Getting an A+in Jesus’ school of prayer #3:A+cceptance Reinbeck UMC 6/21/15

Getting an A+in Jesus’ school of prayer #3:A+cceptance

Reinbeck UMC

6/21/15

OK- let’s fasten our seatbelts, put on our helmets, get out our fire extinguishers, our eye and hearing protection, our roll bars, our life vests, our steel toed shoes, and our fall protection because we are going to need it.

On your mark. Get Set. PRAY!

I don’t think most people realize how dangerous prayer can be. But today we come to what I think is the most dangerous part of the Lord’s Prayer.

 First, let’s back up to review where we have been. In order for prayer to work, we have to hold two things in tension; the immanence of God, and the transcendence of God.

We talked about God immanence in terms of that most intimate of addresses that Jesus used in the Lord’s Prayer: ABBA. In the first sermon in the series (and last week), we talked about the importance of developing an intimate prayer life with God. “Pray until you have an intimate relationship with God and then, because you have an intimate relationship with God, you will want to pray.” I hope you have been doing that; spending more time in prayer this week than last.

 The second week we talked about the transcendence of God in terms of AWE. If God is not powerful, if God is not able, if God is not healer, if God is not creator, then prayer is powerless. If God is not awesome then prayer is impotent. 

If God is not simultaneously immanent, or intimate; and transcendent, or awesome, then we might as well just scream into a tin can.

ABBA and AWE are the heart of prayer.

 Today we move from ABBA and AWE to the first intercession of Jesus’ school of prayer. An intercession is a request. “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

The question this raises for me is why do we need to pray this at all? Doesn’t God have this all figured out? Doesn’t God have his plan all figured out and all under control? Are we trying to change God’s mind? Is prayer like a straw poll to see how many people vote for rain and how many people vote for sunshine? Is God dependent on our prayers? All good questions… Let’s see.

Let’s start with “Thy kingdom come.” The kingdom of God was central to the teaching and mission of Jesus. It is mentioned dozens of times throughout the gospels. But the concept is a hard one to understand. Jesus didn't have a beautiful power point presentation on the kingdom of God. Instead, he told stories, and used metaphors, and similes in order to expand our understanding of the kingdom of God.

•           Jesus said that the kingdom of heaven is like a man who sows seeds

•           The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field

•           The kingdom of heaven is like a net cast wide

•           The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who hired laborers to work in the fields. He hired them at different times of day, but at the end of the day, he paid them all equally. (The kingdom has a funny economy, doesn't it?)

•           The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed;

•           The kingdom of heaven is like yeast;

•           Not everyone who says "Lord, Lord" will enter the kingdom of heaven 

•           He said that it is hard for the rich to enter the kingdom of heaven 

•           He said the kingdom must be received like a child 

•           We should seek the kingdom first, and everything else be given to us 

•           He said that if your eye or hand prevents you from entering the kingdom, pluck it out or cut it off 

•           Jesus said that a great reversal is coming: harlots and tax collectors will enter the kingdom before the Pharisees 

•           Before his crucifixion, Jesus told his disciples he would not drink or eat again with them until he does so in kingdom.

That is all very confusing, so we have to ask, what we are really praying for when we pray “Thy kingdom come.”?

It seems that Jesus anticipated that question. In spite of the fact that Jesus spent countless hours teaching about the Kingdom of God or the Kingdom of Heaven, the disciples weren’t getting it. (Surprise, surprise) Therefore, he prayed “Thy kingdom come,” and then added (which means) Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Oh, that makes sense! “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” Is the same as “Thy kingdom come.”

Sure, we all want that don’t we? Or do we? Sometimes we pray as though we are little children messing with a chemistry set, not realizing that we are mixing up a batch of TNT.

I don’t think most of us think about what “They kingdom come, thy will be done” means. I don’t think most of us understand, or think about, the revolutionary character of the kingdom of God. I really don’t think we realize that when we pray “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done.” We are exposing ourselves to the most radical transformation in human history.

Unless we are really ready to be part of the kingdom revolution, unless we are really ready for the kingdom transformation to start in our own lives…we best be careful when we pray the Lord’s Prayer. Prayer is a dangerous thing…... you just might wind up being changed you know.

What do I mean? Here are some examples.

•           If we pray “Thy kingdom come,” we have to face the fact that we are part of that kingdom revolution of that Jesus described as the harvest. We have to start taking the great commission seriously, “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations”   We might have to get up out of our pews and take responsibility for that “E” word “evangelism.” Are you really ready to do whatever it takes to make that change in our own life?

•           If we pray “Thy kingdom come” we have to hear John the Baptist’s voice echoing in the background, calling us to repent. To live in the kingdom means that we choose the Christian life over the life the world offers. It means we choose servanthood over mastering. Forgiving over revenge. Loving over hating. Are you really ready to change your life in that radical way?

•           If we pray “Thy kingdom come,” we are pointing to that great (or terrible) day of the Lord, depending on how we ourselves have lived our lives. Are you really ready for that?

•           If we pray “Thy kingdom come,” we are starting a revolution against the structures that have made us comfortable at the expense of third world nations. We are protesting the policies that do not extend hospitality to those who are different from ourselves. We are protesting the availability of cheap goods, made from the sweat of children in faraway places. Are you really ready to sacrifice for that revolution in your life?

•           If we pray “Thy kingdom come,” we are praying for God’s one and only kingdom that will include even those with whom we vehemently disagree. I think we will all be amazed at who enters the kingdom of God, and some of us will probably be very uncomfortable standing next to them. Are you really ready to join the kingdom where you might just have to stand next to those you thought were your enemies?

•           If we pray “Thy kingdom come” we claim citizenship in a kingdom where the first are last, and the last are first; and that is scary to those of us who think pretty highly of ourselves. Are we really ready to face that?

•           If we pray “Thy kingdom come,” we are giving up control of our world and our lives to the new sheriff in town. We are giving up OUR little kingdoms that we have created-- in order to be part of God’s kingdom of the great banquet, the treasure hidden in a field, the net, the hired laborers who were all paid all equally, the mustard seed, and the yeast. Are you really ready to be part of all of that?

•           If we pray thy kingdom come, we are praying to be part of the kingdom that is hard for the rich to enter, that must be received like a child, which demands complete trust, which is so serious about doing right that it talks of plucking out or cutting off anything that causes us to sin. Are you really ready to face that change?

Are you really ready to pray “thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it in heaven?” Don’t be too quick to answer…because the kingdom will start right here…. because the kingdom will start right there. The kingdom of God starts with the way God’s people talk, and act, and work, and give, and pray. Thy kingdom come is a prayer to change the world, but the change starts right here in our hearts and our lives. I mean what if it actually happens? Are you really ready for that?

Are you ready to accept that?

  Going back to the original question.

Why do we need to pray this at all?

The answer is that prayer, is not intended to change God’s mind, redirect God’s will, or shape or mold God in any way. Prayer is not God’s way of taking a straw poll so he can decide what to do. God is not in any way dependent on our prayers. Prayer is not a way of getting our way with God.

 Exactly the opposite, prayer is our radical ACCEPTANCE of God’s ways in our life. Shaping, and molding, and creating, and sculpting us in order to bring his kingdom on earth, starting with us. 

Prayer, then, is not intended to change God’s mind, but to transform our minds. Prayer, then, is not to redirect God’s will, but to redirect our lives. Prayer, then, is not to shape or mold God in any way, but to shape and mould us into exactly what God wants us to be.

E. Stanley Jones says, “Prayer is surrender--surrender to the will of God and cooperation with that will. If I throw out a rope from the boat and catch hold of the shore and pull, do I pull the shore to me, or do I pull myself to the shore? Prayer is not pulling God to my will, but the aligning of my will to the will of God. 

We don’t pray with the illusion that we will change God, but with the knowledge that God has created prayer as an essential part of his plan to bring his kingdom by changing us.

In our upper and lower story language, it is giving up our lower story and ACCEPTING our role in God’s upper story. Giving up our lives and ACCEPTING God’s vision as our vision, ACCEPTING God’s plan as our plan, ACCEPTING God’s hopes as our hopes, ACCEPTING God’s ways as our ways, ACCEPTING God’s will as our will, and ACCEPTING God’s upper story as our story.

Prayer is a dangerous thing you know. You just might end up bring changed.

Martin Luther said, "God’s kingdom will come all by itself, even without our prayers...but we pray this petition so that we will not miss out." None of us wants to miss out on the kingdom of God. So we pray so that we will be ready. “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done in my heart as it is in heaven.”

Prayer is a dangerous thing… you just might wind up being changed you know. Are you ready to be changed?

Now you know why I said at the beginning that we needed to  fasten our seatbelts, put on our helmets, get out our fire extinguishers, our eye and hearing protection, our roll bars, our life vests, our steel toed shoes, and our fall protection because we are going to need it.

 “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” Is a dangerous prayer. Are you ready for that?

Are you really ready to accept the possibility that you might be called to submit all that you are and all that you have?

Are you really ready to accept that you may have to lay down who you have been and who you want to be in order to be who God wants you to be?

Are you really, really, really, ready to accept that you may have to surrender your life when you pray “Thy will be done.”

Acceptance, surrender. AMEN

June 21, 2014

Just a note to anyone who is following... because folks were not quite grasping the fundamentals, I went back to the first sermon in the series and preached it again.   Hopefully I will post the next installment by this time next week.

TP

A+ is the school of prayer “AWE” #2

A+ is the school of prayer “AWE” #2

Reinbeck UMC

6/14/15

 I stand, I stand in awe of you

I stand, I stand in awe of you

Holy God to whom all praise is due

I stand in awe of you

I stand, I stand in awe of you

I stand, I stand in awe of you

Holy God to whom all praise is due

I stand in awe of you

There is nothing in the world as selfish as a baby. When humans are born, they are the self-declared center of the universe. It’s all about MY diaper, MY bottle, MY toy, MY demands on MY schedule. You know how it is! There is no more self-centered creature on the face of the earth than a baby. Childhood is supposed to be a process of learning that the world doesn’t revolve around my belly button. We are supposed to learn how to get along with others, share, compromise, empathize, and perhaps most of all love.

For some reason that doesn’t always work. In the 1970’s Tom Wolfe wrote about the “Me generation,” and from there we went into talk about self- fulfillment, self-realization- self-help.   The problem there is it is all about the self--- the ME.

We started giving every kid a participation trophy, and now we have a generation of workers who believes it deserves to be promoted and receive raises regardless of performance.

The Me Generation has raised up what Joel Stein of Time magazine calls the “Me, Me, Me” generation.

Today’s lesson in “Jesus’ school of prayer” is going to squarely attack that and put us in our place in this universe.

           

 But first, let’s step back two weeks to the first lesson. Does anyone remember what it was? The key word was ABBA, and we talked about how prayer is first grounded on an intimate relationship with God.

The homework was simple. I said intimacy only comes with time, “Pray until you are intimately connected to God; and then because you are intimately connected, you will want to pray.” Therefore, I asked you to spend more time in prayer this week than last.

•           How many of you tried that?

•           How many of you succeeded in actually spending more time with God in the last two weeks than the preceding two weeks?

The problem with that lesson is that it is only half a lesson. If we stop at ability to connect intimately with God, then prayer is all about ME, ME, ME.

You have heard people pray- “Lord I just want, …I just need, …I just hope, …I …,I,… I,… ME,… ME,… ME …” insufferably.  Prayer is not all about me! And it is not all about you!

 Today’s’ passage is “Who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.” Lest we think that prayer is all about us, Jesus quickly moves to teach that anything that is only about ME.ME.ME, is not really prayer. Prayer is made possible because we can intimately reach out to our ABBA, but prayer that stops there, has no power. 

 Prayer may start with us approaching God, but we have to remember that when we pray we plug into a power much great than ME. ME. ME, When we pray we approach the

•           ONE AND ONLY

•           HOLY,

•           ETERNAL,

•           ALL POWERFUL,

•           ALL KNOWING,

•           ALL PRESENT,

•           IMMORTAL,

•           INVISIBLE

•           GOD ONLY WISE.

•           IN LIGHT

•           INACCESSIBLE

•           HID FROM OUR EYES

•           INDESCRIBABLE,

•           UNCONTAINABLE, A

•           LL-POWERFUL,

•           UNTAMABLE

•           CREATOR

•           AND GOD OF HEAVEN AND EARTH.

Theologically speaking this is the paradox of the God who is both immanent and transcendent. It is the crux of the incongruity of the incarnation that the infinite God put on finite skin; the creator became one of the creatures.

The psalmist struggled with this paradox

•           We have to ask ourselves, if the intimate ABBA God is really powerful enough to answer our prayers?

•           We also have to ask if the all-powerful God really cares about out little problems?

The answer to both is absolutely yes!

There is a delicate balancing act here. If we believe God to be ONLY TRANSCENDENT, then there is no relationship, no intimacy, and no way of communicating; and prayer is just talking to ourselves.

On the other hand, if we  believe that God ONLY IMMANENT, then we are left with a buddy, buddy, Jesus who can listen, but has no power to help and is indeed stuck in the same muck and mire in which we find ourselves.

•           If God is not imminent, we do not have the power to pray.

•           If God is not transcendent, then prayer has no power.

So today, while we hold the immanent and intimate God in our hearts we read Jesus’ words, “Our Father “Which art in heaven.”

 We have to remember that to Jesus, heaven was for real, but it was not the place that grandma goes when she dies. For Jesus, there was the earth-- and the sky was a done on which was painted the stars, and across which moved the sun and the moon.  Heaven was the real physical place above the sky dome. It is whatever lies beyond the dome of the sky. Heaven is the far away, unseeable, and unknowable dwelling place of God who is the author and creator of all that has ever been, all that is, and all that will ever be.

It is hard to imagine that the ABBA, who is small enough to live in our hearts, is at the same time big enough to hold the whole universe on the tip of his finger.

That is a God who has power to answer prayer. He not only cares enough to listen, he is powerful enough to answer. This is a God is who is all-powerful and is not afraid to use it in our world or in our lives.

Then Jesus continues, “Hallowed be thy name.” There are two ways to understand this phrase. I choose to understand it both ways.

•           On the one hand, it is a declaration that God is Holy. Holy is your name. To be holy is to be set apart for special use. The Holy of Holies was the place in the temple that was set apart for the priest to meet God. To say “hallowed be thy name “is to acknowledge (as Martin Buber said) that God is THOU.  To say, “Hallowed be thy name “is to say that God is wholly other in kind and degree, and bow before his greatness.

•           On the other hand, and I had never thought about it this way until I was preparing for this sermon, we can read, “Hallowed be thy name” as a request or petition. Lord, help us to keep your name holy. Not to abuse it. Not to use it for our own purposes, but to set it apart as God is set apart. Another way to put it might be to pray, “God help us to honor your name, respect your name, revere your name, and worship your name, to understand that there is a vast difference between us and God.” It is to climb to a new level of respect for God and reverence for his person. You are ascending to the very heart of God in order to recognize the very essence of who he is and what he has done for us.

When we pray “Hallowed by thy name,” we are placing God on the throne of our hearts. It is about putting God on the throne of our lives on earth, as he sits upon his throne in heaven. It is to approach prayer with AWE. That is the key word for today.

 When we pray with awe, we do not to rush in to God and slap our wish list on his lap as though God is not your personal genie.

But rather we approach with confidence that the immanent God wants to be with us. However, we also approach with awe at the privilege of approaching the throne of grace. We approach with awe and offer our hearts, our tears, and our needs to the One Holy and Almighty God. 

This is what separates Prayer from wishful thinking. Wishful thinking is trusting your faith for your desired outcome. Prayer is trusting God regardless of the outcome.

You notice in that passage of scripture from Revelation, the picture of God is not one of being buddy, buddy, but one that elicits total awe in the presence of the one who sits upon the throne.

The message version of that passage is full of awe.

AWE--

AWE--

You can’t read that without being filled with AWE--

And that is the second lesson in Jesus School of prayer.

Approach prayer with AWE--

Yes, God is with us. Yes, God is as close as our heart beat. Yes, God is our intimate ABBA, who came to the earth as one of us.

BUT God is also due all our AWE

 Holy, holy, holy

Is God our Master, Sovereign-Strong,

The Was, The Is, The is to Come.

AWE--

AWE--

Therefore, your homework this week is to be in awe. Spend time in Awe of God.

Yes, I want you to continue to spend more time with God this week than last. Especially if you found that hard. But don’t rush in to prayer with your shopping list like you are going to Wal-Mart.

STOP. Stop and be in Awe.

If you need help you might read some of the Psalms.

If you are a visual person, you might try to picture the awesomeness of the sunrise over the Atlantic Ocean and know that God is brighter than that... AWE

Picture the grandeur of the mountains in Yellowstone park- and know that God is stronger than those mountains… AWE

Picture the grand canyon carved layer by layer by the power of the Colorado River rushing through it - and know that God’s love is deeper than that… AWE

Now I want us to sit silently for a few moments and just be in awe. Place your hands on your lap, palms up as though you are ready to receive something. Silently, with your hearts open and your eyes shut let us be in Awe

 I stand, I stand in awe of you

I stand, I stand in awe of you

Holy God to whom all praise is due

I stand in awe of you