The disciples showed the wisdom of Solomon when they asked Jesus to teach them to pray. But there was also a great deal of faith in that request. We do not know how to pray. No son or daughter of Eden knows how to pray. What once came natural to us, was, by sin, rendered strange, alien, and foreign to our hearts. It is a fool’s notion to think that prayer is innate or that it is easy to learn. To learn to pray is one of the most difficult things we can do. So to recognize that we need a guide and a teacher is to acknowledge what sin has done to build a wall of doubt and fear where trust once lived. It is this that Jesus address and the Spirit aids.
Still it is the most common question. We know we ought to pray but we struggle with prayer. What do we say and how do we say it so that God will listen and give us what we ask? How do we make ourselves pray when our hearts or minds are just not in it? Is there a formula to prayer or some secret wisdom? Why do we bother to pray if we have no confidence that we will get that for which we pray? It is the wise who survey their hearts and recognize that they need help with prayer.
The Lord needs no instruction. The language of the Trinity is prayer. It is the most natural thing of all for Jesus to address the Father with bowed head on bended knee. He is the perfect teacher for an imperfect and sinful people. If we are wise like the apostles were, we will still come to Jesus with the same request: Lord, teach us to pray.”
Some might presume that once you become a Christian, the new person that springs forth from the baptismal womb will know what the old person of sin did not. It is a foolish thing to think you should know instinctively how to pray. In fact, it can be a terrible curse to frame our lives in this way. To begin any sentence with “If you were really a Christian, then you would...” is not simply foolish but demonic. The old Adam may be marked for death but there is enough life in him to trouble the Christian heart and soul. The new person created in Christ Jesus ought to be smart enough to know this and to recognize that while we are not who we were, we are not yet who we shall be
If you will, permit me this observation. The whole idea of an old Adam and a new person in Christ is more for the textbook than for the Christian dealing with the realities of life. You are your life are not neatly divided into old and new.
The things of the flesh still tempt and taunt and the things of the Spirit are still new and strange. That is why we need to be in Church, in the Word and at the Table of the Lord. Yes, you are the new person created in Christ Jesus but the old person in you has not yet given up the fight. So the answer is to be where Jesus is, to hear the Word of the Lord, and to receive His body and blood. That is how the old grows weak and the new becomes strong.
Instead of trying to figure out why you don’t want to pray or why it is so hard to pray or how to get prayer to work like we want it, what we ought to do what Jesus told us to do. The apostles who asked Jesus the question were people who struggled with the flesh, who were not who they were but were not yet who they shall be – just like you and me. The answer our Lord gave them and us is meant for people who still struggle with the flesh – for whom the perfect does not come as easily as temptation. What Jesus says is for people like you and me, believers still tainted by sin, still tempted by wrong, and still learning the ways of righteousness. The apostles were just like us – they were people of faith who endured doubt, worry, and fear. To them and to us Jesus answers the question with a prayer. How should we pray? Say, “Our Father, who art in heaven . . .’
Pray that prayer over and over again. Pray it from memory, by rote, and as if you had never heard it before. When words come hard to the tongue and the mind is not in the mood to pray, say “Our Father, who art in heaven. . .” When you pray with your spouse, say “Our Father, who art in heaven. . .” When you teach your children to pray, say “Our Father, who art in heaven. . .” When you are pastor in a hospital room or funeral home or facing broken and bleeding Christians in confession or in counseling, say “Our Father, who art in heaven. . .” When you are alone in your prayer closet or together as a mighty congregation, say “Our Father, who art in heaven. . .”
We do not pray because we are good and we want to be holy. We pray because God is good and He has promised to hear our prayers, because He has planted His Spirit in us to teach us not only the words but the desire to pray, and because when we pray, faith is spoken. So just do as Jesus says. When you pray, it. Pray say “Our Father, who art in heaven. . .” Even when you don’t feel like prayer and even when you are not sure you even believe in God or prayer, say “Our Father, who art in heaven. . .” When your mouth has plenty of words for God and when you barely must a deep sigh, say “Our Father, who art in heaven. . .”
And if the Our Father is not enough, look into your hymnal or a good prayer book and listen to the voices of the great pray-ers of the Bible and Christian history. Listen to their words not because they have figured out the magic but rather because they did not give up praying, did not look at things with rose colored glasses and did not pray because they enjoyed but because this is what Jesus told us to do.
Jesus abhors a religious act that ends up saying nothing and only showcasing what is unhealthy. He is not come to be a spectacle or oddity. He has come that you might be His brother, share with Him in eternity, and wear His righteousness toward that day when God says, “Well done, Good and faithful servant. Come and enter into the joy of your master.”
With the leper who was cleansed, the parents who pleaded for their dying children, the wounded who longed to be whole, the adulters whose secret was revealed, or just disciples of the Lord trying to do what we think we ought, say “Our Father, who art in heaven. . .” That is enough. The Lord will keep His Word. He will provide for all your needs of body and soul. He will forgive the sins great and small. He will give you the future that will finally erase the past. The Lord will deliver you. So, in the name of the Lord, let it be enough for you and for me to say “Our Father, who art in heaven. . .” .
In the Holy Name of Jesus. Amen.
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