"Lord, teach us to Pray" (Luke 11:1)

One of the three Great Spiritual Disciplines we often focus on in Lent is our prayer life,  perhaps becoming more intentional about it, placing more stress on the pattern of prayer we take, or the time we give to it. The other two disciplines Jesus speaks about in Matthew's gospel (6:1-18) fasting, and almsgiving, are equally as important, in that they are all effective forms of discipline to help us become more spiritually fit.  

Over these forty days of Lent we are meant to reflect on our spiritual lives, what am I doing to strengthen my relationship with God and how am I doing in it.  We all from time to time become lax, our lives are busy,  and so it is easy to fall away.

The disciples in Luke’s gospel (11:1-8) no doubt recognizing their need for a more disciplined prayer life,  after seeing Jesus praying in a certain place, when he was finished they went to him, asking him, “Lord, teach us to pray.” (11:1)

These disciples would have been steeped in prayer, as Jewish men it would have been part of their upbringing to be formed in the way of prayer. Following particular prayer rituals and pattern for prayer.   As a young child the first prayer I remember learning was, “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep…”.  I  prayed that prayer right up through my teen years and perhaps even early adult years before I gave it up.  Only this year while I was visiting a elderly gentlemen in the hospital, after I finished having prayer with him, he said "there was always a prayer we prayed when we were children.  I don’t suppose you know it, do you?"  He couldn’t remember the words….. He was much older then I, in his 90’s.   I thought about the prayer I prayed as a child and thought will it couldn’t possibly be the same one with the age difference,  but I thought I’d try it, "wouldn’t be this one would it. Now I lay me down to sleep…”  and that was the prayer.  It was his prayer too.  That little prayer perhaps shaped and formed many of us down through the years in the way of faith. 

It was the prayer of our bedtime, and I think the gentlemen who was dying, found great comfort in it as we did as children. “If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.” It spoke to us of God’s providential protection & care even in death.

Prayer forms us in the way of faith and shapes us, the disciples already shaped in prayer would have understood this and asking Jesus to teach them, was about learning from Jesus what they saw in his prayer life, and what they obviously saw between John and his disciples, "teach us as John taught his disciples"(11:1). The disciples wanted something more then a pattern or form for prayer.

Jesus response to them was to teach them to pray, using the words,  “When you pray say: Father, hallowed be your name….Your kingdom come… give us each day our daily bread…...".   It was a formula or pattern of Prayer.  The prayer we know as the Lord’s prayer, and continues to be the foundational prayer of our Christian faith today.  It is the prayer of the disciples of the Lord, one that marks their identity as Christ’s disciples.

It is our prayer of faith, one that is meant to shape and form us for his service in the world.  All too often we pray these words without even thinking about them and they become mere words rather then the prayer that it is intended to be.  That which builds relationship with the one to whom we pray, God our Father, Hallowed be thy name, to hallow God is to place God above all else, and when we do that we open our lives to be changed by God.   

Prayer is meant to change us and form us in the way of faith, and when we intentionally pray, whether it is the Lord’s prayer, or some other prayer form, we open our Lives to God.

Joan Chittister in her book, “Breath of the soul: Reflections on prayer, says, “to pray is to rivet our mind on God. “Rivet” what a powerful word meaning to fasten, to bolt, ourselves to God. “Spirituality without a prayer life is no spirituality at all, she says, and it will not last beyond the first defeats. Prayer is an opening of the self so that the Word of God can break in and make us new. Prayer is the act of beginning the process of becoming one with the one we seek”.

Jesus throughout his life embodied the practice of prayer: in Mark’s gospel (1:35) it says, “Early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus went alone to a deserted place to pray.” And in Matthew’s gospel “after he had dismissed the crowds, he went upon the mountain by himself to pray” (matt 14:23).   As busy as he was, Jesus made time for prayer.  Jesus prayed about everything, he prayed all night before choosing his disciples, he prayed before healing people, he prayed when he was baptised.  And On the night before his arrest in John’s gospel (17:11) Jesus prayed for his disciples, interceding on our behalf, ‘Lord protect, them in your name you have given me, so that they may be one as we are one.” 

Jesus’ prayer was intentional as our’s should be too, not praying only when we can make time for it, or when we feel we want to, or to pray only when we are in need or in trouble, as a comment I heard recently, “if we pray only when we are in trouble, then indeed we are in trouble.” Prayer is what firms  up our relationship with God and with one another, and it is being consistent at it that we become more faithful to it.

A disciplined prayer life doesn’t happen overnight, it takes time and it takes effort. With so much to pray about, praying for ourselves, for others, and for the situations in our world, everyday there is something, or someone new to add to our lists of prayer concerns:  someone else is sick, someone has died, someone is in trouble, and at times we even become perhaps overburdened by it, that any kind of prayer life for ourselves feels even more of a burden.   And it can be, but our prayer is not to be so much about what we do, what I do, the prayer we offer up, as it is about God. Coming into his presence and just being in that moment, sometimes is prayer enough.  God knows our hearts, all we have to do is trust him to it.  Recently after hosting a Quiet Day, as I was taking  the prayer request from the prayer tree in one of the stations, one of the women said, we forgot to pray for these individuals during the closing prayer.  I said no, I prayed for all whom we brought to prayer here today, but I said, the real prayer for these persons and situations happened when you brought them to mind, and wrote your prayer request on that piece of paper." That was when you lifted them to God. Prayer takes place when and wherever we bring someone to mind, in that moment of concern, caring, or simple thought, we bring them to God, and let God do the rest.

Perhaps the most poignant image we hold of Jesus praying, is in the Garden of Gethsemane on the night before his arrest. Jesus praying to the Father says, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me, yet not my will but yours be done”  and ‘then an angel from heaven appeared to him, and gave him strength.”  Jesus In his anguish prayed it says, “even more earnestly and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down on the ground.” (Luke 22:44).  Embodied in the life of his prayer, Jesus in communion with the Father, took on the sins of the world.

As we Journey through this Lenten season reflecting on our Saviour’s journey to the cross, we are given this time to consider our own spiritual acts of discipline. One of them being prayer, there are many others, but it is with an intentional focus on what we do and how we do it, in prayer and other forms of discipline that we become strengthened for the journey ahead. Embodying the word of God in our prayer and in our life, we serve him more faithfully in the world.  And so, let the prayer of the disciples, be your prayer too, “Lord, teach us to pray,” that it will bring you more firmly planted in your relationship with the Saviour to Easter.

Amen, God Bless.