Walking in the Way of Jesus... Prayer

Jan. 19, 2014        

Mark 11:12-14, 20-26

Pr. Jim Harrish tells a story of a man who came home one day to find that his wife has hung a plaque on the wall which read, Prayer Changes Things…

Prayer Changes Us.

Prayer Changes Others.

Prayer Changes Things.

Prayer Changes the Church.

Prayer Changes the World.

Within 24 hours the plaque had been removed. She asked, “What’s wrong? Don’t you like prayer?” He said, “Sure… I like prayer, I don’t like change.”

Prayer

We begin today reflecting on the 6 values of walking in the way of Jesus…. These Values… Prayer… Worship… Learning… Serving… Relationship Building… Generosity are meant to help us, to encourage us, to empower us in growing and living our lives closer to God thru Jesus. In Fact… as I mentioned last week…these Values should be the Modus Operandi for every faith community. God tells us in Duet. 6… “The Shema”… to love our God with all our heart, soul, and strength. To memorize his laws, to teach them to our children, and to talk about them all the time. The values of walking in the way of Jesus are the values God desires us to live by.

We often say we do this… we even tell our kids they are to learn these values… the truth is… as the church we don’t do these values very well. What we say and what we do is often times two different things, and is part the reason the church is not attractive to younger groups of people. Our young people see through all of this… they see the hypocrisy. We need to do better… and why we need to re-examine what we value.

Today we begin by reflecting on the Value of “Prayer”

Prayer… seems like a no-brainer… of course we pray! Yet… many of us struggle with prayer. We struggle to find words that express what were feeling. We struggle with inadequacy… being worthy enough… speaking well enough. We struggle with whether or not we are even in the right posture. Do we stand, kneel, sit, bow, eyes open or shut?

Yet… Jesus tells us in our story today that “Everything you ask for in prayer will be yours, if you have faith.”

People have told me… Pastor I prayed, and I prayed, but I don’t seem to receive. I prayed for God to heal my_______ , but God didn’t heal or God wasn’t listening…. Because they weren’t healed. This is an issue for us as Americans because we tend to get what we want… we’re a very impatient people. The truth is… our expectations are way off base.

Kathleen Norris in her book “Amazing Grace” says, “sometimes people will say things like, “Your prayers didn’t work, but thanks, as if a person could be praying for only one thing.” A miracle. A cure. But in the hardest situations, all one can do is ask God for is mercy: let my friend die at home, Lord, and not in the hospital. Let her go quickly, God, and with her loved ones present.

One Benedictine friend, a gentle, thoughtful man who has been in constant physical pain for years and is now confined to a wheelchair, says of prayer, “Often… all I can do is ask God, Lord, what is it you want from me? From him I have learned that prayer is not asking for what you think you want, but asking to be changed in ways you can’t imagine. To be made more grateful, more able to see the good in what you have been given instead of always grieving for what might have been. People who are in the habit of praying know that when prayer is answered, it is never in a way that you expect.”

Jesus’ friends had difficulties with prayer as well. Jesus asked his friends to go with him to pray… they often weren’t overjoyed. Jesus wanted them to stay awake and pray with him in the garden… they couldn’t… They even ask Jesus how to pray, then teaches them what we know as the Lord’s Prayer. Actually… Jesus taught them two forms of prayer.

 
1^st Individual Prayer… Mark 1:35… Jesus gets up early in the morning to go into the desert to pray… go out in nature. Jesus went out in nature by himself to talk with his daddy… his father. It was a time to focus and reflect. Matt. 6… Jesus tells his friends to go into a room alone and pray… Jesus instructs them to take time alone to be with God. It is a time take and make time to reconnect and to get refreshed. Jesus took time to be alone with his father. Most of us don’t have a problem here… most of can do this because it’s private… no one is looking.

But Jesus also taught that they… his followers are to pray together as a group…

Luke 11… Jesus teaches them as a group… around a meal to pray. The context of Luke 11 is that they are at Mary & Martha’s house sharing a meal. For Jesus… group prayer is a prayer that opens the heart to the kingdom of God, and to seeing what God sees… from which they through God will move mountains.

Let’s look at What Prayer is Not.

Pr. Mike Foss states, “Prayer is not a special formula… prayer is far more than a single creedal formula that makes us feel good.” And prayer is NOT for God’s benefit, but for us to share our lives as a trust & dependence on God. Prayer is NOT limited to special people… like pastors or those trained, or prayers like the ones someone reads from a book… you know canned prayers… for me there not prayers because they’re not ours!! Prayer is NOT for our own self-indulgence…Things… Desires… Wants

Robert Capon says, “Prayer is not going to God (he’s already in you), or seeking God (he’s already found you), or opening yourself to God (you couldn’t keep him out if you tried), or becoming spiritual (he’s already sent you the Spirit). And it’s certainly not about buttering up God (because he already thinks your dandy). Prayer… is just talking with someone who’s already talking to you. ”

What Prayer IS?

Is a Conversation with God. Just like talking to your parents, or family, or friends… simply having a conversation with another person. It’s not all that difficult… we all talk to people. Sometimes too much. Prayer is the same thing… it’s talking to God in our language. When I fully understood this it became much easier to pray. I wasn’t worried about how and what I was praying. I was just being myself and I believe that’s all God expected. It didn’t matter how I spoke it… if it was coming from my heart, that’s all God wanted… and it’s about God, not about whose hearing me.

Is Connecting to God and Becoming one with God… drawing close to God thru prayer. Acknowledging God as Lord of my life. Not for providing me with special things, but for providing what I need. And…seeing what God sees. Looking around me for what God may be already doing.

Is an Attitude of Love. It’s an opportunity to become intimate with God and others. Prayer is an opportunity share our lives, and dump our baggage. To open our hearts for transformation and forgives so that grace can be received. For us to be honest about our lives so we don’t have to play act or try to be someone were not. It’s also an opportunity to seek forgiveness and grace thru love.

Is about Talking & Listening. Prayer is a two-way conversation… our words… our language… our hearts… our hurts and pain… our ears and our ears collectively. Too often we do too much talking and not enough listening. If fact… it is our biggest problem and why we often miss what God is doing and wants to do with us.

Why is Prayer Important for Community?

First… To Trust in God’s Hands. Prayer is an opportunity to let go of ourselves and our self interest. To let go of our agendas and to be open to God’s agenda.

Pastor & Theologian NT Wright wrote about the Lord’s Prayer… “what might it mean to pray this kingdom prayer? It means, for a start, that we look up into the face of our Father in heaven, and commit ourselves to the hallowing of his name, that we look immediately out upon the world that he made and see it as he sees it. Thy Kingdom Come…  to pray this means seeing the world in binocular vision. Seeing it with the love of the Creator, and seeing it with deep grief for the battered and battle-scared state which the world now finds itself. Put those to together and bring the picture into focus… The love and the grief join into the Jesus shape… the kingdom shape… the shape of the cross.”

Second…To Listen & Discern God’s Direction.

What will be Cana’s Values?

What will be Cana’s Mission?

In what ways may Cana have to change?

These questions and others need to be asked and to be blanketed in community prayer. How would a congregation know what it wants to do, is what God wants them to do? How would you know if God really wants you to do this or that ministry?  How would you know? If you weren’t in community prayer! The early church followers did this. They gathered, they prayed, they shared meals, money, food, whoever was in need they shared. They worshipped, they praised God, they listened to God’s Word… what happened because of this? God added to their number… That’s how they knew they were doing God’s work.

I believe Community prayer outside of praying on Sunday morning is the only way you would know. I believe congregations need prayer teams in order to discern God’s direction for them.

When I was on internship at Spirit of Joy they were getting ready to build their first unit in a neo-traditional community that eventually became a new city. They were going to be in the cent of the town… the center of a downtown. Then it all came crashing down in April of 2002. The developer pulled the rug out from underneath them. They were angry… an understatement for sure… they had spent about $300,000 on all the planning and it looked like they were going to lose it all. They gathered to talk about their next moves. They probably had a case to sue the developer, but they prayed and voted unanimously to forgive and walk away losing the $300,000.

At which time I said to the pastor… what about that big building over there and pointed to it. So     we gathered every Tuesday evening to pray at a former Builders Square. And… for 2 years…. A group of 20-30 joined together… every Tuesday evening to pray and ask God for direction and if this was the place for them.

God did provide… not the former Builders Square building, but a former bowling alley across the street. Their communion table is made from one of the bowling alleys.They continue to have a prayer team that meets every week.

Third… Faith Communities that Pray… Grow.

If Cana Lutheran is going to grow spiritually and numerically there must be a prayer team that gathers weekly to pray. To pray for God’s direction… for her leaders… for her pastor… ministries… the concerns of the community… her people… others. To pray for the spirit to come and open us up to the ways of Jesus… in other words… to change us. It has been my observation and experience that when congregations do this intentionally… they grow.

Closing:

If Prayer is an important value in walking in the way of Jesus, and if Prayer is important to Cana Lutheran, and if Cana Lutheran is serious about the value of Prayer..,. then, Cana Lutheran should develop a prayer team that meets weekly. Community Prayer is a must if you are going to discern your values… your mission… and who your next pastor will be. So… I encourage you… I implore you… I demand that you put together a Prayer Team and pray weekly for God’s direction.

I’d like to close with one final story.

There is an old expression all of us have heard: Prayer changes things. We like the sound of the saying because it doesn't tell things exactly like it is. Prayer changes things, yes. But even more fundamentally, prayer changes people. Even more particularly, prayer changes the pray-er. Many of us want to be converted, but we don't want to be changed. To pray is to be continually converted, yes. But to pray is to be continually changed.