Mark your Calendar

Luke 18: 1-8

I should have titled this sermon “Luke Your Calendar,” for we will be exploring prayer as per the Gospel of Luke.  This parable is about our “need to pray always and not to lose heart” (v. 1).  Luke writes about our teacher, Jesus, praying in such manner:  Luke 6:12 “Now during those days he went out to the mountain to pray; and he spent the night in prayer to God;” Luke 22:44 “In his anguish he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat became like great drops of flood falling down on the ground.” This model of prayer is hard to follow, praying all night and so intensely that sweat is like blood.  Jesus models this, but what else does Luke tell us about what Jesus says about prayer? 

Luke 11 Jesus teaches the disciples to pray the Lord’s Prayer.  Jesus says “When you pray, say…”  And the first part is about claiming God as a personal God, “Father hallowed by your name;” Then Jesus tells us to petition for our great goal as recorded in Revelation 21: 1-4 “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.’”  This is exactly what we call for ultimately and in slivers of it currently, when we pray “Your kingdom come.”  Each day we need substance, but not simply bread and we are reminded by Jesus’ words to the devil in Luke 4:4 “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone,’” for we do not simply ask for food for our bodies but also for our souls when we pray, “Give us each day our daily bread.”  Then we are to ask to be forgiven, but with the caveat we must do the same, “And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.”  Then one last petition is taught according to Luke, “And do not bring us to the time of trial.”  These petitions are important for us to learn as the Lord’s Prayer, whatever version and/or language one prays it.  Though it is not simply about saying these words, but knowing that every prayer contains a bit of what Jesus taught us to say.  One may be simply acknowledging God and the relationship, or may be simply asking to be feed physically or spiritually and any infinite combination.

The last petition though seems difficult in light of today’s parable on prayer.  If we are to pray so persistently and follow the model of Jesus, prayer itself seems somewhat like a trial.  Thus let us look back at the scripture.  The key is in verses seven & eight, “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.” This is the Good News, yet we also know we need to pray persistently as Jesus models and the widow suggest in this parable.  We are taught by Jesus what we must say in our prayers and we realize we must petition persistently.  And we should realize the other half is that we must listen.  Just as Elijah found God in the “…sound of sheer silence..” (1 Kings 19:12) we must Listen.  We will be answered quickly, but if we do not hear and we often don’t because it is not what we want, we must continue to pray until we can hear.  We must pray as Jesus models, because we do not listen as loudly as we petition.  Let us pray constantly with our ears and heart open to God.