Prayer is the beginning of every Dream Sermon for July 29, 2007

" Prayer is the beginning of Every Dream" A man opens a bar, right across the street from a church. The church is very unhappy about this. As they meet for administrative council meetings, for bible study, even Sunday service, every time they pray as a church, they pray that some how this bar will be shut down. One night during a storm, lighting strikes the bar, it catches fire and is destroyed. The bar owner takes the church to court, saying that they were responsible for the damage to his property They asked God to destroy the property and God answered their prayer. The churches defense was that they had no control over acts of God. The lightening had nothing to do with them. Listening to the case, the judge felt that he had to be very careful in how he proceeded and how he answered this case. While weighing the evidence of the case, he says – now let me get this straight – in this case we have a bartender, who believes in the power of prayer and this side, and other the other side we have a church who doesn’t. hmmmm. And even though we as the church pray at every function, we talk about prayer everyday – the power of prayer is still something that befuddles us. At some level we all ask the same question that Jesus disciple asks in Luke 11 – Teach us how to pray. No matter how much time we spend in the church, we claim that we don’t know. Jesus responds to the disciple by giving a short version of the Lord’s Prayer. The Lord’s prayer is one of the most powerful prayers in the world. It is a large part of our Christian faith. You will hear some version of it every week in every (or I am pretty sure most ) churches that you will every go to. We know this prayer by heart, we say it all of the time, but how many of us really have taken the time to think about what it means, and what are we really praying when we say it. I could preach a whole sermon series on the meaning and power of the Lord’s prayer. Many of my colleagues have used this Sunday to do just that. The full version of the prayer that we use is actually in Matthew. When the disciple asks Jesus to teach us how to pray like you do, that is what they are asking for a formula – the right words to say to get God’s attention. And Jesus does indeed give them those words. Father, hallowed by your name. Your kingdom come. God is the source of everything that exist in the neighborhood. God is the source of everything that we have in our lives, God is the source of both the things that we need in life, and God is the source of what we want. So when we pray, we are to pray to the source- the one who has the power to provide for us. The source of everything in the universe is not just a scientific reality like the sky, the sun and the moon. The source of everything in the universe is a heavenly and very sacred force. With the power to give, but also the power to give lovingly. The source of everything in the universe is not just a blanket force that provides for everything – but is a special force which has a special relationship with you- an intimate relationship where it can listen and care about what you are asking for. Like a parent – who has a special reason for making sure that you are taken care of. Jesus received a lot of criticism from other jews for calling God abba, or daddy. They thought that was much too personal. And yet Jesus tells us that when it comes to prayer, god is personal- listening just to you and your request. So when you have a request, call upon the forces of the universe and acknowledge God as a caring parent, as father. After calling upon the only one who is able to answer your prayer – your most important needs are food for today, forgiveness of the past, and the freedom to walk into the future without temptation. With Food, forgiveness and freedom – you have access to anything else in the world. The Lord’s prayer is truly a powerful prayer, a prayer that we need to spend lot’s of time thinking about – and yet I think this passage is about so much more. Yes, Jesus does give the formula, but he goes even further by reminding us that it is not the formula that works to answer our prayer – it is the power of God. It is important not only to know the formula, but to also know why the formula works and how to use the formula. For some reason, it seems that channel 7 news loves this actress Felicia Fields – she is a star of the Chicago version of the color purple. To me it seems that every week channel 7 is doing a new story about her. I think last week was Felicia fields day in the city, so of course there was this big story about her. One of the reporters asks her advice about living life. Now when most people give you advice about the meaning of life, I think it is a bunch of junk. But I was really impressed with her answer. She said that life is like a monopoly game. When you play monopoly it is a very long, long game. I forget even how you win monopoly, but most of the time you never can tell who is really ahead and who is behind. And at some point you may have the money to buy lots of hotels and some time you are scrounging for money. But Ms. Fields said that the key to winning monopoly is to keep your man on the board. As long as you have your man on the board – you are still in the game, you are still a key player The minute you take your man out of the game, you have no chance of winning. For some reason I was really struck by that advice, because I started to think about how easy it is in life to just give up and quit. Prayer is our way of keeping our man on the board and staying in the game. When we asks the Lord to teach us how to pray – we are not asking how to pray- Most of us were taught to pray at a very early age. Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the lord my soul to keep, God bless mommy, god bless daddy, please God give me a pony for Christmas. We know how to pray – what we are really asking for is how to pray in a way that works. We didn’t get that pony for Christmas. The person who we prayed to save got sick and died anyway. The war is still going on, there is still hatred and violence in the world. Things are not changing in our lives, the person whom we have been praying for for years is still lost and confused. If our prayers are not answered, then there must be something that we are doing wrong. We must not have the formula right, how are we to pray in a way that God really hears us. In response to the request of the disciples to teach us how to pray – Jesus tells the story of the friend who knocks on the door at midnight for bread for his guest. The friend, is asleep with all of this family, his animals surrounding him. He can’t possibly get up, even to help a friend. And yet the friend keeps knocking, keeps asking until he request is finally honored. The man’s willingness to keep asking finally paid off. And for us the problem is not that we didn’t pray right- it is that we gave up praying at all. When things didn’t turn out the way that we expected, we stopped praying. We gave up and decided that prayer doesn’t work – that God doesn’t care, there was no use in trying. Can you imagine how many people would be in church today if their prayers were answered in the way that they wanted. If we could say a pray and know that even the next day that everything would be like we asked, everyone would come to church and pray. Jesus reminds us that when we have a request to be persistent and to keep asking. There is no such thing as an unanswered prayer. There is never a request that is made that God is not working on. Ask and you shall receive, search and you shall find, knock and the door will eventually be opened. Jesus is not saying that we need to be willing to constantly beg God in order to get something. The friend at the door had a relationship with the man in the house, he kept asking because he was in need and he knew this was the place to get help. Prayer is a living relationship the one who can supply all of our needs. A church was having a family and friends day. Before inviting guest, each person was asked to make a list of people in their lives that they would want to invite. Before approaching them, they were supposed to pray for them for a week. One lady wanted to ask her neighbor Kate. She and kate had sons who were in little league baseball together. She prayed for Kate, but it seemed the the opportunity to talk about church never came. So of course the lady decided that prayer didn’t work. And that Kate would never come to church. On Friday, before the family and friends Sunday she got a call from another little league mother that she was coming to church with her son. Her son had insisted that he had to come to Sunday school with his friends. Oh, and by the way, Kate is coming with her son. Her prayer was answered. In order for our prayers to be answered, God has to work behind the scenes in ways that we would never imagine for things to turn out. Sometimes the change has to come in the situation, sometimes the change has to come in the hearts of others, sometimes the change has to be made in our hearts for prayers to be answered. There is no prayer that we make that God is not addressing in some say, somehow. God always answers our prayers in a way that our highest good is addressed. Like a very caring and concerned parent, God knows what is in our best interest. Even when we have no idea of what is best for us. God is working it out and making a way for it to be clearly revealed to us. Prayer is asking for our needs in the context of an ongoing relationship that the universal source of all of life. It is a relationship that we never have to give up on, because it is with a parent who never gives up on us. Finally, even experienced Christians seem to think that for prayer to be answered, there must be some secret. There must be some secret formula that will make our prayers more effective. As you know there is even a popular movement, called the secret. That teaches that the answer to having the life of our dreams is intentions. If we can create what we want in our minds, then we can make it so in our lives. It is a secret, because not everyone realizes that we have access the abundance of the universe. I have a friend who swears by the secret, and has encouraged me to watch it several times. Paul reminds us that there is no secret to having the life of our dreams. Jesus Christ loves and and died for your sins is all that you need to know. There us no secret formula to getting our prayers answered – the prayer that we learned at three still works. There is no additional information that we need to get about Jesus, there is nothing outside of the life of Christ that we need to seek. The Christ we knew at three is the Christ that still serves us at 80. There is nothing that needs to be added to Christ teachings. Prayer works because we ask and God listens. The source of abundance in the universe is not your wants and needs, it is a loving caring being who knows you personally and listens to everything that you say. That source is a sacred God who knows how to give good gifts. Acknowledging that sacred God is the first step of every prayer, and prayer is the first step in making our dreams come true. Living your life in constant prayer is the key to seeing your prayers answered. What is it that you need in our life? What is it that you aspire to become in the future? Who are the people you would like to see in church? What are you being led to do to serve God? What is it that you hope to see for this church in the future? What is it that you hope to see for your life in the future? It looks like we all have a lot to pray about – may you have the strength to pray until God reveals it all in your life.