Excerpts from Sermon of Sunday, July 25, 2004  Proper 12 Yr C

"Lord, teach us to pray."  Luke 11: 1

It was the custom for rabbis, holy men, spiritual teachers to give their disciples a prayer unique to their understanding of God.

Jesus Christ gave his disciples a few lines that have carried people of faith over the years.

We call it the Lord’s Prayer. Or the Our Father.

It is the first prayer most of us learn.

God willing, it may be on our lips at the last.

It is a good thing that all I say here will be surrounded this morning by prayers. I am a beginner in prayer – none among us is a master of prayer. 

I found this on the cover of St. Elizabeth’s newsletter---

The words are inside a graphic that looks like a reminder note –complete with a push pin.

It says:

Happy moments,  Praise God.

Difficult moments, Seek God.

Quiet moments, Worship God.

Painful moments,  Trust God.

Every moment, Thank God.

What do you think? Should we borrow this from our companion parish in Schnecksville and put it in our newsletter? Would you pin that over your desk or on your refrigerator?

Most of us have refrigerators covered with personal and family mementos and memos—

"Dentist-Tuesday at 1 p.m."

Years ago, I read this on a good friend’s refrigerator:

A day without prayer makes one weak.

W - E-  A- K

That refrigerator saying was one of the first things I learned again about prayer for the first time as an adult.

I had become a foxhole Christian—lobbing prayers up to God when things were bad. And I was working my way back. I was blessed to have people of faith around me to help and witness—not by lectures but just by what they did.

They said Grace before meals. Even in public places.

Yes—these were/are Episcopalians and then they were living right here in the Lehigh Valley.

They asked each other for prayers when things were going badly. They expected prayers to be answered and reported back to each other. "Thank you for your prayers. My Mom is doing better and seems happier."

We hear that God answers prayers. But we’re not sure if it’s true. I think the problem is that we don’t always get the answer we want. If God doesn’t give us what we want, when we want it -- it is not an answer to our prayer.

Well, God can’t be put in a safe box. Tamed. And taken out when we need some magic done.

God’s answers are not always our answers.

God may answer "No."

God may answer "Go Slow."

God may answer "Grow."

And, God may answer "Go."

Some of you have read Jan Karon’s books on the village of Mitford. The stories center around an Episcopal Church in a small North Carolina town. And like my friends, they encouraged each other and helped each other grow spiritually stronger.

For chapters and chapters in the book, several of us here in the parish read about the "prayer that never failed".

And we wanted to know what that prayer was. Because the people in the novels were learning and growing. They were coming to trust and love each other more. Good things were happening.

Then we learned what "the prayer that never fails" is.

The characters in the books prayed their hearts desire—for healings, for lost children, for the thief who stole cakes out of the parish kitchen and for the mayor who was a curmudgeon--- and ended by saying

"THY WILL BE DONE."

God’s will will be done.

Will we be alert, headed in the right direction?

We increase our chances of knowing and being in God’s will as we build up both our corporate and personal prayer lives.

I want to tell you about two books that have helped me.

Don’t laugh. It is a good book. Handy. Thorough. Easy to read. Practical.

In Chapter 10, the authors Mark Galli and James Bell give an acronym to guide our prayers.

ACTS

A= adoration

C=confession

T=thanksgiving

S=supplication

Adoration. We praise God for God’s greatest. For the big picture. Creation. The Cosmos. Our Salvation.

And the authors say we would be foolish to wait to praise God until we felt like praising God. Praise and adoration of God is an antidote for our self-centered nature.

Confession. After thinking about God’s goodness, we think about our own short-comings. How we have failed God, each other and our own selves. Positive thoughts alone won’t make things right. We go to God with the mess we’ve made – again.

Thanksgiving. We move to thanksgiving because once again God is going to stick by us and support us and love us despite ourselves.

And I like this (quote from p. 93)

"Count your blessings," is not an act of denial or a superficial response to suffering; it’s a realistic appraisal of the situation. Life deal us blows, but never so many as to completely wipe out the blessing. Thanksgiving in prayers is a key discipline to remembering the blessing.

And finally, we end up where most of us begin—with supplication, or petitiion or intercession.

Big words. They all mean asking God for "HELP!!".

We intercede for others. Like the friends who tore up the roof to lower the paralyzed man on his mat to Jesus. . . we tear up the heavens asking God to help or heal or heed our loved ones and those who ask for our prayers. (Luke 5: 17-26)

The Idiot’s Guide has a whole chapter on my other favorite book on prayer.

Chapter 28  "An Uncommon Prayer Book"

or a/k/a-- the Episcopal Church’s Book of Common Prayer  (BCP).

[The sermon ended with a brief exploration of the Book of Common Prayer. Anyone wanting information on where to get a personal copy of the BCP can e-mail here.]

 This page was updated on 7/26/2004.