July 29, 2007

Lesson: Matthew 6.9b

Sermon Title: Not Mine, Not Yours, but Ours!

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INTRODUCTION:

Help? (1)

"Pilot to tower ... pilot to tower ... I am 300 miles from land ... 600 feet over water ... and running out of fuel .... Please instruct!"

"Tower to pilot ... tower to pilot ... repeat after me: 'Our Father, which art in heaven ...'"

  1. The disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to pray.

  2. There are a number of different ways of approaching prayer.

    1. Victoria Rebeck, The Christian Ministry, Jan-Feb 1995, 2.

Those who have prayed the Lord's Prayer with an open heart, as an act of humble discipleship, know that the prayer is powerful and even dangerous. In praying the Lord's Prayer we ask God to lead us down some risky and unfamiliar paths. Praying the Lord's Prayer compromises the sense of security we fumble to maintain within our own power.

    1. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "The Ancient Mariner"

He prayeth well who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.
He prayeth best who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.

    1. Alexander Maclaren

Poor, broken-winged things our prayers are, like a wounded bird fluttering along the ground, rising like an arrow shot from a child's hand, going a little way to the sky, and then dropping down again. I am afraid most of us have three degrees of temperature in regard to our prayers and our desires. The highest is for temporal wants for ourselves; medium, spiritual good for ourselves; the most tepid of them all for the progress of Christ's kingdom. It takes a man with a spirit to pray, "Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven," as it ought to be prayed.

    1. N. T. Wright, The Lord and His Prayer, 2, 31

The more I have studied Jesus in his historical setting, the more it has become clear to me that this prayer sums up fully and accurately, albeit in a very condensed fashion, the way in which he read and responded to the signs of the times, the way in which he understood his own vocation and mission and invited his followers to share in it. This prayer, then, serves as a lens through which to see Jesus himself, and to discover something of what he was about....

What then might it mean to pray this Kingdom-prayer today? 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. See it with the love of the Creator for his spectacularly beautiful creation; and see it with the deep grief of the Creator for the battered and battle-scarred state in which the world now finds itself. Put those two together and bring the binocular picture into focus: The love and the grief join into the Jesus-shape, the kingdom-shape, the shape of the cross.

    1. African Proverb

The prayer of a chicken hawk does not get him a chicken.

    1. Alfred Lord Tennyson, Idylls of the King

More things are wrought by prayer
Than this world dreams of.
Wherefore, let thy voice
Rise like a fountain for me night and day.

    1. P. J. Bailey

Prayer is the spirit speaking truth to Truth.

  1. I may have divided the "Lords Prayer" into too small a segment, we'll see.

    1. This morning let us begin with the opening phrase.

    2. Our Father is the way that Jesus teaches us to address our prayers.

    3. How is God "Our Father?"

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MAIN BODY:

  1. God is our father by virtue of creation.

    1. We were made in the image of God.

    2. We were created to become members of the family of God.

    3. This is the insight of the poet and song writer Ernest E. Dugmore who wrote: Almighty Father, Unoriginate (2)

Almighty Father, Unoriginate (existing from all eternity)
Whom no man hath seen ever, nor can see;
Who reignest blest and only Potentate,
Light unapproachable encircling Thee:
Almighty Father, hallowed be Thy Name;
Who ever art, unchangeably the same.

Thou lovest us, else had we never been:
Before we were, in ages long ago,
Thy love had us and all our wants foreseen,
Creating us that we Thy love might know,
Yea, Father, Thou, in Whom we live and move,
Hast loved us with an everlasting love.

Thou madest man immortal at the first,
An image of Thine own eternity;
And when he fell from life, through sin accursed,
And lost his right to the life giving tree,
Thy love, unconquered would to him restore
His life ennobled and forevermore.

Such was Thy love, Thou didst not even spare
Thy Best-beloved, but gav'st Him for us all;
To live that human life beyond compare,
And dying, by His death retrieve our fall.
In Him Thy love unbounded we behold,
For, giving Him, Thou canst not aught withhold.

Thou knowest what we are, how frail and blind,
Thou still rememb'rest that we are but dust:
Like as a father pitieth, Thou art kind,
Thy justice kindness, and Thy kindness just.
Then hear Thy children's prayer from Heav'n Thy throne;
Father, Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done.

    1. Humankind sinned and denied the heritage that the Father had provided.

      1. Humankind decided to become like the Father knowing the difference between good and evil.

      2. So we cut ourselves free from the Father.

    2. The Father would not let his children go to be lost and alienated.

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  1. God may be our Father by the process of adoption.

He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God, (John 1:-13, NRSVA).

See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God's children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is. And all who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure, (1 John 3:1-3, NRSVA).

For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, (Ephesians 3:14-15, KJV)

    1. The adopted ones have learned and accepted the reality that God is the source of wholeness.

Lead Us, O Father: William H. Burleigh

Lead us, O Father, in the paths of peace:
Without Thy guiding hand we go astray,
And doubts appall, and sorrows still increase;
Lead us through Christ, the true and living way.

Lead us, O Father, in the paths of truth:
Unhelped by Thee, in error''s name we grope,
While passion stains, and folly dims our youth,
And age comes on, uncheered by faith or hope.

Lead us, O Father, in the paths of right:
Blindly we stumble when we walk alone,
Involved in shadows of a darksome night;
Only with Thee we journey safely on.

Lead us, O Father, to Thy heavenly rest,
However rough and steep the path may be,
Through joy or sorrow, as Thou deemest best,
Until our lives are perfected in Thee.

    1. The adopted ones have learned and accepted the reality that God is the source of wellness.

      1. Phyllis McIntosh, "Why Doctors Say Faith is Powerful Medicine ... not just for the mind, for the body," writes: (3)

Hundreds of studies published in mainstream medical journals show that people who attend religious services, pray and read Scriptures:

-- live longer

-- are less prone to depression, suicide, alcoholism and other addictions

-- have lower rates of cancer, heart disease and other major illnesses

-- recover better from sickness/surgery

-- and cope better with chronic illness.

These are the conclusions of a yearlong investigation by the National Institute for Healthcare Research, a private Maryland-based organization.

      1. A wonderful illustration of the healing source of prayer is told by Susan Sanford, a psychologist and well-known speaker and workshop leader.

        1. She tells about a very difficult time in her life when she was suffering deep depression and physical back pain and was contemplating suicide.

        2. Though not a Christian herself, she had taken a short vacation with a Christian friend, who was sensitive to Susan' s hesitancy to share her problems.

        3. In seeking to minister to Susan, her friend offered to pray, and her prayer style is a model of simplicity and sincerity. Susan writes: (4)

"Upstairs, I sprawled on top of my sleeping bag. Jeanie came in, knelt down beside me on the floor, and started to knead the painful knots around my lower and middle back.

'Susan,' she said, a little timidly, 'would you mind if I said a prayer for you?'

"I was surprised. Accusations ricocheted inside me. Don' t you know, Jeanie, I' m lower than dirt. What God would listen to a prayer for a sinner like me? But I replied,

'Sure, if you want.'

'Clearing her throat as her hands continued to knead, Jeanie started to speak in a soft voice.

"Dear Jesus, I' m not sure of what to say. But I come to you in prayer for my friend Susan.'

"As I lay there listening, I was amazed at the simplicity of her words. Even more amazing was her childlike confidence that God was actually listening to her prayer....

"Jeanie' s prayer went on for five or 10 minutes, interspersed with times of silence while she continually rubbed my back. There was such a gentleness, depth of spirit.

"As I grew drowsy, I heard her conclude: 'Susan is hurting badly, Lord. Reach down and touch her. Let her know that you are the solution. Let her not despair. She is my good friend, and I care about her so much. I know that you are the Almighty. You can do all things. And you can help her.'

"Then she leaned forward, gave me a hug, and said goodnight. Switching off the light, she quietly slipped from the room."

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  1. God is the Father of the one person, but teaches the wholeness and wellness of the entire community.

    1. This prayer was for all the children of God.

      1. We are taught to say, not MY Father, but OUR Father.

      2. The heart, says one, of a child of God, is a brotherly heart, in respect of all other Christians.

    2. It asks nothing but in the spirit of unity, fellowship, and Christian charity; desiring that for its brothers and sisters

    3. This is well illustrated by what was done by the members of the Landisville (Pa.) Mennonite Church

      1. April 24, 2000, Christianity Today, God's Crime Bill: The church has a ministry to victims----and their offenders. By Valerie Weaver-Zercher

Every Sunday for the past nine years, members of the Landisville (Pa.) Mennonite Church have prayed for a son of their congregation. Every month they send him a small sum of money, and every month some of them visit him.

Prayer, money and visits: fairly typical examples of congregational caregiving, one might suppose. What's atypical is that nine years ago, after a meal with relatives on a calm Sunday afternoon, 14-year-old Keith Weaver killed his parents, Clair and Anna May, and his sister, Kimberly. The inexplicable horror of the crime and the loss of lives rocked the Weavers' family, church, and community to the core.

In the middle of their grief and disillusionment, however, members of the Landisville congregation got busy. They helped clean the house where the murders occurred, established a legal support committee to care for Keith's needs so that the surviving brother and sister wouldn't have to, and founded a seventy times seven fund to collect money for his expenses. They studied grief, forgiveness and victimization in Sunday school and sermons, calling on the expertise of area chaplains and counselors. A year after the tragedy, they held a memorial service to lament the loss of their loved ones and to recommit themselves to the journey of forgiveness.

These days they are continuing that journey, through prayers and financial help and visits to Keith in prison. Forgiveness is an act of God's grace, says Landisville pastor Sam Thomas. You don't forgive and forget; you forgive again and again and again.

  1. This is an example of the wholeness and wellness of a community of faith relating to one of their own.

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CONCLUSION

  1. The word Father, placed here at the beginning of this prayer, includes two impressive ideas, which should serve as a foundation to all our petitions:

    1. That strong confidence in God's love to us.

    2. That tender and respectful love which we should feel for God.

    3. The love and affection that we are to have for one another.

    4. Francis of Assisi, (1181-1226) offers us this prayer

Our Father, each day is a little life, each night a tiny death; help us to live with faith and hope and love. Lift our duty above drudgery; let not our strength fail, or the vision fade, in the heat and burden of the day. O God, make us patient and pitiful one with another in the fret and jar of life, remembering that each fights a hard fight and walks a lonely way. Forgive us, Lord, if we hurt our fellow souls; teach us a gentler tone, a sweeter charity of words, and a more healing touch. Sustain us, O God, when we must face sorrow; give us courage for the day and hope for the morrow. Day unto day may we lay hold of thy hand and look up into thy face, whatever befall, until our work is finished and the day is done. Amen.

  1. Our Father.

Amen!

1. Ray Kerley, ECULAUGH, April 12, 1998.

2. , Hymns for Adoration for Church Use, 1900

3. Phyllis McIntosh, "Why Doctors Say Faith is Powerful Medicine ... not just for the mind, for the body," Remedy, November/December 1997.

4. Quoted in Ken Gire, Between Heaven and Earth: Prayer and Reflections That Celebrate an Intimate God (Harper San Francisco, 1997), 101-102.

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