Year C

Luke 11:1-13

The Rev. Denise Vaughn

What is the Prayer of your Heart?

When the disciples ask “Lord teach us to pray,” Jesus offers the disciples a template for prayer that has become ‘The prayer’ written for more than two millennia on the human heart. Of all the spiritual disciplines, prayer is perhaps the most universal and most practiced. Today’s gospel takes us back to the beginning of praying with and in Jesus Christ when Jesus teaches his disciples how to pray and for what to pray. As we know from the gospels, prayer was a very important part of Jesus’ life. Luke’s gospel points out that Jesus “would withdraw to deserted places to pray” and at other times “he went out to the mountain to pray” and he spent the night in prayer to God” Prayer was part of his life, even unto his death.

So when Jesus responded to the request of his followers that he teach them how to pray, what he taught them became very important and has remained important for the life of the church. He gave words to address God as Father or as we have come to pray – Our Father in Heaven. Words to praise God…hollowed be your name, and words to petition God…your kingdom come. We all have our own prayer history, but I would bet like me, the ‘Lords Prayer’ has been an integral part or your prayer. Probably because this prayer is so wonderfully refreshing that, even those who remember no other prayer can remember and recite the ‘Lord’s Prayer’. It is a prayer for human beings; a prayer that touches our heart to God’s heart. It is a prayer for creatures in need.

Katherine Jefferts Schori, the former Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, her book ‘A Wing and a Prayer – A Message of Faith and Hope’ is filled with wonderful short stories that give us insight into this woman who lead the Episcopal Church for nine years. A very intelligent woman of profound faith, in one of her short stories or sermons titled ‘Unceasing Prayer’ offers thought provoking words about prayer. Words I like so much I am going her two page sermon….

What is the dream of our church the Annunciation? What is God calling us to do here, today? We are invited to reflect on the story of our prayer life, individually and corporately. To ask, demand, insist that our dreams be accomplished. We can be thankful for those like Katharine who have reminded us that prayer is an essential part of our life with God. So we continue to ask the Lord to teach us to pray and if we dare to dream big, dare to ask outrageous things we better be ready to receive. Because these verses affirm God’s commitment to accomplishing what we ask, and those who pray as Jesus taught should expect that God intends to use them as a means toward doing so.