Seventh Sunday after Pentecost
Sunday, July 24, 2022
St. Luke Lutheran Church
Albuquerque, NM
Luke 11.1-13
1Καὶ ἐγένετο ἐν τῷ εἶναι αὐτὸν ἐν τόπῳ τινὶ προσευχόμενον, ὡς ἐπαύσατο, εἶπέν τις τῶν μαθητῶν αὐτοῦ πρὸς αὐτόν, Κύριε, δίδαξον ἡμᾶς προσεύχεσθαι, καθὼς καὶ Ἰωάννης ἐδίδαξεν τοὺς μαθητὰς αὐτοῦ. 2εἶπεν δὲ αὐτοῖς, Οταν προσεύχησθε, λέγετε, Πάτερ, ἁγιασθήτω τὸ ὄνομά σου: ἐλθέτω ἡ βασιλεία σου: 3τὸν ἄρτον ἡμῶν τὸν ἐπιούσιον δίδου ἡμῖν τὸ καθ’ ἡμέραν: 4καὶ ἄφες ἡμῖν τὰς ἁμαρτίας ἡμῶν, καὶ γὰρ αὐτοὶ ἀφίομεν παντὶ ὀφείλοντι ἡμῖν: καὶ μὴ εἰσενέγκῃς ἡμᾶς εἰς πειρασμόν. 5Καὶ εἶπεν πρὸς αὐτούς, Τίς ἐξ ὑμῶν ἕξει φίλον καὶ πορεύσεται πρὸς αὐτὸν μεσονυκτίου καὶ εἴπῃ αὐτῷ, Φίλε, χρῆσόν μοι τρεῖς ἄρτους, 6ἐπειδὴ φίλος μου παρεγένετο ἐξ ὁδοῦ πρός με καὶ οὐκ ἔχω ὃ παραθήσω αὐτῷ: 7κἀκεῖνος ἔσωθεν ἀποκριθεὶς εἴπῃ, Μή μοι κόπους πάρεχε: ἤδη ἡ θύρα κέκλεισται, καὶ τὰ παιδία μου μετ’ ἐμοῦ εἰς τὴν κοίτην εἰσίν: οὐ δύναμαι ἀναστὰς δοῦναί σοι. 8λέγω ὑμῖν, εἰ καὶ οὐ δώσει αὐτῷ ἀναστὰς διὰ τὸ εἶναι φίλον αὐτοῦ, διά γε τὴν ἀναίδειαν αὐτοῦ ἐγερθεὶς δώσει αὐτῷ ὅσων χρῄζει. 9κἀγὼ ὑμῖν λέγω, αἰτεῖτε, καὶ δοθήσεται ὑμῖν: ζητεῖτε, καὶ εὑρήσετε: κρούετε, καὶ ἀνοιγήσεται ὑμῖν. 10πᾶς γὰρ ὁ αἰτῶν λαμβάνει, καὶ ὁ ζητῶν εὑρίσκει, καὶ τῷ κρούοντι ἀνοιγ[ής]εται. 11τίνα δὲ ἐξ ὑμῶν τὸν πατέρα αἰτήσει ὁ υἱὸς ἰχθύν, καὶ ἀντὶ ἰχθύος ὄφιν αὐτῷ ἐπιδώσει; 12ἢ καὶ αἰτήσει ᾠόν, ἐπιδώσει αὐτῷ σκορπίον; 13εἰ οὖν ὑμεῖς πονηροὶ ὑπάρχοντες οἴδατε δόματα ἀγαθὰ διδόναι τοῖς τέκνοις ὑμῶν, πόσῳ μᾶλλον ὁ πατὴρ [ὁ] ἐξ οὐρανοῦ δώσει πνεῦμα ἅγιον τοῖς αἰτοῦσιν αὐτόν.
[Jesus] was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.’ 2He said to them, ‘When you pray, say:
Father, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
3 Give us each day our daily bread.
4 And forgive us our sins,
for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.
And do not bring us to the time of trial.’
5 And he said to them, ‘Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say to him, “Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; 6for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.” 7And he answers from within, “Do not bother me; the door has already been locked, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.” 8I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, at least because of his persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs.
9 ‘So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. 10For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. 11Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish? 12Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion? 13If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!’
Our Father
+ In nomine Domini. Amen.
OUR FATHER in heaven –
The most memorized prayer among the followers of Jesus.
In the language (Greek) of the Gospel Writer Matthew, written sometime toward the end of the 1st Century:
Πάτερ ἡμῶν ὁ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς
“Our Father, in the heavens.”
In the language of Luke, composed also toward the end of the 1st Century, but later than Matthew, a little differently, the version we read this morning:
Πάτερ, ἁγιασθήτω τὸ ὄνομά σου
“Father, may your name be holy.”
In the language of the Latin Bible,
Pater noster, qui es in caelis;
In Spanish:
Padre nuestro que estás en el Cielo,
In German:
Vater Unser im Himmel,
In Swedish:
Vår fader som är i Himmelen.
In Norwegian:
Vår Far i himmelen!
In the language I usually pray this prayer when the Pastor says, “In whatever language or version you might choose” – for me, it’s French:
Notre Père qui es aux cieux,
In Aramaic, the language of Jesus:
אַבָּא
יִתְקַדַּשׁ שְׁמָךְ
Abbun d’bishmayya
I have, I know omitted many language versions of this beloved prayer – and if one of your languages in which you learned this prayer as a child I omitted, I do apologize. My thought is to give us a sense of how the Lord’s Prayer (as we know it) sounds in various “tongues” as we say.
Matthew’s version of the prayer is the more familiar to us, and is the way we pray the Lord’s Prayer in our Liturgy.
In Matthew’s Gospel, the prayer comes earlier than in Luke; it follows the Beatitudes and various warnings where Jesus begins “You have heard it said” – then he offers the saying or the situation, and follows it “But I say to you.” For example, “You have heard it said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” “But I say to you turn the other cheek, if anyone wants to take your coat because that one is freezing, then give up your cloak as well.”
Then following all this comes the part where Jesus teaches his followers how to pray.
In Luke, our Gospel this morning, it comes later in the story. It follows the portions we have been reading the last several weeks:
Jesus sending out the Seventy. Some warnings against those who will not listen to the Good News. The Parable of the Good Samaritan. Last week, the Story of Mary and Martha. And then following right on the heels of that tale, the followers of Jesus asking, “Teach us how to pray just as John taught his followers how to pray.”
And he begins, Πάτερ, ἁγιασθήτω τὸ ὄνομά σου. Interesting how Luke interprets what is most important: not that God is in the Heavens and we pray adoring and praising God thus, but
Father, your name is holy (may we always make your name holy.)
It is not so much where God is, but what is the nature of God: “Holy.”
And the name of God? “Father” we can also say “Mother” – that is, God as the one who is so familiar (play on words, la familia) to us that we may address the Holy One as we would our parents. God, not the distant one who on the mountain thunders with power and fear, but God who is as close to us as the one who gave us birth, who holds us and nourishes us, and loves us. That is the God addressed in The Lord’s Prayer.
Father – Mother?
My second most favourite way of praying the Lord’s Prayer is that which can be found in the 1997 New Zealand Book of Prayer (which I believe should be in every home as a means of prayer. I have given away all but two of my copies so I cannot help you there, but if you contact your Pastors here I’m certain they can put in touch with a source of finding these lovely Anglican Hymnals.)
Here is the way it sounds:
Eternal Spirit, Earth-maker, Pain-bearer, Life-giver,
Source of all that is and that shall be,
Father and Mother of us all,
Loving God, in whom is heaven:
The hallowing of your name echo through the universe!
The way of your justice be followed by the peoples of the world!
Your heavenly will be done by all created beings!
Your commonwealth of peace and freedom sustain our hope and come on earth.
With the bread we need for today, feed us.
In the hurts we absorb from one another, forgive us.
In times of temptation and test, strengthen us.
From trials too great to endure, spare us.
From the grip of all that is evil, free us.
For you reign in the glory of the power that is love, now and for ever. Amen.1
I love this rendering of the Our Father. I used it nearly every Wednesday evening at Vespers or Compline when I was in the parish in Santa Fe. It speaks to me and through me what I want to say to the Creator of the Heavens and the Earth.
So. “What is this?” (Vas Ist?”) as Martin Luther would pose the question following each portion of the Lord’s Prayer in his Small Catechism that wonderful nearly forgotten teaching book from the 16th Century.
You can find this, by the way, in the back of your hymnals the ELW, on page 1163.
Here is how Luther deals with just the beginning of the Lord’s Prayer:
Our Father in heaven.
What is this?
With these words God wants to attract us, so that we come to believe he is truly our Father and we are truly his children, in order that we may ask him boldly and with complete confidence, just as loving children ask their loving father.
And then in Luke’s telling of this story, as if the Gospel Writer had sat in on a sermon given by Martin Luther, Luke records two stories that Jesus told his followers, right after the teaching about Prayer –
First, the story of someone who goes to his friend’s house at midnight and knocking on the door loudly asks to borrow three loaves of bread to feed some unexpected guests.
Next, the rather well-known: “Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.” And this illustrated by the quite ridiculous questions:
Is there anyone here who if your child asks for a fish, you would give him a snake? Or a scorpion if the child asks for an egg?
And the answer of course is: of course not!!
So Jesus, in the words of Luke, says so if you who are sinful know how to do good things for your children, how much more so will your Father in heaven give his own Spirit to those who ask?
[It’s what we learned in First Year Greek as the How-much-more-so Clause [ πόσῳ μᾶλλον] of which the Gospel Writer Luke is very fond – you will find this appearing more than once throughout this Gospel. The How-much-more-so Clause is a very effective teaching tool.
So where does this leave us? Has Jesus, along with those early followers, taught us anything about prayer this morning?
I think so. Jesus has taught us not only something about prayer but something about God. And that is this: God is not a fearful distant deity –
[Interesting aside.] I remember very well saying this very same thing here at St. Luke in Albuquerque when I had the privilege to serve as Associate Pastor in the early 1970s – God is not a fearful distant deity – but is near and close as the very breath we breathe – What do we sing (?) Breathe on me, breath of God, fill me with life anew.
When we pray the Our Father, we are in conversation with this God, we are breathing in the gifts of God’s Spirit, we are exhaling our human needs and wants, the “sighs too deep for words” as Saint Paul wrote – the very deep yearnings of our individual and congregational selves before the Creator of the Heavens and the Earth.
We learn in praying the Our Father just how loving, how caring, how encircling of us God is.
Eternal Spirit, Earth-maker, Pain-bearer, Life-giver,
Source of all that is and that shall be,
Father and Mother of us all,
Loving God, in whom is heaven –
We learn in praying the Our Father just how loving, how caring, how encircling of us God is. And for tht, let us all say: Amen!
Deo Gratias (+)
The Rev. Benjamin Larzelere III
Retired
1The New Zealand Book of Prayer | He Karakia Mihinare o Aotearoa. 1997
Nota(ble) Be(n)e 