Sermon for Sunday 27 July 2025
Genesis 18:20-32
Colossians 2:6-19
Luke 11:1-13
Prayer is central to the Christian life – and indeed the life of most religions. A good deal of what we are doing in church today is prayer, of one sort or another.
Our commitment to prayer is modelled on our Lord’s focus on prayer.
Interestingly, the majority of Jesus’ prayer appears to have been private – between himself and the Father.
Some examples from the first three Gospels
Mark 6:46 “After saying farewell to [the 5000 he had just fed], Jesus went up on the mountain to pray.” (as per Matthew 14:23)
Luke 11:1 (today’s passage) “He was praying in a certain place (presumably on his own or at least silently), and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.”
And right at the end of his earthly ministry, the same pattern is evident in Matthew 26:36,
“Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane; and he said to his disciples, ‘Sit here while I go over there and pray.’”
Jesus’ practice in this regard (of praying privately) is consistent with his teaching, attested widely in the Gospels, of the need to be discrete in prayer.
Matthew 6:6 “But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” (Soon after which Jesus taught the disciples the Lord’s Prayer in that Gospel)
John’s Gospel – which is so different than the other three Gospels– does give us an example of Jesus praying in the presence of the disciples for an extended period – over the whole of chapter 17; but this is the exception, I’d suggest, that proves the rule, namely, that Jesus’ practice and advice on prayer was to do it privately.
Jesus’ concern was not only for his disciples to pray discretely, but to be persistent in prayer. We see this in at least two passage in Luke – one of which we have heard from today – the parable of the man who arrives at night, and keeps knocking till the homeowner comes out to him, which concludes with the explicit message to “Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.” (Luke 11:9).
The second instance occurs in chapter 18 in the parable of the widow who won’t stop hounding a wicked judge into making a decision in her favour. Eventually he caves in to her demands, after which Jesus comments, “And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them.” (Luke 18:7-8a). Another widow who is persistent in prayer, incidentally, is the prophet Anna who was present at our Lord’s presentation in the Temple as a child. Luke tells us that
She never left the temple but worshipped there with fasting and prayer night and day. (Luke 2:37b)
Jesus spoke, as well, about the need to be down-to-earth, realistic and honest when we approach God in prayer. Just after he finished speaking about the persistent widow and the wicked judge, he told another story to illustrate this need for humility, a story which involved a tax-collector and a Pharisee who went to pray at the Temple. The Pharisee spend much of his time thanking God that he wasn’t a terrible sinner like the tax-collector, whereas the Tax-collector, “standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” I tell you, [said Jesus] this man went down to his home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.’” Luke 18:13-14
Finally, Jesus was keen on keeping verbiage to a minimum in prayer – witness what he is reported to have said in Matthew 6:7-8 “’When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.” (And immediately after this – in that Gospel – he proceeds to teach his disciples the Lord’s Prayer)
Now I’ve said that Jesus was a discrete man of prayer in both his teaching and practice. The fact that his disciples have to ask him how to pray (as they do in the Gospel this morning) underlines my claim because, presumably, if he had been launching into prayer with them every day, they wouldn’t have needed to ask.
Jesus answers their request with a prayer of great simplicity and universal applicability that,
- gives glory to God (Father, hallowed be your name.)
- subordinates our purposes to God’s purposes (Your kingdom come.)
- Asks for the basics of life (Give us each day our daily bread.)
- Spends a significant chunk of space on forgiveness – asking for it, while at the same time acknowledging that our receipt of it is dependent on us being forgiving people (And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.).
- And requests God’s saving help in the trials of life (And do not bring us to the time of trial).
The universal applicability of this prayer is easily overlooked by Christians, but quite real. What we have here is a prayer that any monotheist can pray (think about it, there is no trinitarian formula to unchurch Jews or Muslims) – something valuable to remember as we move into a more religiously diverse age. It seems that as far as prayer is concerned, the historical Jesus’ tendency was to keep obscure theology out of it all together, and make it, instead, a sincere parent/child-like encounter between a human being on one side, and the sustainer of the universe on the other.
The simplicity of the Lord’s Prayer contrasts with some of the elaborate ways Christians pray today – whether that be the prayers in churches with old and involved liturgies (chants and litanies that go on forever), for instance, or the free-flowing, charismatic prayer of Pentecostal Churches. The Anglican Tradition has tended to look askance at both extremes and – although we might be criticized as too tepid by either end of the spectrum – our instincts (on this matter at least) do line up with Jesus’ teaching and practice which was to present prayer as a very deliberate, child-parent, heart-to-heart encounter; and just as we don’t often have the deepest parent-child encounters in public, so prayer to God that has the intention of changing us, as individuals, for the better, is best carried out in our own time and space.
Not that we shouldn’t be praying collectively in church! The New Testament gives us lots of sanction for doing so – the Book of Acts for example, is very much about a community which prays together, and Paul’s letters regularly comment on and give advice in relation to praying in the Spirit. Collective prayer strengthens us as the Body of Christ. It helps us determine and stay on the path that God has called us to walk in; and it makes a difference for the people and causes we pray for as a church.
Today, however, the focus is on the I-thou aspect of prayer (subject to subject) that was so instrumental in Jesus’ life and ministry; a prayer that empowered one extraordinary man to make a difference that has brought us here two thousand years later. If we follow our Lord’s teaching and example, we too will have the biggest impact we can possibly have in this world.
All this may seem to be of little relevance to the theme of social service (this Sunday being Social Service Sunday) but just look at how Jesus’ private prayer enabled his role as a ‘social worker’ in his life-time. If we wish to be anywhere near as effective at meeting social need, this prayer is where it starts.
Postscript overleaf.
The next morning after delivering this sermon I realised I had missed something quite obvious and important in my analysis of the Lord’s Prayer. What I had failed to take into account was the fact that our Lord taught us to pray this benchmark prayer in the first-person-plural (‘we’ and ‘us’). This does not negate what I said about individual prayer being of central importance in the Christian life, but it highlights where the focus of our personal prayer ought to be. And that is on the community of which we are a part. That purpose is so important because it reminds us that we are part of a shared effort; we aren’t doing things on our own, and just as we want God to help us to love more strongly, so we hope others will hold us in their love more strongly too. That keeps our prayer – and most importantly ourselves – grounded and attuned to love itself.
Tony Surman