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“SPIRITUAL RE-FUEL: HOW TO PRAY”
A Sermon Preached at
FIRST UNITED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
Belleville, IL
By The Rev Rob Dyer
March 30, 2014
(transcribed from audio tape)
As we prepare to hear God’s Word, please pray with me responsively the Prayer
for Illumination.
Give us this day our daily bread.
O Lord, we ask that it be given to us because we cannot be sustained on what we
produce alone.
Give us this day our daily bread.
O Lord, we ask that it be given to not just me, but to all of us because we know
that the Kingdom is a community thing, not just a personal thing.
Give us this day our daily bread.
O Lord, we ask for You to feed us for this day alone, because we have faith that
You will be with us tomorrow as well. We need not worry over tomorrow when
we know You are with us every day.
Give us this day our daily bread.
O Lord, we ask for our bread because we need our fellow brothers and sisters in
faith to be fed as well. To be surrounded by a soul-nourished community brings a
special blessing to our lives.
Give us this day our daily bread.
O Lord, we cry out for the bread that sustains life to the core of our souls. We cry
out for the bread of life revealed through Your Holy Word this day. Let the Holy
Word shared this day truly feed us with understanding, wisdom, and a greater
knowledge of who You are and who You intend us to be.
Give us this day our daily bread.
Give us this day our daily bread.
Give us this day our daily bread…Amen.
The gospel reading this morning is from John 9:13-16; 24-34. Listen to God’s
Word.
They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind.
Now it was a sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his
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eyes. Then the Pharisees also began to ask him how he had received
his sight. He said to them, ‘He put mud on my eyes. Then I washed,
and now I see.’ Some of the Pharisees said, ‘This man is not from
God, for he does not observe the sabbath.’ But others said, ‘How can
a man who is a sinner perform such signs?’ And they were divided.
So for the second time they called the man who had been blind, and
they said to him, ‘Give glory to God! We know that this man is a
sinner.’ He answered, ‘I do not know whether he is a sinner. One
thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.’ They said to him,
‘What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?’ He answered
them, ‘I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you
want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?’
Then they reviled him, saying, ‘You are his disciple, but we are
disciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for
this man, we do not know where he comes from.’ The man answered,
‘Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from,
and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to
sinners, but he does listen to one who worships him and obeys his
will. Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone
opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from
God, he could do nothing.’ They answered him, ‘You were born
entirely in sins, and are you trying to teach us?’ And they drove him
out.
This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
I just have to say it was a beautiful, beautiful coat. It was an amazing coat. It was,
gosh about 28 years ago, between my freshman and sophomore years of high
school. We were doing that tradition of pre-school year, clothes buying. Headed
out to the mall at St. Clair Square and there was this store. This store was such a
cool store to shop at. It had two store fronts. I don’t remember the name of it. I’m
sure it was cool though. It was like in 2 or 3 stores from the corner; maybe just 2
stores in from the corner and then it went back and then it came back out the other
side, so that actually there were 2 ways to get into this kind of “L” shaped store at
St. Clair Square and it’s where the cool clothes were.
I’ll just let you know back in the 1980’s that was where the “cool stuff” was. And
there it was upon the rack and I looked at it and at the time all the friends I was
running around with a lot of them dressed kind of. . . . I mean you might call it
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Goth or Alternative or whatever, but there was a lot of black Trench Coats going
on around Belleville West in those days, all right? Particularly in my little circle of
friends, all right? And I really wasn’t into the idea of wearing a black Trench Coat
all the time, but I thought that Trench Coast is kind of cool.
When I went into the store that day I saw it upon the rack. I saw a thing that only
the 80’s could produce. Only the 80’s because it was . . . . Acid . . . . Washed . . . .
Denim . . . . Trench Coat. I know! As you picture it in your mind you start to just
catch a glimpse of the glory of such a creation. An Acid Washed Denim Trench
Coat!
And I know some of you are saying “No, Rob. I cannot imagine the glory of what
that might look like and I was worried that you wouldn’t be able to really capture
what it was, so I searched earnestly and I found that Trench Coat. Hit it Loren!
That was it! Come on now! Picture it! Walking down the halls
of the “L” Building with that on. Yeah!
I am sure that if I had worn that jacket it would have turned heads.
I don’t know that it would have elevated me to the social status
which I was sure just the proper piece of clothing could do, but
come on! Acid Washed Denim Trench Coat. And as I turned to
my mother and said “That! I want to try that on!” My mom just
simply said “No!”
And I said “But, I just want to try it on to see how it looks.
She said “I won’t buy it for you. No!”
I then went on through the rest of my high school career without such a lovely
jacket to wear. 28 years ago! And so 28 years later Mother. . . . I’m a grown man
now and I’ve had some time to think about this and I have just 2 words for you. . . .
Thank You! Thank you so much because had it not been for the guidance of my
mother there would be photos. . . . there would be photos of me in that jacket and
I’m sure that on my 30th or 40th birthday there would have been a blown up poster
of me in that jacket. I’d have been in the Bellevinois, the Yearbook for the high
school. That would have made it in the papers. Thank you so much.
There are times in prayer when we ask for things, sometimes maybe like an Acid
Washed Denim Trench Coat; sometimes it might even be a Cadillac; sometimes it
can be something much more serious though. It would be so neat and easy if we
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could just say that every time a prayer is not answered; every time a request to God
is unanswered, there’s just always that silver lining right behind it. Years from
now you will be able to look back and say “Well, I’m really glad that I didn’t get
that prayer answered.” I would love to say that, but I don’t think that’s always our
common experience.
We have a hard time accepting the way God works and prayer really draws it out
of us. For example, look at the scripture passage today. Here we have a person
who was blind from birth and is healed by Jesus on the Sabbath, no less. What is
he thinking – doing – helping people on the Sabbath?
He’s done it in all the wrong ways. He’s the wrong person to be doing it.
According to the authorities of the time surely all the blessings would come from
the temple, from the temple authority; some random teacher to show up and to do
such healing, it’s very suspicious; it’s not the way we expect it to work. We’re not
happy about it and we will not accept it.
The story is about someone receiving their sight, but I’m not so sure it’s about the
man that was healed. The authority at that time; those who were questioning him,
they were blind. They were blind to the work of God right there in front of them.
I’m sure they prayed for guidance from God. I’m sure they prayed to clearly see
God at work in their lives and yet because of the way they were looking at it, they
simply couldn’t see it.
And I know, I know that I have had the experience of praying a prayer and then
later realizing oh that was a bad prayer. I’m really glad God didn’t answer that
one. But you see the thing that doesn’t make this all neat and tidy is that I’ve also
had that experience of praying those prayers where even years later I don’t look
back and see the sunny side of the way it turned out.
I’ve been on my knees in prayer with tears going down my cheeks for a pregnancy
that my wife and I had and we lost that baby. And I don’t see the benefit of that
now. I have 4 amazing, beautiful, wonderful children, but the loss of that first
child during pregnancy doesn’t somehow seem at all to have a silver lining.
I was 19 when my grandfather passed away and I wanted him there for my
wedding. I wanted him there to be a great-grandfather. He’d have been a good
one too. He would have been a really good one. And as he was in the hospital I
prayed earnestly for him and I didn’t get that either and I don’t see to this day the
benefit of having the rest of my college years and the years of my life so far
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without him. I don’t see the great wisdom of God at work in that. And not just for
myself. I’ve been at bedsides; I’ve been in dark places with people as a pastor and
we have prayed for things and sometimes our prayers were answered exactly in the
way we wanted, but a lot of times it hasn’t and I don’t look back and say “Ah. It’s
a good thing that didn’t happen.”
How am I to pray when it’s not that reliable? Surely God should work like a
wonderful, divine ATM machine in the sky to which I merely need to punch in the
right code and then blessings will flow. I should just be able to ask and it comes,
but then I guess that would kind of make God into my own little lap dog, wouldn’t
it?
Here God! Come here! Come here! OK. Go fetch this God! Do that for me
God! Do that! Go! Go! Go over there! Sit! Roll over! Just ordering God
around.
That doesn’t see quite right does it? I don’t know if any of us are really
comfortable with the idea of instead of The Lord is my shepherd; the Lord is my
lap dog. He does what I want. I can make him lie down in green pastures.
There is something in this balance of prayer and our own will and the way things
go that just doesn’t always make sense to us. And it’s not as easy as just saying
“Well, if you really believe, you’re just turning faith into the magical pin code
that’s going to bring the blessings out of the divine ATM machine.” Is that it?
When we pray prayers together that don’t come true, should I just look at you as
your pastor and say “I guess you just didn’t believe enough” or I know “I guess we
didn’t have enough people praying for you.” How do we make sense of this?
You know, our topic today is “How to Pray!” and we had a wonderful class this
morning and we talked about the mechanisms and ways to pray, but I can give you
a really short answer. You know the right way to pray? Just honestly talk with
God. I know a lot of you feel a little hesitation about asking for things. We kind
of go back and forth. We go into one mode where all we’re doing is asking for
stuff from God. And then when we start to develop a good prayer, like this came
up in our class this morning.
When we start to develop a good prayer life a lot of us who have been praying for
many years, we start to shy away from asking for things. We almost feel guilty
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about it. Like we shouldn’t be asking, right? It makes us selfish. It makes us
‘little divine children of God’ brats.
But if we are not supposed to ask for stuff in our prayers, then I gotta tell you Jesus
gave us a really lousy example. I want you to open up your bulletins right now.
Open it up to the center where you can see the staples coming through. That’s
right at the end of the service but don’t get excited. We’re not there yet.
But at the top right hand side you’ll see the prayer that Jesus taught us to pray. I
want you to notice something about it and that is if you take one hand and cover up
the top line and another hand and cover up the bottom line, everything else in
between is us asking for stuff.
We’re asking for God’s will to be done. We’re asking for our daily bread. We’re
asking to be forgiven of debts. We’re asking not to be led into temptation. It’s just
gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme God.
When Jesus sat them down to teach them how to pray he said basically, ask God
for stuff. That must be what we are to be about. We’re supposed to be asking God
to give us these blessings. It’s wrapped; it’s enveloped in some acknowledgements
there.
One is that it is our God who is in heaven. It’s wrapped in the greatness of God
above; the kingdom and the power and the glory below. The acknowledgement of
who is really in charge here and it’s wrapped in a confidence that this God just
might actually know what he’s doing. Just might! And none the less we are
supposed to participate somehow in what this God is doing by asking for things.
But that’s okay.
I don’t think that we really have a tough time knowing how to pray. We just have
a tough time believing in it. Because I think that if we believed in it, really
believed in it, it would move us into doing it whether we thought well I’m doing
this in a sloppy way, but I don’t care. I know this works, because the perception is
that we tease ourselves into believing that the working of a prayer is when we get
our way. When God “Here boy!” just becomes our lap dog. And if God isn’t
obeying commands, the prayers ain’t workin’.
If we just stop and think about this. That’s not right! That doesn’t match anything
about the way I understand God. So if it’s not that, what is it about? I’ll tell you
that when I try to figure out that God wants us to pray; that we have free will; that
sometimes they are answered and sometimes they’re not; you mix all this stuff
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about prayer together and how does it all work? I come up with the grand answer
which is . . . . . I don’t know.
I don’t know how this works but I do know a couple of things. I know that God is
inviting us to participate in the divine works through prayer. I know that we are
called to pray. I know that my God loves me and in fact God loved the world so
much that he gave his only son. It’s a primary response of God out of God’s love
is to give, so I know that I am called to pray. I know that this God loves me and I
know that I can trust this God.
And if I can just hold on to those 3 ideas, just those 3 ideas – I know I am called to
pray. I know that God loves me. I know I can trust this God, then I can be drawn
into prayer. I can be pulled into that life-giving spiritual exercise thing that gives
me a feeling of connection and communion with this God. I can participate in
what God is doing.
I really don’t want God at my beck and call cause then that wouldn’t be God. I
want the kingdom of God to reign; not the kingdom of Rob to reign.
I don’t know how to pray to make things come my way, but I know how to pray to
participate in what God’s doing. I just talk to him.
As I close today I just want to bring up something that came up in our Sunday
School class this morning. We were sharing with each other how we pray. We
had a little time where we shared with one another in small groups.
It’s amazing in how many families the spouses have no idea how the other one
prays. It’s like “I don’t know what she’s doing over there.” “I don’t know if they
do it before they go to sleep or when the wake up. I don’t know when they do it.”
There are a lot of relationships where people either do pray together or specifically
don’t pray together. There’s a lot of kids out there that have no idea if or when
their parents pray and I mean kids who might be old like me, or old like you. Do
you know how your parents pray? Do you know their prayer habit? Do your
children know yours?
It’s interesting. We’ll take our kids out to a parking lot and teach them how to
drive a car, but we’ll hesitate to take them to a room in our own house and talk to
them about how to pray.
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I think that one of the things that came out of our discussion is that we need to talk
about this more with each other in our families, in our church. We need to talk
about this prayer thing more cause so many of us are doing it and we have no idea
if we are doing it right. We don’t know if we’re doing it too much or too little.
Oh, we know we can’t do it too much. We’re all worried we’re doing it too little.
Let’s be honest with ourselves. Doin’ it right!
Is it okay that I talk to God like I would talk to my friend? Maybe I shouldn’t tell
anybody about that. Is it okay that I don’t know Latin or I don’t know these big
colorful phrases, or that my prayers aren’t near as long as Pastor Rob’s? Goodness
that guy goes on and on.
I think we can help each other on how to pray if we just talk to each other and you
have influence in your own circles – people you care about; people you love.
Make sure that they know you have this precious thing, this precious gift from
God, a gift of prayer. Even if you think you’re flubbing it up; even if you think
you are lousy at it, you have something to share with others. And in that way we
can help each other on this how to pray thing. We can encourage one another.
There is no set way. There is no set amount. It’s just that we pray enough to keep
the will of God foremost in our lives. Whatever that takes for you.
To God be the glory in all that you do and all that you say and all that you pray.
Halleluiah and Amen.
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