Living as Christians: Prayer


This is the sermon I preached at Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Beatrice, Neb., on Wednesday, March 17, 2010. Midweek services from Ash Wednesday through Maundy Thursday will explore the theme, “Living as Christians.”

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Readings

1 Kings 8:22–30
Psalm 28
Ephesians 3:16–19
Matthew 6:5–8

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Prayer

You call us to return to you, Lord God, and to leave behind all things that keep us from giving ourselves fully to serve you. Speak to us through your Word, so that we may turn to face you and to give you glory; through your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

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Message

Tonight in our reflections upon the theme “Living as Christians,”
we turn to prayer, our conversation with God.
So far in on our journey together this Lent,
we have faced the truth that evil twists us away from God,
but that He responds, blessing us by His grace
to love Him and to live justly with one another.

We receive God’s gifts of grace and love through Holy Baptism.
In that washing with Word and water,
we die to sin and rise reborn as God’s children and heirs of His kingdom.
Then, as His family, we live together in the Church,
the community God creates and gathers around His Word and Sacraments.

Like any family, the Church is filled with conversation.
Some of the talk takes place among us—
the sharing of the triumphs and the tragedies that mark our daily lives,
the planning we carry out to assure the future of our ministry,
the simple conversations
in which we sustain our friendships with one another,
and at times the disagreements that grow among us.

But some of the conversation passes between God and us.
We hear Him speak to us in His Word.
We witness that Word enacted in the Sacraments.
We reflect upon that Word in Sermon and Song.

And we respond to God’s Word with our own words.
This response is our life of prayer, our conversation with God.

And when we talk with God,
we embody the best that is in us,
the desire He has for us,
the hopes He breathed into us when He gave us life.

In fact, if we recall the story of creation,
we remember that God spoke about this world.
He said, “Let there be…,” and there was whatever He said—
earth, seas, stars, trees, and beasts.

But when it came to humanity, God didn’t just talk about people.
He talked with our ancestors.
He made us for conversation with Him.

And this conversation is prayer.
It’s our capacity to pray to God—to enter into conversation with Him—
that sets us apart from the beasts,
that truly reflects how God has made us in His image
and destined us to share in His divine life through prayer.

St. Paul gives us a glimpse of how praying shapes our lives
when he writes to the Church at Ephesus,

I pray that, according to the riches of his glory,
[our Father] may grant that you
may be strengthened in your inner being
with power through his Spirit,
and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith,
as you are being rooted and grounded in love. (Ephesians 3:16–17, NRSV)

Prayer works in our lives
to give us strength,
to empower us by the Spirit,
to open our hearts as dwelling places for Christ,
to nurture us in God’s love.

But like any of our human relationships,
our relations with God can languish if we do not tend to them.
God desires for us to talk with Him,
to tell Him what is on our hearts and minds,
to share with Him our joys and worries,
and to talk with Him about our confusion and our confessions.

Because prayer is a kind of conversation,
it can take on different shapes to meet the needs of the moment.

In 1 Kings, we overheard King Solomon’s elaborate public prayer
at the dedication of God’s temple.
There is a place and time for us to join together
in such corporate prayer—
conversation between God and the body of believers—
prayer that shares our recognition of His Lordship over us:

O LORD, God of Israel,
there is no God like you in heaven above or an earth beneath,
keeping covenant and steadfast love for your servants
who walk before you with all their heart…. (1 Kings 8:23, NRSV)

In this evening’s Psalm, David shows us how to pray simply, honestly,
sharing with God our desires and fears:

To you, O LORD, I call;
my rock, do not refuse to hear me,
for if you are silent to me,
I shall be like those who go down to the pit. (Psalm 28:1, NRSV)

And then, our Lord Jesus Christ reveals to us
how we ought to pray to God our Father,
how we can come before Him in simplicity,
like children telling their father
what weighs down and buoys up their spirits.

But whenever you pray,
go into your room and shut the door
and pray to your Father who is in secret;
and your Father who sees in secret will reward you…,
for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. (Matthew 6:6, 8b, NRSV)

When you want to deepen your prayer life,
there are bountiful resources for inspiration and guidance.
The Psalms themselves are the prayer book of God’s people.
Just about every human emotion—
every cause for celebrating and for diving into the depths of despair—
are there in passionate, vibrant, sometimes alarmingly honest prayers.

We are heirs of two thousand years of Christian tradition
rich with people who have devoted themselves
to cultivating lives of prayer and of offering their guidance to us.

But in the end,
just as children learn to talk
by babbling and imitating their parents,
gradually making sense and then sentences,
we cannot go far wrong when we resolve to stop the blur of motion in our lives,
to sit in quietness and rest,
to listen in peace and then to pray simply from our hearts,
sharing with God what we find in ourselves
and listening to Him when He replies in secret. Amen.


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