“The Pattern”

Matthew 6:9-13

June 21, 2020

 

 

Prayer Primer

Bible scholars will often point out that what we call “the Lord’s Prayer” would more appropriately be called “the disciple’s prayer.”  This is because Jesus is teaching His followers, His disciples, how to pray.  We find this prayer in two places in the New Testament.  We find it here in Matthew as part of the Sermon on the Mount.  It makes sense that it would be there because the Sermon on the Mount is where Jesus was teaching about what it meant to follow Him and the things we were supposed to be doing as we followed Him.  It is natural that prayer should be included.  The second place is in Luke 11.  There, Jesus was praying and when He had finished, one of the disciples came up to Him and asked Him to teach them how to pray.  Think of the Lord’s Prayer as “Prayer 101.”

 

What is prayer?  And why do we pray?  Have we ever considered these questions?

 

Is prayer just asking God for what we need?  Is prayer a one-way conversation where we send up our requests to the heavens and maybe they’ll get answered and maybe they won’t?  Is prayer just wishful thinking, us speaking to the heavens hoping that Someone is up there listening?  

 

Do we pray because we feel that if we don’t, God will be angry with us and that by praying we can be spared the lightning bolts or any other form of pain and suffering? Do we pray in order to get the things we want in life?  Do we pray because that’s what we’re supposed to do as Christians?

 

At its heart, prayer is simply talking to God.  But it is far more than just asking for the things we want or need.  Prayer is, at its heart, to enter into a conversation with God.  Now we’ve all probably been in “conversations” with people who did all the talking and we know how tedious that can be.  It doesn’t make for much of a relationship.  It is in the give-and-take which involves listening as well as speaking that a relationship blossoms.  So prayer, I think, is not just a ritual we do because we have to but rather it is the great privilege of entering into a loving relationship with the God of the universe.

 

The Bible never seems to issue a command that says, “You must pray this way.”  The pages of the Bible seem to assume prayer.  It’s not a matter of if one prays; it’s a matter of when.  For instance, places in the Scriptures like Psalm 91 which says, “He shall call upon me and I will answer him: I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honor him” (Psalm 91:15); and Isaiah 65 which states, “And it shall come to pass that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear” (Isaiah 65:24), all seem to assume prayer will happen.  Prayer seems to be an almost fundamental human need for many people as we reach out to God.  Yes, it is about making requests of God, but it’s so much more than that.  It is also about worship, thanksgiving, and listening to God’s speaking into our own lives.  We pray because we want to know God and to be known by God.  So let’s pray now as we prepare to jump into how Jesus teaches us to pray….

 

Pater Noster

Our Catholic brothers and sisters sometimes call the Lord’s prayer the “Pater Noster.”  This is just a Latin phrase which means the first two words in the prayer our Lord

taught us, “Our Father….” 

 

Like all conversations, prayer is between two persons.  Prayer is not throwing one’s requests to the winds and hoping that the universe will somehow return blessings of one sort or another.  There is us.  But then, where are our prayers directed?  Who are we praying to?  Jesus says this is who we are praying to:  “Our Father in heaven….”  

 

This conversation, however, is not between two equals.  Yet, intimacy and closeness are still possible.  This is what Jesus means when He teaches us to pray, “Our Father in heaven….”  Dallas Willard makes an interesting observation here.  Many of us have learned the Lord’s Prayer in this way:  “Our Father who art in heaven.”  What that has come to mean is “Our Father who is far away and much later.”  In other words, we get the sense that we’re praying to God who is somewhere “up there” and whom we won’t really get to know until we “get to heaven” ourselves.  Rather, “Our Father in heaven” speaks to the fact both of God’s greatness and God’s nearness.  He is great in the sense that He is the Author and Originator of all things.  By His power and greatness all things were made - including us - and continue to exist.  We sometimes forget the awesomeness and power of God.  Yet, God in all His power and might desires that we come to Him as a parent desires that their children come to them.  Yes, we come with reverence but we still come as God’s children.

 

Why does Jesus tell us to pray to our Father “in heaven,” though?  What does that mean?  Before the CoronaVirus began to dominate our lives and how we go about living, we were involved with our sister churches in our annual Lenten study.  The video series we were watching was being taught by a fellow named N.T. Wright, who is an English biblical scholar and minister in the Church of England.  He gave an illustration which may help us here.  He told the story of how when the Soviets sent their cosmonauts up into orbit around the earth, one of them looked around and later reported that he didn’t see God up there.  When Jesus speaks of heaven, it does not refer to “up there,” however.  It refers to a whole other dimension where God is.  To illustrate this, NT Wright asked us to think about two circles, one labeled “the universe” and the other labeled “the kingdom of heaven.”  Now imagine these two circles overlapping.  This would be where the kingdom of heaven was made visible in some way or other to us on earth.  Think of prayer as being like the phone lines that connect the kingdom of this world with the kingdom of heaven.  Heaven is not up in the sky.  Wherever God is, there is the kingdom of heaven.

 

The Goodness of God

One of the things we will miss this summer will be our time at JRVC and summer camp.  A few years ago, during one of our weeks of work camp at JRVC, our song leader used a song as part of our daily worship times called “Good, Good Father.”  It was written by a fellow named Chris Tomlin and its first couple of lines go like this:

 

I've heard a thousand stories of what they think you're like

But I've heard the tender whispers of love in the dead of night

And you tell me that you're pleased

And that I'm never alone

You're a good good father

It's who you are, it's who you are, it's who you are

And I'm loved by you

It's who I am, it's who I am, it's who I am 

 

It speaks of God’s loving care and was among the favorites of the kids that summer.

 

It matters greatly what God’s nature is like.  Is He really a “Good, Good Father” or not?  If He’s not, then when we come to Him it’s only in uncertainty and fear.  We would come to someone like that not out of trust and love but only out of desperation.  

 

But Jesus tells us otherwise.  God is truly a “Good, Good Father.”  Remember His teaching about the flowers and the birds?  Jesus said, “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?” and “If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!”  

 

Other writers of the Bible also bear witness to the goodness of God.  James tells us, “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.”  The Psalmists remind us, “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good”; “Praise the Lord, for the Lord is good….”; and “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever.”  Moses reminded the people of what God had done for them in bringing them out of Egypt:  “There you saw how the Lord your God carried you, as a father carries his son, all the

way you went until you reached this place.”

We might also be able to add our own experience with our Heavenly Father.  I don’t always understand His ways nor do I never experience moments of doubt and uncertainty.  But as time has marched on, I have come to a deeper trust and patience as I have seen that His ways are truly good.  I have not lacked for what I have needed.  I don’t always understand why this or that has to happen but what I am learning is to trust the Lord through it.  He is truly a “Good, Good Father.”

 

Fatherhood

I am really sorry that we haven’t been able to pull together the Father’s Day booklets as we have in recent years.  It’s always a treat to read all the good things folks have to say about their dads or their loving remembrances of them.  We can add this to the list of things we will look forward to when all this is behind us.

 

But I want to challenge all of you fathers here or listening out there.  Who we are as fathers affects how our kids see God.  We can either help them to know that the Lord is a “Good, Good Father” or not.  Clayton King, writing an article for NewSpring Church in Anderson, SC, writes this about how his wife’s experience with the men in her life affected her views of God:

 

“She had only experienced pain and hurt from the men in her life. She never had real, meaningful conversations with her stepfathers. They never seemed interested in her as a little girl. She remembers feeling ignored, as if she didn’t exist, because they seemed so distant and detached. She grew up thinking something was wrong with her. In her young mind, she assumed she was the problem. She never knew a father’s unconditional love.  Now imagine how that carried over to her concept of God. Even after Sharie trusted Christ and became a Christian, it took years for her to deprogram from what she’d experienced and to reprogram a true view of God as a loving, trustworthy Father who would not use her or manipulate her or ignore her. She struggled to accept God as loving, kind, merciful, and trustworthy. Her broken paternal relationships led to a broken and incomplete understanding of her heavenly Father. That’s not an easy thing to overcome.”

 

As fathers, we affect how our kids see God.  No pressure.

 

But what a grand privilege.  You and I, as human as we might be, get to have a hand in showing our children and youth a picture of what God looks like.  Who we are as fathers affects how our kids see God.  We can either help them to know that the Lord is a “Good, Good Father.” Or not.  May we respond to the challenge with renewed zeal and courage and above all, love, so that our kids may know, and want to know, our Father in heaven.    amen