Sermon prepared for Messiah Lutheran Church, Auburn
WA
8:30 & 11:00 traditional services – 4-14-02
by Gregory S. Kaurin, associate pastor
text(s):
Matthew 6:5-8 (also, Isaiah 56:3-8, Psalms 122, & Ephesians 3:14-21)
Sermon:
A
Sermon on the Second of Messiah Lutheran Church’s
Seven
Marks of Discipleship:
“You
& I Need to Have a Little Chat”
go to: sermon menu – or – sermon archive – or – home page – or – “Marks” Brochure
It doesn’t matter how you slice it, doesn’t
matter how you feel about God or about yourself right now, doesn’t matter if
you want to or not: you and I need to be talking with God. No excuses; it’s not about gifts, not about
style, not about voice quality, not about good theology or the right words. God
doesn’t care if you follow a formula or used metered rhyme. (In fact, I wonder
if God gets tired of so many people reciting poetry at him all day…instead of
talking with him.)
When one other person is added to the mix,
we often forget that it’s God that we’re talking to, and we start feeling like
we need to impress that other person. Other times, it seems like we’re just
trying to impress ourselves with all our efforts and words. I can almost hear
God throwing up his hands in frustration and yelling at us, "I’m not
grading you on this! Tell me what’s in you heart! What’s on your mind?"
Drop all the pretense and affected vocabulary, and that sing-songy voice, and
get down to what prayer really is, what it’s meant to be.
It’s true that we need to be respectful of
God when we talk to him, but we do some strange things to prove to each other
that we are praying this from the heart. Like one of my little irritants: that
word "just." "Lord, we just gather together today and just hope
that you’ll just really realize that we are just serious and full of all kinds
of heart because we are squeezing our eyes shut and using this high strung
voice and using the word ‘just’ a lot."
Yes, we need to be respectful of God. He is
the almighty Creator, but we seem to think that he’ll be more impressed with
us—or hear us better—if we make our prayers look and sound like a lot of work
or really intense. Or, if we make our prayers sound more like the King James
Bible, then maybe our prayers will be holy enough ot rise up to God’s ears.
There’s other things that we all do. Almost
all of us, myself included, use a different tone of voice for public speaking
and prayers, at least different from our normal conversation. These things are
fine if they help you concentrate on God, but when we put too much affectation
into praying, other people hearing it will begin to think that it must take a
lot of work, a lot of talent and effort to talk to God. We can make it sound
like you have to conjure up the presence of God with ancient or intense words
in order for him to listen, as if prayer is casting some kind of spell.
The truth is—whether our prayer is being
sung, whether it’s written out or memorized, whether it’s said out loud in
public, or silently in private, prayer is simply you talking with your God.
That’s all it really is. Prayer is not a voice thing—it’s a heart thing.
There needs to be a level, a heart-felt
level that realizes that you are speaking in the presence of Almighty and Living
God. Considering the immense hugeness of God, that is a humbling thing, maybe
scary. But that is no excuse to back out, because that huge God has commanded
you to do it, to talk to him…frequently.
It’s humbling, but also proves God’s
incredible love and grace, because he has promised to listen to you each and
every time. This is about God being as near as a whispered prayer, walking with
us, so that we’re never alone. Even more basic than talking to God, prayer is
also realizing that we are in the presence of God, all the time. That’s what we
mean by "a life of prayer." A life of prayer is knowing that I don’t
walk alone. God is with me. God is for
me, and so, I am for God.
Prayer is more than words. It includes the
way we live our lives, how we treat other people, and animals, and his
creation, and how we treat our own bodies.
These all send definite messages to God.
God spoke his creation into existence. He
spoke you and me into existence. Then,
he presents us with all these living words of his creation, other people and
creatures. What we do with these living words are answers God. Good or
bad—prayer includes the way we live our life. And he is listening to the way we
live…all the time.
Prayer is talking to God. Prayer is the way we live our lives. Prayer is also God talking to us.
Conversation with God is not one-sided. He
talks to us through our lives, through scripture, through silence, through
sermons, through the sacraments, through other people, nature, and—most of
all—God speaks over and over through the death and resurrection of his Son.
There are very few things and few questions that cannot be answered ultimately
by God’s victory over death.
Walter Wangerin wrote that we can pray
trusting that God will answer. God promised that he will answer, but it’s going
to be his answer. We need to trust him with that. We need to trust his love,
and his mercy and his sense of justice and right. Before he died, Jesus prayed
in the garden. He asked God, if it was
at all possible, to let him pass the cup of death. Jesus didn’t want to die.
The gospels tell us that God answered by sending an angel who strengthened
Jesus. The cup of death was not passed.
Instead, Jesus was strengthened to face it.
When we place our words into God’s hands, we
place them in the right hands. And if we trust that he will answer, then we
begin to open up our ears and eyes. It’s possible that we miss most of God’s
answers because we’re so intent on seeing it answered the way we want and
expect it, or worse, we simply don’t expect an answer, so we don’t bother
listening for one!
God’s answer might be in the words of the
very next person we see, …or in the next sunrise, …or through the next
dandelion. Saturday’s comic strips showed an elder gentleman trying to comfort
his friend who was sitting on a park bench looking sad. The elder gentleman
asked what was wrong and his friend said, "No one loves me, and my hands
are cold." So the gentleman answered, "Well, God probably loves you,
and you can sit on your hands!" (“Pickles,” 4/13/02). The next voice we
hear …might be God’s.
The fact that God is there all the time
destroys any excuse we might have to try to censor or clean up our thoughts and
prayers for him. What God wants most from our personal prayers is honesty…for
our sakes. It doesn’t do any good in front of God to pretend that we love
people who we don’t love, or that we have forgiven someone who we have not
forgiven. It doesn’t do any good to pretend to be humble in our prayers when,
right now, we’re feeling self-righteous or maybe even angry at him. Pretending
in front of God is lying…and it’s useless.
What God wants from us in prayer is the same
thing that anyone who loves us would want—honesty. Except that God wants it
more, and he can handle it better. He doesn’t need our protection
All you have to do is read through the
Psalms to find people expressing their feelings to God—good or bad,
self-righteous, angry, sad or joyful. It’s all in there, even in the Holy
Scriptures. And that is a great gift: God is saying, be honest with me.
Prayer is talking with God. Prayer is the
way we live our lives. Prayer is listening to God. Prayer is honest.
In response to the love and acceptance of
God you and I are called to strive toward what this congregation is calling the
“second mark of discipleship,” daily prayer. As you practice and grow in this
mark, I’d like to leave you with these seven things to remember.
go to: sermon menu – or – sermon archive – or – home page – or – “Marks” Brochure