Luke 11:1-13 "Teach Us To Pray"

When I was a child, I would regularly go over to my grandma’s house and spend the night with her. In the morning, when I would wake up and be getting ready for school, she would have been up long before me and would have an absolutely amazing breakfast ready for me and my sister.

What was even more amazing to me was that my grandmother would have already spent about an hour in prayer that morning, when she had first awakened.

I always admired the fact that my grandma spent an hour every morning in prayer. I know for a fact that the reason I didn’t get into a number of messes that I should have gotten into was because I had my grandma praying for me each day. My grandma’s hour of prayer every morning is what elevated her into the role of saint in my young mind, though since then, I have discovered that many children think of their grandparents as saints.

But, as I grew older I discovered how difficult it truly is to pray for an hour each morning. I just, honestly, don’t have that much to say. I talk to God for about five minutes and I’m repeating myself or rambling on. How did my grandma do it?

Well, I discovered that my grandma was Catholic, and therefore, she had pre-written prayers that she would pray. She would work her way through a rosary, then she would read from a book of prayers.

Does this mean that her prayers were not her own? Does it mean that the prayers don’t count because she did not write them? No, I know for a fact that her prayers very much did count, they made a difference in the world and they made a difference in her own life.

We in the Evangelical Church are often suspicious of written prayers. We are afraid that if we read prayers written by someone else, we won’t mean what we’re saying and we’ll fall into the trap of vain repetition. But Jesus prayed prayers that he had memorized from his childhood, and he taught his disciples a prayer that the church would take and pray regularly.

1. Context

I want to begin this morning by reminding you where this teaching comes in the gospel of Luke. You see, it is easier to see the importance of prayer when you look at the context that it comes in. It also helps that we have been looking at the scriptures before this one these last two weeks. Two weeks ago we looked at the parable that Jesus told about the Good Samaritan. In it, Jesus told us that we are called to be good neighbors, and the way to do this is to help those around us, the poor and the stranger, when they are in need. In the story we see someone who does this very thing, not because he planned to, but because the situation arose before him and he, on the spur of the moment, decided to do the right thing, though it might inconvenience or even hurt him. And we look at the story of the Good Samaritan, and we wonder how we can become people like him. I mean, sometimes we are able to do good deeds and sometimes our best sides show, but so often we are so caught up in our own little worlds that we let those opportunities disappear around us.

And so the gospel continues with Jesus visiting the house of a woman named Martha. Here is a woman trying to act out the Good Samaritan, inviting a stranger and his followers to stay with her, probably at the spur of the moment. And her sister is sitting at his feet while she takes care of all the preparations. And Jesus tells Martha that her sister has it right. He tells her that there is one thing that is important in the world, of utmost importance. And this one thing is sitting at the Master’s feet. And so, we realize that if we want to have the hearts of the Good Samaritan, if we want to learn to be good neighbors, we need to learn to sit at the Master’s feet. And then, in today’s scripture Jesus is teaching his disciples how to sit at the Master’s feet.

2. Sacred Rhythms

If we see prayer as sitting at the Master’s feet and not as listing off a bunch of things that we want from God, it changes how we’re going to pray, doesn’t it? Prayer becomes less about us and more about God. And yet, so often, our times of prayer are more about us and our needs or the needs of those around us. Spending an hour in prayer every morning talking about myself is not a productive thing. Spending an hour in prayer every morning thinking on God, now that is something holy.

Jesus prayed prayers that were written down and memorized. We know this because the Bible has a whole book devoted to these prayers, the Psalms. And Jesus knows and even quotes the Psalms. One of Jesus’ famous sayings from the cross, “My God, My God, Why have you forsaken me?” was the first line of Psalm 22. He wasn’t asking why God forsook him, he was praying a psalm he had known.

Actually, during Jesus’ time, the Jews were known to stop everything and pray three times a day, in the morning, around noon and in the evening. It seems clear that Jesus followed this practice. And we know the early church followed this practice as well. And yet, when you look at religions today who have regular prayer times, the only one that comes to mind for me is Islam. Why did we give regular prayer up to them? Why do we look down at those around us who pray with other people’s words.

In his book, Praying With the Church, Scot McKnight suggests that we need to reclaim communal prayer as Evangelicals. We need to realize that prayers that are memorized, praying the psalms for example, bring strength to us, they bring rhythm to our lives, they support us in our times of need. Maybe I don’t have the right words to say to really pray for a long time. But prayer isn’t about what I’m saying, it’s about sitting at the Master’s feet and learning from him.

I think we can learn from this. I think this is something that we need to accept as Christians. There is power in prayer. Jesus makes this clear. In today’s scripture he teaches his disciples the Lord’s prayer and then tells them that if you nag someone who doesn’t want to help you enough you will get them to help you, so if you lift your requests before God, he will surely help you. And we like to focus on what we can get out of prayer. But, Jesus didn’t just focus on what he got out of prayer. This is clear throughout his ministry because he put so much into prayer. He constantly went away from those around him and prayed. And he constantly prayed with those around him as well. He lived such a life of prayer that his disciples specifically asked him to teach them about prayer. He didn’t all of a sudden say, “hey, I’d better teach you how to pray,” no, they asked him for instruction. Prayer was important for him, and not just so he could get something out of it. It is what gave him the strength to do what he did. It is what helped him through his difficult times. It is what allowed him to work his way toward the cross.

III. Faded Memories

I want to end this morning by going back to a story about my grandmother. It is not a happy story, but I think it is a powerful one. Near the end of her life, my grandma had had a stroke and wasn’t much able to communicate. It was obviously frustrating to her that she would want to say something and couldn’t get the right words out. One time, when we visited her, we decided to pray together. I said a prayer for my grandma and then my dad suggested that we do the Lord’s Prayer. My grandma was able to say every word of it along with us. She had prayed this prayer daily for most of her life, and though she could not communicate very well, she was able to say this because it was so much a part of her.

Jesus taught a prayer to his disciples 2000 years ago and here it was bringing comfort to my grandmother at a time where very little would. It wasn’t that it had powerful words in it. It wasn’t that it was a prayer that Jesus had taught, though both of those things are true. What gave the prayer power for my grandma at the end of her life was that it was something that was so much a part of her, and the reason it was so much a part of her is that she lived with it her whole life. Through the Lord’s Prayer, my grandmother was able to sit at the Master’s feet and find the one thing that was important. Hopefully, through the Lord’s prayer, but also through spending time in God’s presence in other ways, we can also find out what is important. Amen.

Luke 10:38-42 "Only One Thing"

I love that today’s scripture, the story of Mary and Martha, comes in the Bible right after the parable of the Samaritan who is a good neighbor. Why? Because it is a good counterpoint to it. Today’s scripture helps to take the parable of the Good Samaritan and put it in proper perspective.

Last week, when I preached on the Good Samaritan, a couple people came up to me afterward to share with me their own Samaritan stories: times where they went out of their way to help someone in need. A couple of these stories were of how people were taken advantage of in their goodness. This happens and therefore it is worth noting that Jesus calls us to be wise in scripture and not just doormats to be walked over by those around us.

But today’s scripture comes right after the parable of the Good Samaritan and I wonder if perhaps the main character in it, Martha, happened to be there hearing Jesus tell of the Good Samaritan. And I wonder if Martha was moved into action by this parable that she heard. You see, Jesus had just told those around him to care for those in need, and the next thing we know, Martha and her sister Mary are inviting Jesus and his disciples to stay with them. This doesn’t seem like the safest thing to do, but maybe she is going out on a limb, trying to “go and do likewise” as Jesus asked those around him to. This I understand.

You see, when I am really into something, I find I want to do something about it with my hands. I’m sure that I get this from my dad. This means that as a kid I built models of planes and spaceships that I liked. It means that in college I would spend a lot of time drawing, and what I would draw would change based on what my interests at the time were. It means that I am constantly looking for a way to act out my interest in something.

Last August, I read a new book by a favorite author of mine where he retells the story of Robin Hood. Next thing I knew, I was pulling out my old bow and arrow and trying to shoot again, something that I hadn’t done since childhood. This is an interesting reaction to my environment. It means that I need to be extra careful after seeing a movie with a lot of action or fast driving in it because I just may find myself trying to act it out. And that can be dangerous.

All this is to tell you that I understand where Martha is coming from in today’s story. She, like me, likes to do things to show what is important to her. She had been out and about and had heard this great teacher preaching amazing things. She invited him to stay with her and her sister along with his disciples. He had moved her with his teachings and her response was to want to make sure that he was cared for.

But Martha, in her desire to do something for Jesus, in her desire to act out her excitement about his teachings, misses out on what is really important. She misses out on a true experience of Jesus. But worse than this, she is forever associated as someone who is a busybody, who works too hard, who is so busy taking care of others that she doesn’t allow herself to be taken care of.

1. Hierarchy

I truly believe that Martha gets a bad rap in today’s scripture. It sure seems like laziness is what Jesus is honoring here. It sure seems like hard work and devotion are being put down. I mean, if Martha hadn’t been running around making sure that everything was okay, her sister Mary couldn’t have sat at Jesus’ feet. Martha’s self-sacrifice allowed Mary to experience that which was truly important. And yet Martha is the one who is attacked by Jesus, who is corrected, who is put in her place. We know that this is the beginning of an important friendship. Martha and Mary both stay close to Jesus throughout the rest of his ministry and he comes to think of them as friends. Each year, as he travels to Jerusalem for the Passover, he goes through their town and spends time with them. Martha’s invitation for Jesus to stay with them has a long-lasting effect on her and her sister’s lives. So, I think we need to look at this story in its broader context to understand it fully.

The context that helps us to understand this story is that Jesus really believes that some things are more important than others. Throughout his teaching, Jesus continues to tell us that taking care of others is more important than taking care of yourself. On the one hand, Jesus tells people not to worry about what they’re going to eat or drink or wear, because God will provide for them. Then, later on he tells them to provide for those who aren’t able to take care of themselves. He encourages them to be about caring for the poor and the needy. Well, why don’t the poor and needy just trust in God and he will provide for them? Well, that’s not the way God chooses to work. Instead, he chooses to use us to provide for the needs of others. And when we take these two teachings of Jesus and see them in context with each other, we see that Jesus is trying to teach his disciples, he is trying to teach us, that we should not spend our time worrying about ourselves, but rather worrying about how we can help those around us.

But this isn’t then end of Jesus’ teaching. It gets weirder. You see, at another point, Jesus is eating a meal at someone’s house and a woman comes in and pores oil all over his feet. Those around him are troubled by this waste. Maybe she should have sold the oil and given the proceeds to the poor. Jesus’ response to this has always troubled me. His response is to say that “the poor will always be among you, and you can help them whenever you want. But you only have me a short time.”

This seems particularly harsh. After all Jesus’ teachings about the poor, here her dismisses them as something that will always be around and not terribly important. And that’s where the context comes into the story. You see, in all Jesus’ other teachings, caring for the poor is extremely important, but honoring Jesus is more important than the poor. Here, again we see the hierarchy of importance in Jesus’ teachings. The poor are more important than yourself. But Jesus is more important than the poor.

2. Becoming…

And that takes us back to today’s scripture. Jesus isn’t saying to Martha that it isn’t important to take care of the things that need to be taken care of. He isn’t saying that preparations for having guests are not important. He is just saying that there are more important things.

As I already mentioned, Jesus has just preached one of his great parables, encouraging people to be good neighbors to all they come in contact with. He shared a story of someone who, at the spur of the moment, decided to do the right thing. But there’s a process that gets us to the point where we are the kind of person who chooses to do the right thing. Again, being a good neighbor is not about what you plan out, it is about what you do at the spur of the moment, and this means that it is showing who you are as a person. And we are constantly going through a process where God is molding us into the people he calls us to be. Here, in the story of Mary and Martha, we are given a glimpse of how to become the kind of person who will help the stranger in need. How do we become that sort of person? By sitting at the feet of the Master. By sitting at Jesus’ feet.

Now, lets look at context again. What comes after the story of Martha and Mary? Instructions on how we are to sit at the feet of the Master. Jesus teaches his disciples about prayer. And we are going to look at those teachings next week. But, again, it tells us what is truly important. You see, we don’t have Jesus physically present at our home, we don’t have the ability to physically sit at his feet and hang on his every word. But that doesn’t mean that Jesus hasn’t given us a tool to grow. The tool that we have, the way that we are allowed to sit at the Master’s feet, is the tool of prayer.

So, let us look at the hierarchy again. First of all, there is the truth that we are called to care for others as much as we care for ourselves. We aren’t supposed to worry about our own needs, instead we need to be worrying about the needs of others. We are to care for the poor and the strangers. And above all of this, we are called to sit at the Master’s feet. If we sit at Jesus’ feet, we will become the kind of people who hold these other things important. And the way to sit at Jesus’ feet is to learn to pray.

Where are your priorities on this continuum? Where do you fit in? I, honestly, find myself pretty low on it quite often. Thankfully, there is a path that God has given us to move up this list. When we learn to put Jesus first, and when we discover the power that comes with prayer, a power not only to change the world, but to change ourselves, then we will find ourselves with our priorities right, just like Mary did. And we will learn when to put down all our activities and all the busy things we do, for ourselves, for those around us, for the church, and we will learn to sit at the feet of Jesus, we will learn to be in the presence of Jesus. And this will change us in wonderful and powerful ways.

Luke 10:25-37 "So Who Is My Neighbor?"

You know, one of the problems with being raised in the church is that the completely shocking and horrifying things that Jesus said throughout his ministry and God did throughout the history of the world don’t hold their impact.

Jesus’ teachings were revolutionary for their time and many of them, if taken seriously, would completely change the way we lived today. And yet, because we have grown up knowing the stories and hearing the teachings, they don’t hold the impact, they don’t have the punch, that they should have.

Imagine if you will, hearing Jesus’ teaching for the first time. He tells us not to worry about what we are going to eat or what we are going to wear. He tells us not to save up for a rainy day but to trust that God will provide for all of our needs. He tells us that when someone tries to steal something from us, to give them more than they ask for. He tells us that if someone attacks you, don’t fight back, instead allow them to have their way with you.

These are just a few of Jesus’ teachings; some of the ones that don’t much make sense to us. These are teachings that we read and hear, but file away as not really relevant to our world today.

And then, there are the teachings that do make sense to us, that we take very seriously, but still don’t hold their wow-factor. I think of the story of the prodigal son, an incredible story of a father’s love that shows how much God truly loves us and will accept us no matter how far we’ll stray. And yet, I am loath to hear someone preach on it because I’ve heard it preached on so many times.

And that is sort of where I am with the story of the Good Samaritan. It is a story I’ve heard so many times and heard so many sermons about that it seems somewhat pointless to preach about it myself. And yet, here we are, preaching about it today, seeing if it has anything new to tell us.

I. Moving Purses

My mother, since I was born, works the evening shift at the hospital. She would go to work about 3:30 or so and would get home after midnight. My parents decided to do this so that there were just a couple hours during the day where my sister and I would have to be with a babysitter. One night when I was in high school, my mom was driving home from work. There was a purse sitting in the middle of the road. She stopped to pick it up so that she could find who it belonged to and return it. She pulled over to the side of the road, left the car running and the lights on, got out of the car to get the purse. As she reached for it, it moved across the road to the other side. She screamed, ran back to the car, got in the drivers seat and began heading home. Suddenly she realized that someone could very well be sitting in the back seat of her car right now. She raced home, ran upstairs and got my dad, and they went out to check the car. There was nobody there. It must have been some kids playing pranks through the night.

II. The Good Islamofascist

The biggest obstacle to our understanding of the story of the Good Samaritan is not our familiarity with it, though. I think the biggest obstacle to our understanding of it is the fact that it is about Israelites and Samaritans two thousand years ago. The fact is that saying Good Samaritan does not seem like an oxymoron to us. Actually, we sometimes even shorten it up and when we see someone who is doing good for someone else, we refer to them as a Samaritan. There’s actually a superhero I like named the Samaritan. And he was created with all the positive baggage that that name comes with.

So even though we know that to the Jews of Jesus’ day, a Samaritan was considered a bad person, we don’t necessarily read it that way. If Jesus were telling this story in Israel today to the people of Israel today, he would tell the story of a Good Palestinian. And if Jesus were telling this story today to Americans in our world, it wouldn’t be about Samaritans at all, it would be titled the Good Islamofascist.

You see, for the Israelites of Jesus’ day the Samaritans were the enemy. They were the ones they were brought up to hate. They were taught to not see any redeeming qualities in them. And so when Jesus tells a story where someone gets injured and two upstanding citizens ignore the man because they are afraid of the consequences, it is the enemy, it is someone most unlikely, who comes to the rescue. And this is the neighbor that Jesus tells those around him to love.

The point of this distinction is, first of all, for shock value. Jesus was trying to say something shocking. He was trying to show that even an enemy could show kindness. He was trying to get those who were listening to him to move outside their comfort zones and think beyond their preconceptions. Even the people in the Middle East, who are daily trying to come up with ways to kill us, even the ones who want to take away our freedom of religion and force us all to worship Allah, even they are our neighbors. But there is something else going on in Jesus’ story as well. You see, the Good Islamofascist, the Good Samaritan, wasn’t good intrinsically. He wasn’t good because he was necessarily raised that way. He wasn’t good because he was a Samaritan. No, the reason he was neighbor to the man on the side of the road who was wounded was that he had a situation arise in front of him and he decided to do the right thing.

The Good Samaritan didn’t plan to do a good deed that day. This is not something he learned or trained for. It is not something that he could possible prepare himself for. It is great when someone can come up with some good deed to do for someone else, and plan it out and act upon that plan. But this is not the situation that is before us in this parable. No, the Samaritan was wandering down the road, minding his own business, when a situation rose before him. He was given a spur of the moment decision to make and he chose to help the man.

III. Quick Decisions

Being a good neighbor, which is what this scripture is all about, doesn’t have to do with what you plan out. It doesn’t have to do with all the good things you can think to do to show those around you how great you are. No, it has to do with those situations that arise spur of the moment, where you have to decide whether to do the right thing or not. These are the moments where we are called to be good neighbors. These are the moments where we are called to put the needs of others before our own needs. The priest and the scholar both were turned in on themselves. When they saw the man laying on the side of the road, they worried about what would happen to them if they tried to help this man. The Samaritan worried about the man on the side of the road instead of worrying about himself. This is not the smart decision, it is not the safe decision, but it is the right decision.

This last February, the evening of the great blizzard, Lisa and I were settling in. It was our first real blizzard since we’d moved to Iowa and we had plenty of supplies to get us through the weekend, so we were looking forward to sitting back and enjoying the weather. And that is precisely what we did until we got a phone call. It was police dispatch. There had been a driver trying to get to Sioux City and he got stuck in a drift about three miles from the intersection of Highway 3 and 29. They were looking for a place for him to stay for the night.

Lisa and I looked at each other. We weren’t exactly sure what to do. On the one hand it is nice to be able to help someone in need. That’s what the Bible tells us to do and all, but on the other hand. Lisa was getting close to being eight months pregnant. Someone foolish enough to try to drive in the blizzard probably didn’t always make the best decisions. Surely they could find someone else who would be more comfortable housing a stranger. The dispatcher told me that they were just asking and we could easily say no, they wouldn’t hold it against us.

It was a true Good Samaritan moment. There were so many reasons that it would be easier and better to say, “Sorry, we can’t help you this time.” But we knew what the right thing to do was.

So we got the guest room made up, turned on the porch light, grabbed my sword and put it next to our bed, just in case, and waited for this stranger to come to our house.

We had a wonderful visit with the gentleman who visited and hopefully began a friendship with him that will continue. Because we were open to taking even a small risk to help someone in need, we were blessed by this experience in a number of ways. And, I hope, God taught us not to be as stingy with all that he has given us.

The wise thing to do is be distrustful of strange situations like purses in the middle of the road. The smart thing to do is to just leave things there so you don’t open yourself up to getting hurt. But the parable that Jesus told us says that protecting yourself is not the most important thing in life. Sometimes being a good neighbor means that we are called to go out on a limb for someone else; even someone who hates us. When we are doing that we then answering the call that Jesus has put before us. When we are doing that, then we find that God can use us in ways that we didn’t even think possible.

Being a good neighbor isn’t about planning and working at goodness. It is about being open to God’s leading when certain situations arise. It is about putting others above your fears and trusting, truly trusting, that God will protect you. This is the life that God calls us to. It sounds scary, but it also is freeing. It means we don’t need to live in bondage to our fears. It means we can live much fuller and healthier lives. It means that God can work through us in ways we can only begin to imagine.