First Lesson: Hosea 1: 2-10 Responsive Reading: Psalm 85 Second Lesson: Colossians 2: 6-15, (16-19) Gospel Lesson: Luke 11: 1-13 Grace and Peace from Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,
Now ever since I became a Seminary student. There is something that I’ve noticed about family gatherings. Everyone always waits for me to eat. Or another way to put this is everyone waits for me to pray a pre-dinner prayer. Now, most of my family are semi-regular churchgoers who have heard prayers longer than I’ve been alive. Going to school, according to some, gives a more direct pipeline to God. Such thinking is nothing new among the religious. The Disciples thought the same way. In our Gospel lesson[1], they sit and watch Jesus pray. Before asking Jesus, “How exactly should we pray[2]?” Jesus answers this question by teaching them to pray what is known as the Lord’s Prayer. So why does Jesus teach the Lord’s Prayer specifically? What does it say about what exactly we believe about prayer as Christian people? Father (in heaven), hallowed be your name. What type of Father do we have in heaven? Let me tell you a story about one remarkable father[3]. In 1962, Dick Hoyt had a son named Rick Hoyt[4]. Rick Hoyt was dealt a tough hand at birth. The umbilical cord was wrapped around Rick’s neck, leading to a diagnosis of cerebral palsy. Rick’s doctor said that he would spend the rest of his life outside his parents care in an institution for special needs children. The prognosis was a life spent living like a vegetable. It seemed to be the cruelest of news to new parents. The Hoyts saw hope, though, as Rick’s eyes were able to follow movements around the room. They eventually seek out a new diagnosis for Rick, whoichencourages the Hoyts to bring Rick home and try to raise him like any other child. Rick soon learns the alphabet. He eventually is fitted with a computer that allowed him to communicate. Rick was able to attend public school[5]. In 1977, Rick Hoyt had a request for his dad Dick Hoyt; he wanted to run a race. The following request seemed like a stretch as Rick couldn’t walk and Dick wasn’t a runner. Rick though wished to participate in the races, to prove that his handicap would not define him. So Dick Hoyt (the dad) needed to get in shape. He needed to get in such good shape that he would be able to push his son in a wheelchair for five miles. Dick Hoyt would begin by practing pushing a wheelchair containing a bag of cement when Rick was at school. Over the next forty years, Dick and Rick would compete together in over 1,100 events including 72 marathons and six Iron man triathlons. Dick Hoyt’s dedication to his son is so great that a statue of the Hoyts was built near the start of the country’s most prestigious race the Boston Marathon. The Hoyts would eventually go up on inspirational billboards throughout this country. The Hoyt’s fame was all driven by a Father’s great love for his child[6]. We begin our Lord’s Prayer with praying to our Father in Heaven because just like Rick Hoyt, we know that this Father’s love for his children knows no limits or depth. We pray as a statement of trust that our Father in heaven will care for us even beyond how Dick Hoyt cared for his son Rick. Now, as we pray to our Father in heaven, here is where we often get prayer wrong as Christian people, we assume prayer is a series of personal requests that we can make. Prayer is instead the connecting force of our relationship with God[7]. Think of the closest people to you in life. If they didn’t live in your house, you probably stay in regular contact via telephone. I know the times when my Dad usually calls, the conversations can be long, especially when they involve the Minnesota Vikings. He called Friday night at 9:15, didn’t get off the phone till after 10:30. Prayer’s purpose works the same way, giving you the means to provide all your wants, worries, cares, and needs to your heavenly father via conversation[8]. Give us each day our daily bread. Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us. And lead us not into temptation. Ever since Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit and sin’s curse was passed down throughout the generations. Our relationship with our Father has been broken. But our Father promises the great hope of his eventual forgiveness. There’s a Spanish story not unlike the Biblical tale of the Prodigal Son. A Father and Son became estranged. The Son ran far away from home. The Father never heard from the Son for months on end. The Father then began traveling all around the land, trying to find his lost son. Finally, the Father took out an ad in one of the country’s largest papers in Madrid. The ad read as follows: “Dear Paco, meet me in front of this newspaper office at noon on Saturday. All is forgiven. I love you. Your Father.” The next Saturday, 800 different Pacos showed up outside the newspaper office, looking for forgiveness and love from their fathers[9]. Forgiveness is one of the few forces in this life so powerful that it can perpetually change the world. To paraphrase writer Todd Brewer: “When forgiveness takes place there are three deaths: the one being forgiven, the one granting the forgiveness and the relationship between the two of them. Subsequently, a new reality occurs, new life all around.” Forgiveness is a real, actual event; when we hear, “I see what you did and God (declaring) I still love you[10].” Once upon a time, there was an old country church, not unlike this one[11]. The preacher would get up and give long sermons week after week. The sermons would go all over the place and would be hard for the congregation to follow. The ushers though were good sermon critics. At the start of every sermon, they would lock the doors of the church so no one could escape, especially the Preacher. They would only unlock the doors when the Preacher delivered a word of Gospel, a word of forgiveness for all who gathered that Sunday. No matter what else the Preacher rambled about. Christians gather on Sunday morning only because of the hope of the forgiveness that has been given through Christ Jesus. Luke’s Gospel version of the Lord’s Prayer closes with and lead us not into temptation. Whereas Matthew’s Gospel concludes; but deliver us from evil[12]. When we think of evil, we often think of the forces that continually overpower us. The bullies in our life that we can’t seemingly defeat on our own. With this in mind, let me tell a story. The place was a YMCA in Hollywood, California[13]. Basketball players would gather every day, choose teams of five, and play till they lost and were forced off the court. Well, there was a team that seemed unbeatable. They were made up of former UCLA college players and even former pros. They would never lose and they would not shut up about it. Well, every single day down at the basketball court was an old man who loved the game, but was now approaching “60” and could never dream to keep up with these recently retired pros. Every day, the man would proclaim that he was friends with “Magic Johnson,” one of the best players in the world at the time for the nearby Los Angeles Lakers[14]. Every day, the basketball bullies would laugh at the older man. Well, one day, the basketball bullies had their way once again. The older man finally snapped, storming off the court, and came back twenty minutes later with the great Magic Johnson. Magic picks his team, including the older man and others just standing around. The basketball bullies were looking forward to beating Magic Johnson and humiliating this older man once again. The game begins, it soon becomes evident that it didn’t matter who was on Magic Johnson’s team, they weren’t losing. The basketball bullies were quickly defeated with the Old Man draining a long three-pointer in their face at the end of the game. The bullies kept demanding rematches only to keep losing to Magic Johnson and the Old Man again and again. The reign of the basketball bullies had come to an end when the Old Man found a teammate to deliver him [15](from evil). The Apostle Paul declares in the Book of Romans: “As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature.[a] For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out[16].” Evil is a continual struggle for us as Christian people, even if it always isn’t in the form of basketball bullies. We can find evil nearly every place we look. We often pray to God to remove evil from our lives in the form of illness or broken relationships or even within ourselves. The challenge with prayer is God often seems to be silent. But here’s the point about Evil from within the Lord’s Prayer, Evil will be with us in the short term, but on the last day, All evil will vanish from the Earth[17]. What Christ will do on the last day is the same thing that Magic Johnson did within that Basketball game. He will defeat all evil forces that surround us (not just big-talking basketball players), but more importantly, sin, death and the power of the Devil. The whole reason that we pray is to confess that our eventual salvation is going to soon come from someone way, more powerful than ourselves. The following confession is what we say every time that we pray the Lord’s Prayer. The great hope of the Lord’s Prayer is that we have a perpetually loving father in heaven, whose relationship to us means so much, that he wants nothing more than to forgive us and reunite with us. Our evidence of this is found upon a cross. And on a day that is to come, our Lord will deliver us from the greatest evidence of evil in death and bring us the triumph of his Kingdom for all eternity. Amen [1] Luke 11: 1-13. [2] Luke 11:1. [3] Higgins, Scott. “Dick & Rick Hoyt – A Video of a Father Competing in Endurance Events with his Disabled Son.” Stories for Preaching. Web. July.10.2019. [4] “Team Hoyt.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation. 17. Apr.2019. Web. July.10.2019. [5] “Team Hoyt.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation [6] “Team Hoyt.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation [7] Lose, David. “Commentary on Luke 11:1-13.” Working Preacher. Luther Seminary. Saint Paul, MN. 25.July.2010. Web. July.10.2019. [8] Lose, David. “Commentary on Luke 11:1-13.” Working Preacher. [9] Bits and Pieces. “The Father and Paco.” Found under Father on Sermon Illustrations. 15.Oct.1992. pg.13. Web. July.10.2019. [10] Brewer, Todd. “We Are Bold to Say… The Lord’s Prayer, Pt 5: Forgive Us Our Trespasses.” Mockingbird (MBird) Ministries. 23. Aug.2012. Web. July.10.2019. [11] This analogy comes from an Preaching conference that I attended hosted by Augsburg Lutheran Churches in 2007 at Advent Lutheran in Roseville. [12] “Lord’s Prayer.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation. 27.June.2019. Web. July.10.2019. [13] Toldayso edited by RiverdanceJonas. “The story of Magic Johnson showing up at the local Y and crushing the most arrogant pickup team in LA.” Reddit. NBA subreddit. 8.July.2019. Web. July.10.2019. [14] Toldayso edited by RiverdanceJonas. “The story of Magic Johnson showing up at the local Y and crushing the most arrogant pickup team in LA.” Reddit. NBA subreddit [15] Toldayso edited by RiverdanceJonas. “The story of Magic Johnson showing up at the local Y and crushing the most arrogant pickup team in LA.” Reddit. NBA subreddit [16] Romans 7:17-18. [17] Stier, Leon. “Deliver Us from Evil.” Email Mediatations. 2.May.2017. Web. July.13.2019. Comments are closed.
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