Concordia Lutheran Church
- Pentecost 9 July 25, 2010
Living In God’s Providence…
Luke 11:1-13
† IN HIS NAME, JESUS, SON AND SAVIOR †
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, as we grasp the invitation to place everything that burdens us into our Father in Heaven’s care, may we realize the depth, and height and breadth and width of God’s love for us, revealed in Christ Jesus! AMEN!
Intro – Do we treat God like a rich uncle
His name is William, and in most people’s minds, he is very well off, quite comfortable, even extremely rich. He lives in Massachusetts, has a summer lake-house in New Hampshire, and travels the world first-class. He owns car dealerships and restaurants and even a small chain of banks.
He’s my uncle, my mom’s brother, second born of seven or eight.
I tend not to communicate with him all that much, just a half-dozen to a dozen times in the last ten years. Perhaps its because I am afraid to be seen as a hanger-on, someone who is near because I expect the scraps from his table. And part of it is my own pride, I hate to be put into a position where I think I might “owe” someone, when they freely share something with me. It’s definitely my responsibility, as I take counsel of my own fears. I still remember the reaction, when he learned my son’s name was William, and he asked who I named him after.
Funny thing is, with two grandfathers, 2 uncles, a great uncle, 4 cousins, three mentors and a few friends named William, and my favorite television pastor/priest played by William Christopher, we named my son after…. Me.
Back to Uncle Bill, a nice guy from what I know. Ambitious and intelligent, he has accomplished much in his life. But I don’t know him, and am afraid to open up a relationship with him, less I seem…needy and dependant.
I think, as we look at the Lord’s Prayer this day, a lot of us treat God like I treat my Uncle Bill. We know the relationship is there, at least legally. But we hesitate, not understanding God’s desire for the relationship, and we are afraid to seem like we are dependant, we let our pride get in the way. Communication, which He welcomes, which He urges, which Jesus modeled and taught, and which has been handed down to us, doesn’t occur.
Is It a Matter of Doubt?
One of the challenging things about being in a relationship with another person, is the challenge of trust. To what extent will we trust the other person. How far will we trust ourselves, and allow ourselves to be vulnerable, to depend on others. We know all to well the pain of trusting others, of entrusting our feelings, our emotions, and even our lives. That is difficult for us to do with other people, there are many scars, many fears, and our very culture says be self-determined, self-dependent.
I am not sure I understand why, but I think a reluctance to pray comes from the same area – it is a risk, there is potential disappointment, there is probable pain. While we may never admit it, we have our doubts, and wonder is God that wise that we should trust Him without questioning Him, or is He fickle like us?
It’s one thing to trust Him for salvation, for that may seem far off, it is another perhaps to trust Him to forgive our sin, or that He is there, that God the Son, Jesus Christ is truly present in the sacrament.
Or maybe we wonder about our role – do we really matter to Him, do we see ourselves as needy dependents, struggling with wanting to be strong and faithful, and we think that we shouldn’t need to be so whiney, so needy, so…. Childlike and dependent and such a bother.
And weak in faith, challenged by the need to trust, we too often walk away from an invitation. We have walked away from the comfort, the wisdom, the relationship. That is ultimately, the nature of sin, our turning our back on a relationship with the God who calls to us, inviting us into His kingdom, inviting us to be His people, His children, and He to be our God, our Father.
The easiest way to see this in our lives, yes even in the lives who have known God’s love, and have been by His authority, baptized and cleansed and celebrated His presence at His table, is when we treat prayer as a duty, even a noble duty. When we have had the joy of walking daily with God stolen from us, and we are left with seeing this as commanded, another thing to cross off our daily task list.
We see prayer to often as more of a burden than it lifts, and that is a major problem. For as we do so, we buy into a lie that leads us into sin, and separation from God. Yet how do we know it, any other way?
The Burdens lifted, as the Paraclete is given!
The answer of course, is to hear the response to the disciples question – teach us to pray… and after a model is given for how to pray, the incredible promise of the prayer being answered. As Jesus compares the neighbor and us mortal fathers listening and hearing, he compares our faulty wisdom and yet ability to meet needs with the Father. But the promise comes into play, not with just answering the requests of the prayer, but with this,
13 If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!
More than just daily bread, more than being delivered from the power of Satan, more than not being led into temptation – when we ask – God gives us the best – Himself! For therein the Spirit testifies to us of God’s
As we walk in Christ, as we have been given the gift of the Holy Spirit in our baptism, so too do we find His presence already given to us, even before we ask! Yet that very presence confirms to us God’s incredible answers to the petitions He longs to answer of us!
Think it through – if we have been graced with the presence of the Holy Spirit, it is not so much us asking because we do not have, but us asking so that we know that we do have!
For if God is truly present, sin and temptation is overcome, either by our being strengthened against it, or the constant assurance of our absolution, promised and delivered in baptism, given again in the words Christ in the absolution he promises in John 20 and commands us to deliver. Satan like, our old evil foe, has no chance to steal us from the hand of God.
Knowing we are forgiven of our sins, we can free others of their indebtedness to us. As we pray, we begin to realize the liberation, the freedom, the peace of not harboring resentment and ill will, even as we rejoice in our own forgiveness.
We can realize that God is with us, and neither can anything separate us from His love, His care, His providence, That all works out for our good will, for He has called us and chosen us, and given us the ability to love Him.
His will is accomplished, for it is to see us granted repentance, and quickened into life. And it is, now quickened, made alive in Christ, baptized into water, that we find the most incredible relationship we could ever ask for, the one where our Father in heaven asks us, not to release a burden at a time, but every burden.
The challenge of trusting God in life…
If there is a challenge to trusting God, to entrusting everything we are to Him, and to place it in His care, it is removed as we begin to see the relationship He calls us to.
Our Father, the word used in Luke is the one from which we get paternal, and patristic and patriarch – the one who has responsibility for us all. To care and to protect, to love us and guide us into maturity. It is to Him we are taught to pray, it is to Him we are called to give up all that we hold onto, that He could hold onto us!
Look – here is the place where God marked you as His child, where you were united in His Son’s death, that you would rise, alive, whole, a co-heir with Christ Jesus.
Look here is the place where you have been invited to dine, restored, refreshed, and rested, as Christ communes us to Himself!
This is the place – where God has put His name on you – not the building, but the fellowship of believers bound together by something so strong that sin, nor satan nor the power of death can separate us from each other, or from God! Bound together by God’s decree, bound together as He marks us as his..
So pray, enjoy the burdens lifted, the freedom given, the grace beyond grace and rest that is beyond rest. Give Him your every burden, and know that we walk in unsurpassable peace, with the One who calls to us, His children.
AMEN?
