As this is my first post, perhaps a bit of explanation is due. I currently serve as the Chaplain for Gibault Children's Services, a residential youth treatment facility in Terre Haute, Indiana. In my sermons so far, we have worked our way through the Gospel of Luke. We finished that up two weeks ago, and so now I am going over some of the essentials of the Christian faith with the kids until I start filling in as a supply pastor at a United Methodist Church, at which time I'll begin preaching from the lectionary. The first topic I wanted to introduce the kids to was the Lord's prayer, so I've broken it up into two sermons, the first of which is here, and the second of which I'll post tonight after I have preached it.
--------------------------------------
"When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites! They love to stand up and pray in the houses of worship and on the street corners, so that everyone will see them. I assure you, they have already been paid in full. But when you pray, go to your room, close the door, and pray to your Father, who is unseen. And your Father, who sees what you do in private, will reward you. "When you pray, do not use a lot of meaningless words, as the pagans do, who think that their gods will hear them because their prayers are long. Do not be like them. Your Father already knows what you need before you ask him. This, then, is how you should pray: 'Our Father in heaven: May your holy name be honored; may your Kingdom come; may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today the food we need. Forgive us the wrongs we have done, as we forgive the wrongs that others have done to us. Do not bring us to hard testing, but keep us safe from the Evil One.' "If you forgive others the wrongs they have done to you, your Father in heaven will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive the wrongs you have done.
(Mat 6:5-15)
Of all the religious activities there are, prayer is probably the one that comes most naturally to human beings. It seems as if, almost as soon as they could speak, humans began to pray, began to speak to God, or gods. It is ingrained in us. You all have heard the saying, regardless of whether it’s true or not, that “there are no atheists in foxholes.” A foxhole, of course, is a term which comes to us from the military, I remember hearing about it in history class when they’d talk about Vietnam, but they were also used in the World Wars; I don’t know how far back their history goes though. Anyway, a foxhole was, of course, a hole in the ground that a soldier would crawl down into for various reasons. Maybe they were setting up for an ambush, or hiding if they were running from the enemy. And sometimes they’d go down in there looking to see if enemy soldiers were inside. From what I understand, a foxhole was a bad place to be whether you were hiding in one, or if you were looking for someone. If you’re sitting in one, all a person has to do is toss in a grenade and you’re done for.
So, the idea was that, in such a dangerous spot, almost anyone, even a hardened atheist, will revert to some religious background and ask God to keep them safe. Prayer is something almost every human being on the planet has done at some point or another.
A man named James Montgomery put it this way in a poem:
Prayer is the soul’s sincere desire,
Uttered or unexpressed
The motion of a hidden fire,
That kindles in the breast
Prayer is the burthen of a sigh
The falling of a tear
The upward glancing of an eye
When none but God is near
Prayer is the simplest form of speech
That infant lips can try
Prayer is the sublimest strains that reach
The majesty of high
So, the idea of teaching people how to pray is sort of like trying to teach a grown man how to eat. What’s the point? Well, just like with eating, just because everyone knows how to do it doesn’t mean they know how to do it well. Now, God will accept any prayer you send His way. But, there’s more to prayer than turning in a few requests to God. If you want to get the most benefit from it, there are some general rules that are best to follow.
Prayer, in a way, is kind of like working out. Anyone can receive some benefit from just stepping in a weight room and moving a few plates around. But if you really want to put on some muscle, or build up your endurance, or whatever your goal is, you’d do better if you got some pointers, if you paid attention to things like proper form, how often and for how long you exercise, what and how much you eat, and how much rest you get outside the weight room. Prayer is similar in so far as, just like exercising, anyone can benefit from saying a prayer from time to time. But, if you really want to experience a relationship with God, have your life changed by Him, and basically all the things that come along with being a follower of Jesus, it’s best to get some pointers, follow some guidelines. That’s just what Jesus intends to give us in this passage from Matthew.
We’re going to break the prayer itself up into two sections. First we will discuss what comes before Jesus giving His disciples the prayer, then the first two verses of the prayer itself. These first two verses reflect a focus more on God than our own needs. Next week, we’ll finish up with the second half of the prayer, which reflects more on the things we need from God.
This comes as part of Matthew’s version of the Sermon on the Mount, which we discussed a few weeks ago when we were covering Luke’s Sermon on the Plain. A lot of the sayings from both sermons are the same. It’s found in the section where Matthew begins discussing religious duties, such as helping the poor at the temple and things of that nature, and how we ought to do those sorts of things privately. He says:
"Make certain you do not perform your religious duties in public so that people will see what you do. If you do these things publicly, you will not have any reward from your Father in heaven. "So when you give something to a needy person, do not make a big show of it, as the hypocrites do in the houses of worship and on the streets. They do it so that people will praise them. I assure you, they have already been paid in full. But when you help a needy person, do it in such a way that even your closest friend will not know about it. Then it will be a private matter. And your Father, who sees what you do in private, will reward you.
(Mat 6:1-4)
If you remember from when we discussed the Sermon on the Plain, Jesus went through a series of “blessed are the dot dot dots” and “woe unto the dot dot dots.” And one of those “woe unto” parts discussed the rich and how they already had their reward in this life. We discussed that if your primary concern was for being comfortable in this life, or well thought of in this life, then you would only be well thought of in this life. Here Jesus makes a similar point with regard to people preforming “spiritual things.” These things, much like having some money to take care of yourself and others, is a good thing, but if for you it’s all about show, if you want people to see you do good things so that they’ll pat you on the back and talk about how good of a person you are, then that’s it, that’s your reward. If, however, you’re sincere in these things, then you ought to do them regardless of who’s watching. Your concern should be with whether God is pleased, not other people.
Not only that, but there is a deeper reward for doing good things in private. It’s only the things done in private that have a real effect upon your soul. If you do good deeds in private, then you can enjoy the actual goodness of it, the joy you can feel from seeing someone who needed some help get it. Furthermore, if you do it in private, it’s easier to do as an act of faith. If you do it in public, you do it because other people or watching, or because you know you will benefit. If you do it in private, you do it because God is calling you too. Otherwise, if you’re doing it for praise, you’re not really helping the person, you’re just helping yourself; the person just happens to be there.
In this same spirit He continues on to speak about prayer:
"When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites! They love to stand up and pray in the houses of worship and on the street corners, so that everyone will see them. I assure you, they have already been paid in full.
(Mat 6:5)
If you pray and worship in public for the sake of other people seeing you do it, then you’re not really praying to and worshiping God. You’re praying to those around you and you’re worshipping yourself. You’ve violated the first commandment; you’ve put another god, namely yourself and the public, in front of and as more important than the true God. You’ve put your faith in something much weaker than the true God.
And it seems that Jesus is saying those praises a person gets for doing that sort of thing, and the warm fuzzies they feel when they worship themselves, that is their reward. They’ve received the due reward of someone who does something of that nature, but they’ve received no reward for God. Why should they? They aren’t really concerned with Him at the time.
Now, we ought to address the first and most obvious question that comes up when discussing this passage. Does this mean we ought not worship and pray in public at all? What about going to church? Surely that’s praying and worshipping in public.
Obviously, Jesus is not criticizing the actual act of worshipping or praying to God in church. The Bible is filled with exhortations for believers to gather together and pray and worship God. In fact, that’s part of what the fourth commandment “keep the Sabbath,” is about. And we are told in the book of Hebrews:
Let us not give up the habit of meeting together, as some are doing. Instead, let us encourage one another all the more, since you see that the Day of the Lord is coming nearer. (Heb 10:25)
So, if God intends for us to gather together, praying to and worshipping Him, then Jesus must be critiquing something else. Specifically, He is critiquing intentions. And, if it doesn’t seem obvious to you, if it’s not clear whether you’re doing things for the right reason, Jesus continues:
But when you pray, go to your room, close the door, and pray to your Father, who is unseen. And your Father, who sees what you do in private, will reward you.
(Mat 6:6)
If the only time you pray is when people are watching, if you don’t do this sort of thing in private, then that’s a pretty good sign you’re doing it for the wrong reasons.
So, what do you do if you find yourself here? What if you discover that you’re doing it for the wrong reasons? First, you admit your mistake. You confess it to God. Then you try to do better, you start trying to pray in private, asking God to change your heart. That’s called repentance.
You see, last week and the week before, we talked about the benefits of having faith in God, our being forgiven of our sins. Last week we touched a little bit on the fact that, if we have faith, then we have the Spirit of Christ in us, and by the power of that spirit our sins start to be overcome in our lives. That’s what they call “sanctification” in Christianeese. Sanctification is the means by which we are “kept in the faith,” you might say. In order to be kept in the faith, you can’t simply have a one-time experience where you acknowledge the work of God in Christ and then you’re good for the rest of all eternity; never have to worry about doing anything good or godly again.
It’s kind of like the marriage analogy I used both weeks. It wouldn’t be much of a marriage if you went to the altar with someone, pledged your life, faithfulness, et cetera, et cetera, and then, when you’re all done, turned around, said “well, that was nice, see you around” and never lived life as a married couple. That’s no marriage at all. In the same way, being a Christian, being in that state of forgiveness and so forth, is a lifelong walk.
Now, if you’re tempted to stray into thinking that doing these things is for God’s benefit, rather than our benefit, as if God needs us to do these things; if you’re tempted to stray back into thinking you can be “good enough” for God or “do enough” to sway God’s favor over to your side, Jesus next addresses that concern:
"When you pray, do not use a lot of meaningless words, as the pagans do, who think that their gods will hear them because their prayers are long. Do not be like them. Your Father already knows what you need before you ask him.
(Mat 6:7-8)
Now, again, is Jesus criticizing spending long periods of time in prayer? No. In fact, Paul tells us a number of times in the New Testament to “pray without ceasing,” to “pray on every occasion as the Spirit leads.” Again, Jesus is criticizing the intention. God is willing to bless you, to give you what’s good for you; He “knows what you need before you ask.” The problem is when you think that by praying more, God will be more likely to “give in.” He’s criticizing the idea that if you work in more prayer time, you get more stuff out of God. God wants you to ask, but He doesn’t need you to ask a thousand times. If you do, in a sense it demonstrates that you don’t really have faith in His goodness, in His good will towards you.
Instead, the reason we ought to pray often is not because of what it does to God, but what it does to us. This is why Jesus gives us this outline of how to pray, so that we can get the most spiritual benefit from this exercise. He begins:
This, then, is how you should pray: 'Our Father in heaven: May your holy name be honored;
(Mat 6:9)
First and foremost, what does calling God “our Father,” mean? What sort of feelings should that evoke in us? I will reference to Martin Luther a few times tonight. He puts it this way “With these words God tenderly invites us to believe that He is our true Father and that we are His true children, so that will all boldness and confidence we may ask Him as dear children ask their dear father.” Now, I don’t know what sort of relationship you each individually have with your fathers. But if you don’t get along with your Dad, if things about that relationship have never been healthy, then be careful. Don’t picture God as that sort of father. Picture a loving, caring, always-there kind of father, the kind of father everyone thinks of as the ideal father; a father who you love back, who you are devoted too. That is the sort of Father God wants to be to us.
Now, about “may your holy name be honored,” here’s one of those places where using the translation I’m using is a blessing and a curse. On the one hand it communicates the idea of what Jesus is saying in a way that’s easily understandable, but on the other hand it loses some aspects of what is really being said. That’ll be true throughout their translation of this prayer. Normally, we hear this first line as “Our Father, who is in Heaven, Hallowed be (or Holy is) your name.”
Both translations carry an aspect of what was being said. On the one hand, we are showing that we desire God’s name, or more specifically God Himself, to be considered great, good, and holy by all people. On the other hand, we are acknowledging that God’s name, and God Himself, is already great, good, and holy, regardless of whether it’s acknowledged by anyone or not. And I think the second is slightly more important when it comes to this way of praying, our first step is to acknowledge the goodness and holiness of God.
Of course, sometimes you don’t feel like acknowledging the goodness or holiness of God, and that’s where using a structured prayer like this one helps us. If we acknowledge it, even when we don’t want to, eventually we will begin to feel its truth. C.S. Lewis once compared praying in this way to irrigating a field. You see, back in the day before some of our modern farming practices developed, if you wanted to get water to your field, you had to dig channels to direct the water to come through. Of course, the channels you dug were normally dry when you dug them, then eventually the water would come through and you’d receive the benefits of your labor. Praying in this way, then, is like irrigating your soul. You dig these channels by practicing certain prayer habits, like acknowledging the goodness and holiness of God, and eventually water starts coming through those channels and gives health to your soul.
So, we first acknowledge God’s goodness and holiness, and express a desire that all other people would recognize that same goodness and holiness as well. Then, Jesus continues:
may your Kingdom come; may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
(Mat 6:10)
So, what are we saying when we ask that His Kingdom come? Well, again, Martin Luther tells us “God’s kingdom comes when our heavenly Father gives us His Holy Spirit, so that by His grace we believe His holy Word and lead godly lives here in time and there in eternity.” The Kingdom of God is where God rules, both in Heaven, and in the lives of believers here on Earth. So, when we ask that this Kingdom come, we are asking that it would grow, both in strength and in numbers. We’re asking that more people would enter into God’s Kingdom, be brought into a good relationship with Him; and we asking that those who are already a part of the Kingdom move closer to God in the relationship with Him that they already have.
Both when we ask that His Kingdom come and His will be done, we are submitting to His rule in our own lives as well. God’s will is what God wants, what He intends to do. We are acknowledging that what God wants and what He intends to do are more important than our own desires and intentions.
No comments:
Post a Comment