Gospel:
Luke 11:1–13
He was praying in a certain place, and after
he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, "Lord, teach us to
pray, as John taught his disciples."
2He said to them, "When you pray, say:
Father,
hallowed be your name.
Your
kingdom come.
3Give
us each day our daily bread.
4And
forgive us our sins,
for
we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.
And
do not bring us to the time of trial."
5And
he said to them, "Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at
midnight and say to him, 'Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; 6for a friend of mine has arrived, and I
have nothing to set before him.' 7And
he answers from within, 'Do not bother me; the door has already been locked,
and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you
anything.' 8I tell you, even
though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, at
least because of his persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs.
9So I say to you, Ask, and it will be
given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for
you. 10For everyone who asks
receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the
door will be opened. 11Is
there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake
instead of a fish? 12Or
if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion? 13If you then, who are evil, know how to
give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give
the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!"
Greetings to you in the name of
Jesus Christ,
Last Friday, Carrie and I drove
up to our new house to get the keys. As
we approached 89 Winthrop St., Carrie said “Should I pull into the driveway?”
It was in that moment that the fact that we had become
homeowners suddenly hit me, and I responded, “of course, it’s now our
driveway.”
As we begin to work on settling into our home, and I
reflect on how we got to this point, the process of purchasing it seems to have
moved very fast. I think a big reason
for this is that our options which we’re available to us, we’re pretty
limited. In case you haven’t been
following real estate news in the area, the inventory right now is pretty
limited. And so we went for this house
and look forward to making it a home, even though it’s not “perfect”.
That being said, I’m grateful not only for the chance to
buy this house, but for the process. I imagine that if we’d have had too many
options to look at, we’d have become very good at picking out the negatives in
each house, nitpicking over minor inconveniences or imperfections, and losing
perspective over what it is we were trying to do.
Which is, when it comes down to it, finding a place that
we can live in and share with each other.
A place where we can be a family.
But the truth is, that our new house, which is 142 years
old, though it doesn’t suit all our wants, is still, much more than we actually
need. Amazing as it is, people in the
not too distant past got by not only without an extra-room, but also without plumbing,
and electricity.
And, to keep things in perspective, there are many people
today who get by without those things.
Indeed there are many people today, too many, whose concept of a “dream
home” is somewhere other than a car, or shelter, or bridge.
As I we’ve been settling in, and I’ve thought about what
our house “needs”, I struggle to remind myself that it doesn’t “need”
anything. That it is already more than
enough to shelter our family and be a place of love.
You see, I need to remind myself that having a bathroom on
the second floor is a want, not a need.
Walking down a flight of stairs to take a shower is a pretty minor
inconvenience as I remember the people who are served by Family Promise
MetroWest, and who stayed with us here at Christ the King just a few weeks
ago. I need to remind myself that those
good people didn’t just go down a flight of stairs, they had to go all the way
to Natick to take a shower before they go to work.
It is in light of this reflection, that I find myself
really needing to listen as Jesus teaches me how to pray. I, and all of us,
need to listen to this, our Lord’s Prayer, and we need to listen to a line that
I personally have taken for granted.
“Give us each day, our daily bread.”
For those of us, like myself, who’ve never known what it
means to be hungry, this petition of the Lord ’s Prayer may not have a lot of
meaning. Rightfully, this petition reminds us to give thanks for the fact that
we have been fed throughout our lives. But
this petition also has meaning for us that we tend to overlook. For those of us who have bread for not just a
day, but for weeks, months, even years; for those of us who have so much bread
that we can’t possibly eat it all before it rots, our Lord, Jesus Christ is
really and surely teaching us to pray for less.
Jesus is teaching us to pray for less not only in regards
to food, but in the rest of our lives as well.
Jesus is teaching us to pray in this way, so that we can become more
dependent and trusting in the goodness of God, than in things.
And this is for good reason. Because we like to worship, serve, and try to
find life from things, but the reality is that these things take the life from
us. We pursue things, like houses, or
cars, or the perfect lawn, only to find that when we get them, they often only
cause us to desire and covet it the next best thing. Or we really do fall in love with things, and
we admire a car so much that we don’t use it, or put plastic over our
furniture, too afraid of dings and dents to actually enjoy what these things
are made for. We spend our lives pursuing more, and we get less.
So Jesus teaches us to pray, “Give us each day, our daily
bread.”
Though, before we feel too sorry for ourselves. Jesus isn’t teaching us this so that we can
somehow become these really whole, peaceful people. Well, maybe a little bit.
Primarily, Jesus is teaching us to pray like this so that
we will stop stealing the bread from our neighbors. We are human beings, caught in a system of
sin that has been around since Adam and Eve, and spends a great deal of time
causing and excusing our greed. This
sinful system tells us that “we can have it all” and it convinces us that we
get what we deserve, it convinces us that God helps those who help themselves,
and conversely those who don’t have anything don’t deserve it. This system of sin does a great job of convincing
us that wants, desires, the things we indeed “covet” are needs. This greedy system causes us to be blind, or
uncaring of those to whom “daily bread” is not a sure thing, and ignorant of
the way our hoarding and oppulance prevents them from getting it.
So, what should we do? What can we do? Even thinking about things we can give up, or
do without is disconcerting to all of us.
So what should we do?
We should pray. Pray for our
daily bread, pray that God will help us and transform us little by little,
every day, to become less dependent on our things. Pray that God will use our gifts to help our
neighbors receive their daily bread.
Pray that God’s Kingdom of peace, justice, and love will come through us
to this world.
And we should trust.
Trust that our prayer for daily bread will be answered when Jesus says
ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, knock and the door
will be opened to you.
Dear Lord, teach us to pray.
In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Amen
Great sermon, thanks! And congrats on your new home!
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