Together We Pray

Preaching and life come together both in the actual moment of the homily and in its preparation. The preacher’s task is to place God’s Word in the context of his lived experience and that of his listening congregation. Earlier last week, I had read today’s reading on prayer and the Our Father when, at an interview, someone described ministry as: “It’s all about relationship.” The Word and life came together.

Matthew’s text on prayer--and the Lord’s Prayer in particular--jumped out in my mind as being all about relationship. The disciples know that other rabbis teach their students to fashion words in prayer and teach them about what sorts of things they should pray. Students of certain rabbinic school pray in the style of their teacher. They gather in relationship with their rabbi-teacher, and with each other, and they formulate their prayerful words. Thus John the Baptist’s followers followed his words and example when they prayed.

Jesus reveals a most basic relationship in his response about how to pray. “When you pray, say: ‘Father...” That is to be the most important part of prayer for the followers of Jesus. They are in him in relationship with our heavenly Father. Jesus shares his sonship with us as we stand before the Father. The Fatherhood of God is available and shown to us through Christ. In Christ we are related to the Father.

Paul, in his Letter to the Romans, tells us in the same way that “the Spirit has been poured forth into our hearts and prompts us to call God, 'Father' ”. In that relationship we are drawn together and we are blessed. The Lord’s Prayer continues in that same Spirit and attitude of blessing. We bless God’s Name and we pray for the coming of his Kingdom. The Father’s relationship to us brings us to the blessedness of his Kingdom, his presence realized when we pray.

Looking Like the Kingdom
What does the Kingdom look like? How is God’s relationship shown among us? How do we act gathered around that presence? The Kingdom looks like people gathered around a common table each day expecting and sharing the daily bread which God provides. It is sustenance for each day’s journey to the Kingdom. We are strengthened in our relationship with the Father in

Christ. In him we find a fortified strength with our brothers and sisters. That looks and acts primarily as forgiveness. We are pardoned and forgiven and thus we are empowered to pardon and forgive others. Ultimately, we find ourselves anew and we have no fear of being lost in the great conflict of good and evil in our world.

Persistence
The challenge of prayer, and the Lord’s Prayer in particular, is to hang-in with the relationship. We are called to be persistent – just like the night time visitor knocking for bread in the middle of the night. We trust not our own persistence, but the fact that God is even more steadfast in his love for us and for our world.

The answer to all prayer is our ongoing relationship with God. The logic of prayer is just like asking and receiving, seeking and finding, and knocking to find the door opened for us. One follows the other. As we call God, “Father”, he is already in relationship to us and we with him. Luke, in his gospel, has Jesus tell us that ultimately the Spirit of God is the answer of all prayerful needs. The response to prayer is that we “live, move, and have our being” in the Father. The Spirit breathes within us and gathers us together. We are a People in union with the Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

The Our Father is more than the words. It is more than raising our outstretched hands waiting for the action of God. It is more than the joined hands of our brothers and sisters in Christ. The Our Father becomes a way of life which sustains and nurtures us. It brings pardon and peace. We live in God and God lives in us. It is a call to conversion.

The Kingdom Table
Our common Father calls us in Christ around the table of his Kingdom. There we bless God and praise his Name. What we learn at the Table is that all people are called to eat and drink in Christ. There are no exceptions. The hospitality is universal and the urgency created is to live in the universal Fatherhood of God and the common discipleship of Christ.

Prayer becomes a way of life. Discipleship is to pray our way into a new creation. It is to live in that new creation which is Christ. It looks like and acts like pardon, forgiveness, peace, and the gathering of all people before a common Father.

CDH