St Marks Lutheran Church Dubbo

Ash Wednesday Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21  Prayer

I have with me the perfect example of prayer:  (pop a popper)  Can you tell me why it seems to us a popper represents our prayers?  Well, here are some reasons why poppers are our prayers:

• We only use prayer on special occasions
• We imagine our prayers need to be impacting, like the bang, in order to gain God’s attention.
• Our thoughts are all bottled up in our minds and we let a barrage of requests shoot up to heaven, like the streamers.
• Most importantly, just as the streamers came pouring down almost immediately after they were fired up, we want our prayers to be answered immediately and we want the answers from God to stream down upon us and shower us with goodness.

The popper prayer most accurately describes our prayer practices and expectations, and if we were honest to ourselves, the popper prayer is really the only way we know how to pray.  Perhaps this is why we struggle with prayer, struggle to pray each day.  The popper prayer may not be how God intended prayer to be.  Perhaps popper prayer is more closely aligned with our plans and expectations of prayer than God’s.  And as you are well aware, anything centred in us, is sinful and against God’s plans and is destined to failure.  When prayer is human centred, prayer is hard.  Its hard because we keep getting the same results, a perception that God is not listening and is not answering our prayers.

We try harder, more fervent prayer, or to use my example, we put more gun powder into prayer, hoping God will be awakened by the big commotion and rain down answers.  Jesus likens this sort of practice to the prayers of hypocrites.  Hypocritical prayers are designed to be seen not heard; to be showed off as a perfect word sculpture.  They are prayers that are to be seen by everyone in the church, bible group, or street corner and especially to be seen God…but not heard.  No wonder there is no answer to the popper prayer.  Like the popper, its self serving and designed to be a display, not a way of communicating.

Michael Foss, the author of many discipleship books says we are creatures of habit.  We constantly do things exactly the same, yet, for some unknown reason, expect different results.  Not so, the results will remain the same.  Human centred prayer will always return the same results, a sense of rejection by God because he didn’t answer the way we expected. 

The feeling of not being heard is the result of sin which is most evident in the difficulty we have with prayer. You would think as a Christian, prayer would come naturally, as natural as breathing, yet we all know this is not so.  Let me quote from John Kleinig’s book ‘Grace upon grace’, in which he gives us some insight into why God allows us to fail in prayer. ‘We know that we should pray.  We would like to pray more regularly, ardently, and spontaneously.  The harder we try, the more we seem to fail.  But that’s how its meant to be.  Christ lets us fail when we pray by ourselves so we rely on his intercession for us.  Oddly, our success in prayer comes from our personal failure and our willingness to carry on as he works for us and in us.’

Jesus allows us to fail in prayer, not to make us put more powder into our prayer, but to make us realize our inadequacies and hopelessness without him.  The power of prayer lay not in our success, but in our failures.  Answer to our prayer comes in and through failure and disappointment. 

This is why Jesus encourages us to drop the outward displays, let go of the popper prayer, and retreat to a quiet place, a lonely place and let him take over your prayer; let him use our prayer and make it acceptable to God.  I have a picture of what this sort of prayer looks like. (picture of Peter holding onto Jesus after walking on water: ask what Peter was doing just before this)

Here we have the perfect prayer.  Peter represents us, sinking into the sea of despair and rejection after failing in prayer, but then Jesus takes over where we fail and takes our hand as a brother and leads our prayers right into the heavenly Father’s ears.  And after lifting us and our prayers into the presence of the Father, Jesus then brings us back into the boat, back into his word, his gospel where we rely on his promises ‘I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.’

This Lenten season, I am encouraging you to be involved in this Lenten study on prayer.  It has been compiled by some of our members.  It is a nightly devotional series on prayer and it is designed to help you to discover new ways to pray.  We have taken snippets of advice from Jesus and the prayer he taught us.  From Luther, Hallesby, and others.  Can I commend this to you as a tool to assist you in your pray life over the next forty days of Lent.  To encourage you in prayer and to help you realize prayer is not about us, its about God and how he does indeed hear our prayer.

Prayer is certainly a wonderful gift.  Yet it would be wrong of me to say that after you have studied the booklet, everything would be fine.  Rather, let me finish on a sober warning from one of the desert fathers, a man called Agathon ‘The brethren also asked him ‘Amongst all good works, which is the virtue which requires the greatest effort?’  He answered, ‘Forgive me, but I think there is no labour greater than that of prayer to God.  For every time a man wants to pray, his enemies, the demons, want to prevent him, for they know that it is only by turning him from prayer that they can hinder his journey.  Whatever good work a man undertakes, if he perseveres in it, he will attain rest.  But prayer is warfare to the last breath.’

Amen

If you would like a copy of this booklet please email Pastor at Brenton.fiedler@lca.org.au

Over the past week or so we have had some pretty scary thunderstorms.  You can see them building up in the distance.  You know they are coming.  The rumbles, the flashes of lightening and the growing darkness announce the coming wrath of nature.  We go into hiding, go under cove to protect ourselves from facing the elements and the dangers.  We stay in doors, locked away until the darkness passes.  To illustrate the coming of something to fear, Joel uses the imagery of an Army coming to attack.  The trumpets announce the coming wrath and warn the people to take cover; to go into hiding for fear of being killed.

This imagery of a thunderstorm; the darkness, the flashes of lightening or the imagery of the fierce army coming and the fear it produces in us, is literally how you and I feel when caught in sin.  I don’t mean being actually caught doing something wrong, and the fear and darkness we experience when we know the consequences.  No, I mean the darkness and fear we experience when our guilty conscience is pricked.  Perhaps someone says some thing as innocent as ‘It terrible how people could lie like that’ or ‘fancy Johno being a violent abuser’ and instantly, bang, like a clamp of thunder our conscience darkens, and guilt, like lightening strikes us to the heart.  We ourselves have done just that, or are still doing just that, or similar.

Our feelings of guilt make us act as if a severe storm is coming.  We want to hide to protect ourselves; we want to hide our secret, lock ourselves away with it for fear that if we were to be found out we would be struck down.

To hide means to be a captive, stuck, locked up in one place.  Guilt produces shame and shame holds us in a state of captivity, like we were enduring a storm in a tiny cellar. The only difference is, storms eventually move on, whereas, guilt always remains and so we remain locked up by the shame.  Feelings of unworthiness, or anger at ourselves that we let others down, or even anger that we let ourself down, stop us from coming out of hiding.

So how do we get of this?  Do we find comfort inside ourselves, not daring to mention to anyone our secret?  No, secrets make us prisoners in our own body.  What about lying, could we lie to others or even to ourself?  No, lies also lock us up; Do we act like a doctor and explore ways to cure the pain that is in us?  Drink, medication, sleeping tablets. No, the cause of the pain is not physical, though there are physical symptoms, sudden weight loss or gain, depression, or a weak immune system, but to fix the symptoms is pointless, the pain is originated in our actions.

So how do we get out of our hiding place?  Can we even?

When a thunderstorm comes, we fear, and with good reason; the lightning strikes the ground and the thunder crashes all around. But then, have you noticed what happens next?  After the storm cell has passed, it begins to rain.  Everything we fear has moved on, and we are left with rain; rain that renews, restores and refreshes the earth; rain that is life giving.  We had to face the storm, but after the storm we have the rain.

Guilt and shame over sin is our storm, its the army approaching to attack us, and it’s the thunder bolts of guilt that continue to strike us; it hangs around as long as we remain in hiding; but if we come out and confess our sins, admit our guilt, then the storm goes, and the healing rains come pouring down.  The prophet Joel puts it this way ‘The day of the LORD is great; it is dreadful. Who can endure it? That’s the storm, but then he goes on.  ‘Return to the LORD your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love.’  That’s the rain after the storm.

To stop hiding is to return to the Lord, to the one who is the storm, but is also the rain; the one who destroys, but also the one who heals.  Return to the Lord is to recognise his wrath and anger against sin; our sin and to admit our guilt and ask to stand in the rain of his grace.  For in him is washing; cleansing and healing; renewal and restoration.  This is the incredible focus and emphasis of the Lenten season, the two actions of God; his anger against sin, which in fear, holds us in hiding, and then his raining grace of forgiveness for the sake of Christ Jesus, which frees us from our hiding places.

So let us take up his offer this Lent.  Let us admit we are under his storm of anger and that in guilt and shame we are hiding from him.  Let us confess our sins and ask for his grace; the grace that rains down upon us from the cross.  Let us cry out to Jesus and receive his forgiveness.

How can we do this?  Well, a good way is to go without something we like, that way, as we crave for it we are reminded of our sinful desires and our need for Christ.  It is an ancient custom to go without something and it is a good spiritual exercise.  When we crave, we can confess our sins by even just saying the Lord’s Prayer. Perhaps this is some thing you could do.

Yes, what an opportunity we have! An opportunity that far too few have or even know about.  So make this lent your time; your time to weather the storm and come out of hiding and into the rain of God’s grace in Jesus.