The Rev. Tommy Thompson
“Praying to the Father”
Proper 12C / Pentecost +20
24 July 2016
In the Name of God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Spirit. Amen.
“Father, hallowed be your name.”
So often I take for granted that opening greeting offered by
us to God. The Creator and Redeemer of
the world has become our father. We have
become God’s children. Because of what
God has done in and through Jesus Christ on our behalf, we have been adopted as
children of God forever. Really, the
entire content of today’s Gospel lesson is about prayer to the Father. After Jesus’ disciples overhear him praying
to His Father, they ask him to teach them to pray. He then offers three paragraphs that are
addressed to the Father or include stories about earthly fathers juxtaposed
with the heavenly Father.
But for some of us, it may be difficult to address God as
Father. Roberta Bondi shared a letter that she wrote for a friend concerning
disagreements that were taking place in her friend’s church regarding the issue
of addressing God as “Father” in the Lord’s Prayer. To offer help to her friend, Roberta told the
story of her own struggle to embrace the idea of God as father. Roberta said,
“Like many other people, having transferred to God the Father all the pain I
felt around my human father, I simply couldn’t get past the father language of
the prayer to reach God. During this
time in her life, she found it helpful to substitute “mother” or “friend” which
allowed her to approach God rather than turn her away from God.
But after a while, a few things happened that helped Roberta
address God as Father. She pored over
Scripture for help, and in God’s presence, Roberta began to understand in her
own heart the radical implications of Jesus’ words when he said to Philip,
“Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.”
She continued to bring her own past and present experience into painful,
direct conversation with God through Scripture such as this one, she found
herself increasingly freed from her secret belief that the way her father hand
been with her as a child was somehow a normative description not just of God,
but of the power men have a right to exercise over women in the world.
It is beautiful how God patiently brought healing to
Roberta. As Roberta’s image of God and
of fatherhood was gradually healed, even her relationship with her father began
to see healing. Roberta wrote, “Once
having stopped confusing my father with God, I was able to forgive my father for
his failures toward me and let my father simply be who he was – not God, but
simply an ordinary human being with ordinary weakness.”
The beauty of Roberta’s story is that God does not force any
of us to pray “Father” simply because Jesus said to pray “Father.” It takes time to get to the place Roberta
finally arrived where she could pray to God and say, “God, I know your
fatherhood is not underwriting and supporting this stuff that hurts me; rather,
your fatherhood calls me into life and fills me with energy. Help me repudiate the hold these things have
on me.”
You see, Jesus gave us this prayer, not as a command but as
a gift. It is a gift that we gradually
grow into…for all of us that growing looks different. We all bring our own unique histories to God
when offering this prayer, and there is something for all of us to grow into as
we offer it.
But if you hear nothing else today, I hope you hear what
Jesus’ gift to his disciples have to say about God as Father. In the first story that follows the prayer
we know as the Lord’s prayer, G
God the Father is revealed as one who wants us to be
persistent in our prayer life with him.
Jesus says, “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; for a
friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.' And 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.' I 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.”
The point here is that God wants to hear from us. Our father invites us to be persistent in our
prayer life. He wants us to bring all
our worries, our anxieties, our joys, and sadness, all of our lives to him in
sacred conversation. I absolutely love
the way St. Faustina put it when she recalled an inner conversation with the
Father about prayer: My daughter...why do you not tell me about everything that
concerns you, even the smallest details? Tell Me about everything, and know
that this will give Me great joy. I answered, But You know about everything,
Lord." And God’s reply to her: "Yes I do know; but you should not
excuse yourself with the fact that I know, but with childlike simplicity talk
to Me about everything, for my ears and heart are inclined towards you, and
your words are dear to Me” (St. Faustina, Divine Mercy in my Soul, 2:921).
Our words are dear to him. St. Ignatius of Loyola said, 'We
must speak to God as a friend speaks to his friend, servant to his master; now
asking some favor, now acknowledging our faults, and communicating to Him all
that concerns us, our thoughts, our fears, our projects, our desires, and in
all things seeking His counsel.'
Don’t ever feel like you can ask God for too much. Don’t ever feel like you’ve said the same
thing too many times and somehow God is tired of hearing from you. In all things seek his council. Be persistent. Beat God’s door down with your joys and concerns.
Your words are dear to him. As St. John
Chrysostom said, “Prayer is the place of refuge for every worry, a foundation
for cheerfulness, a source of constant happiness, and a protection against
sadness.” Bring them to him…all of
them. Jesus continues in the Gospel
lesson, "So 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. For everyone who asks
receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the
door will be opened.”
In the concluding story, Jesus continues the theme of prayer
to the Father who loves us and knows and wants what is best for us. And here, he offers this good news in
juxtaposition with earthly fathers, who, even though we are evil, we know how to
give good gifts to our children, how much more will the heavenly father give
what is best to you, his children? Is
there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake
instead of a fish? Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion? If
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!"
God knows what we need and God wants to give us what we
need. Not necessarily what we want. I love the prayer that we pray in the Daily
Office that is also attributed to St. John Chrysostom that closes with these
words: Fulfill now, O Lord, our desires
and petitions as may be best for us;
granting us in this world knowledge of your truth, and in the age to come life
everlasting
The Father who Jesus reveals and the one with whom Jesus invites
us into everlasting conversation knows what is best for us and is ready to give
that which is best for us to us – namely, His life giving Spirit which
transforms us into the disciples Jesus is calling us to be in the world. If you do not know how to pray or what to ask
for, ask God for the Holy Spirit, the ultimate gift of God that heals us and energizes
us with heaven so that we may reveal heaven on earth, making the content of the
Lord’s prayer come to life in and through our own lives. Enlivened by God’s Spirit, our lives begin to
honor and glorify / hallow God’s name on earth in ways that are life giving to
those around us…we begin to anticipate the coming kingdom in the present,
relying on the sustenance God offers us for today – strength for today without
worry for tomorrow. We become children,
who because we have been forgiven of so much, we have the grace to forgive
those indebted to us. And because we
know our own weakness, we have the humility and courage to ask that we not be
brought into the time of testing, but when we do find ourselves in such times
of trial, we’ll know our Father’s love for us and persistently knock on the
door that wants to be opened for us – “a place of refuge for every worry”
(Chrysostom).
How deep is the Father’s love for us. Amen.
