“Lord, teach us to pray” Colchester Federated Church, July 27, 2025, Seventh Sunday after Pentecost (Luke 11:1-13)

As we continue exploring Luke’s Gospel, Jesus teaches his disciples to pray in today’s story.  The words most likely sound familiar.  This prayer has become known as the Our Father or the Lord’s Prayer depending on one’s tradition. 

Now sometimes when we talk about the Lord’s Prayer we consider inclusive language.  Should we stick with the traditional “Father” language (even though “Father” in this passage comes from “Abba” which is better translated as “Daddy” anyway)?  This was a prayer of relationship and familiarity after all.  Or should we use a fully inclusive version of the Lord’s Prayer like that beautiful version found in The New Zealand Book of Prayer?

Eternal Spirit,
Earth-maker, Pain bearer, Life-giver,
Source of all that is and that shall be,
Father and Mother of us all,
Loving God, in whom is heaven.[1]

Should we use “trespasses and those who trespass against us” or should we forgive “debts and debtors” or “forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who has wronged us”?[2]  It ends up that there’s a lot to consider when we look at this prayer that we pray each week in worship—this prayer that Jesus taught his disciples to pray.  I need another vacation!

The context is interesting because Jesus’ disciples ask him to teachthem to pray after observing Jesus himself at prayer.  There are many verses throughout the Gospel according to Luke that say things like, “He was praying in a certain place” or that Jesus went off on his own to pray, often before the disciples woke up for the day.[3]  “Meanwhile, he would slip away to deserted places and pray.”[4]  Jesus—the teacher, healer, Son of God, Messiah, Prince of Peace—Jesus was multifaceted and a person of prayer.  His prayer life defined who he was as a person of faith as it was part of his way of staying grounded in God and in his mission of spreading the love of God to those he encountered along the way.

Worship and prayer are a major emphasis in Luke’s Gospel that is not found in the same way in our other Gospels.  As New Testament scholar Mark Allan Powell writes, “Jesus prays more often in this Gospel, and he has more to say on the topic of prayer than in the other three Gospels combined.”[5]  Prayer is mentioned at Jesus’ baptism and transfiguration.  Jesus prays before choosing his disciples.  Jesus prays before he questions them about his identity: “Once when Jesus was praying by himself, the disciples joined him, and he asked them, ‘Who do the crowds say that I am?’”[6]  Jesus prays before he predicts that Peter will deny even knowing him.  As Mark Allan Powell relates, “Only in this Gospel do Jesus’ disciples ask him to teach them to pray (11:1), and he does so not only by teaching them the Lord’s Prayer (Luke 11:2-4)—found also in Matthew (Matt. 6:9-13)—but also through frequent encouragements to prayer (18:1; 21:36; 22:40) and through parables about prayer, not found anywhere else (11:5-8; 18:1-8, 9-14).”[7]  All of this to say, “Lord, teach us to pray” was a rather extraordinary request made by the disciples.[8]  And because we are so familiar with this prayer, we may forget how unique this moment is when Jesus’ disciples make this request of him.

It will probably not come as a surprise that prayer is an important worship element when we gather together to worship God as a faith community on Sunday mornings.  We worship God in Christian community—we sing, read scripture, listen to a sermon, and reflect on the text together.  We also pray together—both for one another and for the needs of the world.  Prayers can be simple or complex, memorized or spontaneous; prayers can be written down as a poem or prose or even as a letter addressed to God.  Prayers can be spoken aloud, sung, or lifted up to God in the silence of our hearts.  Prayers can be famous or prayers can be something we’ve never heard before. 

The great poet Mary Oliver once reflected on prayer in her famous poem “The Summer Day.”  That poem can be found in House of Light which won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1984.  It is one of my favorite images of prayer as Mary Oliver wrote:

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean—
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?[9]

That line, “What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” can be found on mugs and t-shirts and journals and bumper stickers these days.  It is an excellent question.  Though it is important to note (especially for the purposes of this sermon) that this important question can be found within a poem that contemplates an ordinary summer day and a grasshopper and prayer. 

“I don’t know exactly what a prayer is” Mary Oliver confesses. 

How do we answer some of her questions? 

“Who made the world?”
“Tell me, what else should I have done?”
“Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?” 
“What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” 

To help us on our way to answering these questions, we could turn to spiritual practices like meditation, prayer, fasting, study, solitude, service, confession, worship, guidance—all of these ways that we put our faith into action and deepen our relationship with God.  Later today some of the youth and adults of our church will be heading to Providence, Rhode Island for a few days of service.  This is a way that we can be helpful for the lost and the least and the forgotten—the very people that Jesus taught us to see with his eyes of compassion and love because they are our neighbors.  “Faith without actions is dead” after all, so being of service is a spiritual practice.[10] 

We could even think of service as prayer in action.  Being of service to beloved children of God changes us just as prayer itself changes us.  Quaker theologian Richard Foster reflects that to pray is to change because prayer “brings us into the deepest and highest work of the human spirit . . . prayer is the central avenue God uses to transform us.”[11]  That is a lovely way to think about prayer because it’s not just for the person we are praying for—prayer can transform the one who is praying.  Prayer has a way of softening the heart toward another person. 

Prayer does change us.  And Jesus knew that because he prayed all the time.  It was his example of prayer that led the disciples to say, “Lord, teach us to pray.”  This request from Jesus’ followers helped Jesus share a transformative spiritual practice that continues to bless us.  For we do our best to be a love your neighbor church and a church that prays with our hands and our feet.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

[1] The Lord’s Prayer: Māori & Polynesia in The New Zealand Prayer Book, https://livinghour.org/lords-prayer/new-zealand-maori
[2] Luke 11:4, CEB.
[3] Luke 11:1, NRSVUE.
[4] Luke 5:16, NRSVUE.
[5] Mark Allan Powell, Fortress Introduction to the Gospels.
[6] Luke 9:18, CEB.
[7] Mark Allan Powell, Fortress Introduction to the Gospels.
[8] Luke 11:1, CEB.
[9] Mary Oliver, “The Summer Day,” in House of Light, pg. 60.
[10] James 2:26, CEB.
[11] Richard J. Foster, Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth, pg. 33.

Photo by Rev. Lauren Ostrout.