wal-Mart is open 24hours. He will receive the bread, if not because of their friendship, then because it would be unthinkable and shameless for the sleeper not to give the petitioner what he needs. God would no more think of not answering prayer than a Jewish neighbor bound by the code of honor and shame of the time would deny bread to his neighbor.

God truly listens when we and all His children pray. At best, our willingness to answer someone’s need is based on how we feel that day, how stressed we are, or how convenient we feel the need is at the time. In contrast, God our Father never says “don’t bother me.” God our Father listens at all times, and loves us no matter what we bring to Him. And so the parable reminds us powerfully: “If a churlish and unwilling householder can in the end be coerced by a friend’s shameless persistence into giving him what he needs, how much more will God who is a loving father supply all his children’s needs?” Thus one of our tag lines for our August 18, Giligan’s Island, KickOff Event: With God there are no castaways!

In the second brief “lesser to greater” parable Jesus reassures His disciples that God not only hears prayer but answers prayer. Jesus’ point is not that God will give us what we ask for if what we ask for us is what we want. Rather, as we pray, we are to get ourselves and our requests in line with God’s Kingdom. When we do this, God will respond... in ways better than we can imagine. It might not be what we wanted, or thought we wanted, but God, our loving Father will not give us a snake in lieu of a fish, or a scorpion in lieu of an egg.

I want to apply our appreciation of Lord’s Prayer to how we pray, with the aim of inspiring all of us to me more faithful, more diligent pray-ers!

At times many of us, indeed all of us, pray as if God were a big aspirin pill! We pray when are sore or when someone we know is in pain, making prayer an antidote to whatever is wrong with us or the people around us. Having said this, even if our prayers begin and conclude with some trouble in our life or in the life of those around, God hears, receives and welcomes these prayers and they could be the start of a whole new friendship with God. A friendship that will see us move away from treating God as some sort of heavenly HMO or PPO, to become friends, partners, learners, listeners with and to God, able to have more conversation with the Almighty than simply reading out the roll of the sick or troubled.

At times we pray as if God were a vending machine, expecting that if we can put in the right combination of prayers, we will get whatever we want. Recent books, such as The Prayer of Jabez, have promoted a very dodgy theology that stresses that we should pray because it works; that as we pray, we will receive exactly what we want. That we will have better looks, a bigger bank balance, more power... because we pray. Author Thomas Moore, writing about prayer offered more truth when he said this: “Pray - period! Don’t expect anything. Or better, expect nothing. Prayer cleanses of us of expectations and allows holy will, providence, and life itself an entry.” The Lord’s Prayer is explicit: we approach God, revering God, seeking God’s way, not ours!

Jane Wagner wrote the powerful one-woman drama, “In Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe.” To date, the most powerful performances of this piece of theater were given by Lily Tomlin. In this show there is a humorous comment on how people view prayer: “When we talk to God, we’re praying. When God talks to us, we’re schizophrenic.” When we pray to our Father, Daddy, Pa, this opens up a conversation... what child talks with a loving parent and doesn’t expect a response? What loving parent hearing the innermost yearnings of their child is silent?

Prayer requires faith: faith to ask, faith to be vulnerable to the needs of others, faith to be honest about yourself, faith to seek a connection with God, faith to wake up... to disturb not just your sleeping neighbor but God, faith asking for God to help and intervene in the needs of others, in the needs of God’s world. Faith is needed because we know that when we offer our pleas to God, we do not always receive an immediate answer, nor the answer we imagined when we made our request.

Earlier this month, while in New York city on vacation, I experienced firsthand a pretty mean policy employed by Starbuck’s. Each store advertises that they are a T-Mobile hotspot, offering a wireless internet connection, just as most Starbuck’s do. But, at least in Manhattan, Starbuck’s blocks you from connecting to any other wireless services while you are on their premises. This forces customers to register for and pay for their T-Mobile service. Thankfully, with God, everywhere we are is a prayer hotspot. No matter who we are, where we are, what we have done, what we are thinking or feeling, how good or how bad we have been or think we have been there is an open, a wide open connection, connecting all of us to and with God.

Prayer has enough bandwidth for all, no fees, no restrictions, no dropped calls, no network issues or failures.

Prayer needs to be at the heart of our discipleship, at the very centre of our relationship with God.

As we pray, we can and will come to know God more fully, and as we know God more fully we pray confidently and with persistence.

As we pray the Lord’s Prayer, as we model all our prayers after the Lord’s Prayer, our lives will come to express the relationship envisaged and expressed in the Lord’s Prayer as our wills come to be better aligned with God’s will.

As we pray, we release our desires and our intentions to God, we submit ourselves to God’s plan, we give up our own will, in order that we can more fully embrace God’s will for us.

As we pray this morning, in a focused way for the sick and those in trouble, we release God into each and every situation. We release God in our lives, we release God in the lives of those who come in faith asking to be prayed for, seeking God in their life, we release God in the life of our congregation, our communities, our world.

As we pray we allow ourselves to be held in the loving embrace of God, asking that in our lives and through our living – God’s will, will be done.

As we pray, we allow ourselves to rest in the gentle welcome of God, asking that God’s Kingdom would come, on earth, in my life, in our shared life, as it is in heaven, as it is in God’s life.  Amen.