Luke 11:1-13
Proper 12 (17) - Year C
Two helpful comments from the New Interpreter's Study Bible:
1. "What might be taken as a request for a correct 'technique' of prayer actually turns into a lesson on nurturing a relationship with God. Prayer along these lines would serve as an ongoing catalyst for the formation of persons into a community of faithfulness."
How do you and your congregation use the prayer that has come down to us as a model prayer? Has it become a tradition, a technique? How might this prayer return to its catalytic position within the community?
2. In response to verses 9-10 the commentator remarks, "Everyone is encouraged to recognize God's expansive goodness."
Everyone who has been around a Kairos CoMotion event has heard the phrase, "the expansive love of GOD" used and reused. This is a good conclusion to the image of catalyst that transforms without being used up, able to continue and continue to transform.
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In the for what it is worth category, here is a bit of what Bartleby [MISSING URL] and "The American Heritage Book of English Usage" says about catalysts.
"The word catalyst has been in use since the 1600s and comes from Greek katalusis, "dissolution." If this etymology seems slightly out of sync for a substance that helps other substances come together and react, consider that the term was first used to describe political situations, especially the breaking apart of governments. By the mid-1800s, though, the political meaning had been rendered obsolete and the term had become part of the lexicon of chemists. Today, a catalyst is a substance that increases the rate of a chemical reaction without undergoing any permanent chemical change itself."
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2004/july2004.html
Where does the Lord's prayer fit in when life is exactly what gets in the way of living? How might this prayer be seen and used to break us free from a religiosity of prayer forms?
You might want to listen to and read what Joan Chittister says about contemplation in the midst of chaos - and consider where this prayer fits amid the various constraints you experience.
We ask to be taught how to pray so we can set that whole area of life away. We will know what it is all about and pass that answer on to all generations. Then, once we know it all, we try it on as magic and, not surprisingly, it doesn't work that way. This prayer pushes us back to relationships.
Jesus' response to the disciple's question gives a model but it is a model that holds within it the seeds of freedom from a model. Also mitigating against it becoming a formula are the images used after the prayer regarding the generosity of GOD already available. Persistently, one prayer at a time, we enter the presence of GOD and one another and experience that availability.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2004/july2004.html
Prayer is intimately connected with service. The model of prayer Jesus offers in response to a request to be taught to pray like John taught his disciples can be seen as prelude to Jesus' usual bait and switch methodology. His message - pray but prayer is never enough; I go apart to pray but I always come back to put the Amen to my prayer with healing/teaching ministry.
The prayer is very our (read in-group) oriented. Yes, hallowed be G*D's name, typical honorific, and yes, bottom-line is give me my bread and keep things "fair" rather than just (forgiveness as an eye-for-an-eye model rather than preemptively forgiving whether we get anything in return or not).
So the prayer needs immediate application grounded in experience. Keep asking (living as though what you needed was already present) and, lo, and, behold, it is.
Here is one attempt to apply the prayer to the story. How might you apply it to your so-called daily life?
Friend (Father), I need three loaves (for hospitality purposes - daily bread for more than me). We presume generosity on the part of others as we would be generous to them. Don't bring us to disappointment.
- - -
what demon of muteness
has captured our culture
keeping extraneous secrets
for the sake of keeping them
keeping us from
not searching them out
to reveal their banality
what demon of muteness
has captured our "news"
kept us separated
from one another
locked in our own world
and desiring no other
judging others muter than I
what demon of muteness
needs recognition
needs exorcism
needs healing
as we run across
a long bridge
screaming but not heard
what demon of muteness
has so destroyed our speech
than when we finally speak
there is nothing in what we speak
for we remember the words
but not their power
and so linger in whisper
what demon of muteness
has captured church and state
in a dance of complicity
finding their destruction
not in division
but a desert creating
unanimity
what demon of muteness
will finally give way
when we pray
and yell and shout
in an imperative mood
Hallowed Come Give
Forgive
what demon of muteness
needs an amen and amen
of prayer in action
speaking up
speaking out
speaking with
a voice of new creation
mine of course
yours of course
ours of course
yes
now ours now
now yours now
now mine now
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_07_01_archive.html
Hmm, even Jesus didn't "pray" continuously. I still appreciate John Wesley's sermon On Zeal where he ends up saying that if you are praying and there is an act of mercy that needs doing - drop your praying and get on with the mercy.
You might be interested in a Peshita Syriac-Aramaic translation:
O Birther!
Father-Mother of the Cosmos,
focus your light within us—make it useful.
Create your reign of unity now;
Your one desire acts with ours,
as in all light, so in all forms.
Grant what we need each day in bread and insight.
Loose the cords of mistakes binding us,
as we release the strand we hold of others' guilt.
Don't let surface things delude us,
but free us from what holds us back.
From you is born all ruling will,
the power and the life to do,
the song that beautifies all;
from age to age it renews.
Amen.
Like in John Wesley's sermon, Jesus goes from teaching a prayer form to merciful action.
Immediately from, "And do not bring us to the time of trial" Jesus goes to examples of times of trial. Will you judge to be merciful? Will you do so quickly or reluctantly?
Mercy is knocking at the door. If you know how to pray and care for your own, open the door and prove your prayer.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2010/07/luke-111-13.html