The Future Belongs to Us

I had the privilege of returning home to Brenham to preach one more time at my home congregation, St. Paul's, before beginning my call at Bethany in Fredericksburg this week.  Bellow is the manuscript from that sermon, based on Luke 11:1-13.

It’s good to be home once again.  I can’t thank y’all enough for continuing to welcome me into this community of faith.  The seminary journey is now over and I rejoice with my wife and family this morning that I have a job!  I start at Bethany Lutheran in Fredericksburg this week.  I am so blessed to have been called by Bethany and I look forward to the years ahead as I continue to learn about what it means to both be a leader and a follower of Jesus Christ.
This morning we rejoin Jesus and his disciples on the road to Jerusalem.  In Luke’s story of Jesus, beginning in chapter nine, all the way through chapter eighteen, we get a detailed log of the travel narrative of Jesus and his disciples.  We witness what it means to be a disciple “on the way” with Jesus.  Today’s lesson, while familiar on the surface, is a deep pool into which we shall wade.  
“Lord, teach us to pray...just as John taught his disciples.”  It’s a simple request.  The disciples, on the road with Jesus, notice that he takes time to pray.  At least every day, perhaps multiple times a day, it’s a rhythm that they pick up on and it is one that spikes their curiosity.  The disciples knew that John (the Baptizer) had taught his disciples how to pray, so perhaps they too want to tap into the wisdom of Jesus, their teacher.  After witnessing him pray for the dozenth time on the road, the disciples approach Jesus, “Lord, teach us to pray.”  
The transcript of what Jesus says that we have from Luke is so simple and straight forward; “Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.  And do not bring us into the time of trail.”  Absent are the familiar words we say now each week when we gather for worship.  Missing are the comfortable petitions that we may say at home with our children or before we turn out the lights.  Gone are the tricky changes brought on by different versions meant to simplify the prayer.  What Jesus offers his disciples is a stripped down version that cuts to the chase of what it means to pray.    
There are a few things to notice in this simple prayer from Jesus.  This prayer, the Lord’s prayer, being so familiar, often gets overlooked and in a way misunderstood.  We use these words all the time.  They are so familiar to us that we often glaze over them without really registering what they mean.  But here we have very specific sentences from Luke that go deep into our relationship with God and one another.  Today, for a brief moment, let us shed what we know, what we think we know, and try to hear these words as Jesus spoke them, and as Luke crafted them, for they give us a glimpse of God’s kingdom. 
The first thing to notice is that every one of the appeals in this prayer is in the imperative tense.  For those of us who have gotten rusty on our english grammar, this means that every one of the statements is a command.  We are literally commanding God to “let your name be Holy,” to “let your kingdom come,” to “give us our bread to today.”  These are commands.  We are commanding that these appeals come to life in our midst.  This reaches close to the heart of biblical prayer.  Prayer that we witness in scripture is persistent, demanding, impertinent, and shameless.  Jesus demonstrates to us that this is one way of being in a relationship with God.  And this is nothing new in the history of God’s interacting with the world.  In our reading from Genesis this morning we have the witness of Abraham haggling with God about how many righteous folk it would take for God to spare Sodom.  Abraham shamelessly grapples with God and God changes God’s mind.  
I am reminded of a story told by the great preacher Ton Long.  He recalls the tale told by a pastor he knew in Atlanta.  One morning while this pastor was meeting with his staff the phone rang.  Bad news.  One of their fellow staff members had been mugged on their morning jog and stabbed in the heart.  The outlooked was grim.  The meeting ended immediately and the remaining members of the staff went to the chapel to pray.  They stood in a circle and the pastor remembered the prayers being soft-spoken and weak at best, as if the folks had already given her over to death.  That is, until the custodian prayed.  The pastor commented that it was “the most athletic prayer” he had ever heard.  The man cried; “You got to heal her!  You’ve done it for me.  You’ve done it for my family.  God, you got to bring healing.”  It was as if he had grabbed God by the lapels and would not let go until healing came.  The pastor said that God would have been embarrassed not to bring healing.  Such is the model of bold, commanding prayer.  
The second aspect of this prayer that we hear this morning is the communal nature of the appeals.  This is not an individualistic prayer.  This prayer is not about me and my own.  This prayer addresses the needs of the community, the needs of the promised Kingdom of God.  We pray for “our bread for today.”  This is not an request for me to get my own bread.  It is a call to God for bread to sustain the community.  For bread to nurture the rich, the poor, the righteous, the foolish, the rowdy, and the soft-spoken, this ship of fools that we call humanity.  This is an appeal about our shared bread.  Again, it’s about building community.  We are all in this together.  
The final aspect of this prayer is that it is Spirit driven.  Hidden in plain sight in the last line of our reading today is the most important clause of how we ought to understand this prayer; “how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask.”  Folded into the lines of this prayer is an appeal for God to send us the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit is the one who teaches us how to share our bread, and who opens us up to the depths of forgiveness.  It is the Holy Spirit who guides our prayer, not our own desires or resolve.  Jesus invites us to a life of prayer that is driven by the Spirit and it is through the Spirit that we are taught how to pray.
Friends in Christ, in my study this week I came across the same phrase over and over again from one of my favorite theologians Walter Wink.  He says that the arc of history belongs to those who pray.  I want to take that a step further.  The future of our world belongs to those who pray.  Through prayer we participate in the kingdom of God as it breaks into the world around us.  Through our prayers, we believe the kingdom into being.  As we listen to the Spirit, who speaks through us, we learn how to trust in God’s promised kingdom.  We learn that this trust is an active, living thing.  We learn that praying about hunger in our community will not help those in need until we realize that perhaps our recognizing the hunger in our midst is the Holy Spirit praying through us.  And that when we act upon this prayer by feeding those who hunger, we are trusting the kingdom of God into existence.  
The future belongs to those who pray.  Prayer is an active aspect of following Jesus.  Our praying reorients us in the world.  You and I can write the script of life around us.  Our prayers knit us together into the community of faith.  Our prayers, guided by the Spirit, help us to live into what God is already doing in our world.  The way we pray changes how we interact with the world.  We turn from clenched fists to open hands as we learn how to bless others.  We learn how to use our privilege to help those on the margins gain access to the fruits of the table.  We recognize that its not about changing the whole world at once, but about meeting the needs of those we encounter in our daily lives, and doing what we can to change the world for them.  Dear friends, the future belongs to those who pray.  The future belongs to us.  You and I have been taught how to pray, and in praying, we trust God’s promise and bring God’s kingdom into existence.  Pray boldly dear people.  And may God’s promised kingdom come.      

The Bartimaeus Effect

Mark 10:46-52 (NRSV)
“They came to Jericho. As Jesus and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the roadside. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out and say, ‘Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!’ Many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly, ‘Son of David, have mercy on me!’ Jesus stood still and said, ‘Call him here.’ And they called the blind man, saying to him, ‘Take heart; get up, he is calling you.’ So throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. Then Jesus said to him, ‘What do you want me to do for you?’ The blind man said to him, ‘My teacher, let me see again.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Go; your faith has made you well.’ Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way.”

The story of Bartimaeus from the gospel of Mark is a common tale.  In fact, I think we encounter this story all the time as we journey through this world.  I think that you and I, above all else, are Bartimaeus, sitting on the sidelines of life.  We are told what to believe, how to believe to it, and not to ask questions.  In a way, we have one perspective on the world.  I think that we live this story everyday.  

Know this.  This story of Bartimaeus, this story of you and me, is a metaphor about how we encounter the world.  The status quo, the powers, world in its fallen state, whatever you want to call it, has us believe that we can do nothing to change the way things are in the world.  The world is what it is; hard, calculated, fixed.  We are to play our part.  This is the perspective that is ground into our worldly experience.   Perhaps if we work hard enough we can make it through alright, remain in good standing.  If we live through system's perspective we are rewarded.  Wealth, statues, success.  This is the perspective of the fallen world.  But it is deceiving.  

The truth is this.  We literally sit on the sidelines, watching the world go by, trapped by our own outstretched hands, waiting for crumbs to fall from the table.  Sure, we get enough to get by on, but we are never really alive.  We never really get off of the sidelines.  We never gain a different perspective.  Yes their are success stories, but they are bound by the world's perspective.  Nothing has really changed.  The status quo, the powers, the world in its fallen state, is still in charge.  And at its whim, we are back to the sidelines, waiting for scrapes from the table.  We live this story every day.    

Until Jesus comes along.  Jesus has a way of changing things.  He has a way of turning our world upside down.  Jesus came into this world and did not share the world's perspective.  He came with a new perspective.  He came with God’s perspective.  And through God's perspective, everyone is a gift.  

Everyone is enough.  

Jesus came into this world and taught us how to truly live a life fully alive and empowered by God.  

Jesus taught us how to lift each other up and live in community.  

Jesus taught us how to share our bread.  

Jesus taught us how to forgive each other when we mess up.  

Jesus taught us what it means to live for one the other so that all may have abundant life.  

Jesus taught how to love.    

Love is a perspective that teaches us how to encounter the world anew.   Love teaches us how to life fully alive.  Life along the way with Jesus, life on the journey with Jesus, is about love.  And love changes everything.  

And the statues quo, the powers, the world in its fallen state, became angry.  This Jesus character was changing everything.  Something had to be done.  As so they did what they always do, the only thing that they know how to do.  The dealt out death.  They nailed God’s fully alive, embodied promise of love to the cross.   

The status quo, the powers, the world in its fallen state, thought it had Jesus on the ropes.  Thought it had silenced the one who taught the world what it was like to be fully alive.  But they were wrong. 

God always has the last word.  And that last word is love.  

So today, as we sit on the sidelines, not fully alive, rendered hazy by the world's perspective on life, the one who came into the world, to love and to heal, is still walking by out outstretched hands.  He comes, filled to over-flowing with love, offering us healing and a new perspective on how to live fully alive in this world.  He comes to us, regardless of who we are, and says that we are enough.  He comes and loves us back to life.  

And this is an ongoing process. 

I am sure that Bartimaeus stumbled along the way.  Gaining a new perspective is like learning how to ride a bike.  Sometimes you fall off.  But when you are following Jesus, he never tells you to turn around because you are not doing it the right way.  He just loves you and tells you to keep going. 

The Bartimaeus effect: gaining a new perspective through following Jesus Christ.  Everyday we have the opportunity to get up and follow Jesus.  We have the opportunity to be reoriented in the world and live a life grounded in love.  And it’s a daily calling.  

So join me friends.  Join me in following Jesus.  This blog will contain my thoughts, sermons, and musings as I continue to follow Jesus as a pastor in Fredericksburg, Texas.  Who knows what we may encounter along the way.  Who knows what new perspectives we might gain through following Jesus.