THE FIFTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST
June 19, 2005
St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church
The Rev. M. Anthony Seel, Jr.
Matthew 6:11
"Petitioning God for Our Needs: Supplication and Divine Providence"
After receiving a scolding from “old Miss Watson,” Huckleberry Finn recounts,
Miss Watson she took me in the closest and prayed, but nothing
come of it. She told me to pray every day, and whatever I asked for
I would get it. But it warn’t so. I tried it. Once I got a fishline, but
no hooks. It wartn’t any good to me without hooks. I tried for the
hooks three or four times, but somehow I couldn’t make it work. By
and by, one day, I asked Miss Watson to try for me, but she said I
was a fool. She never told me why, and I couldn’t make it out no way.
I set down one time back in the woods, and had a long think about it.
I says to myself, if a body can get anything they pray for, why don’t
Deacon Winn get back the money he lost on pork? Why can’t the
widow get back her silver snuffbox that was stole? Why can’t Miss
Watson fat up? No, says I to myself, there ain’t nothing to it.
[from Chapter III of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn]
Huck Finn appears to be right at times. We pray for good weather for a picnic and it rains. We pray for healing for those we love and sometimes they don’t get healed. We pray for God’s help, and there are times when God doesn’t seem anywhere near us. Then again, there are times when we pray for good weather, and despite what the forecast says, the sun comes out and we bask in it. We pray for healing, and there are times when we get a report back, like this: "the Doctor looked at the tests and there is no longer any detectable cancer." There are times when we pray for God’s help, and God’s presence and support seem palpable. How can we explain prayer?
I can’t explain it. Still, prayer is at the very heart of Christianity. Nothing could be plainer from the gospels, particularly the Gospel of Luke, that prayer was a central facet of our Lord’s life. I have to concur with Martin Luther, who said, "No one believes how strong and mighty prayer is and how much it can do except he whom experience has taught, and who has tried it." [quoted in George Buttrick, Prayer, p. 82]
Anglican Bishop Christopher Chavasse once said, “If you want to shame a Christian, ask him about his prayers” (Timothy Dudley-Smith, Someone Who Beckons, p. 13). Yet it is also plain from the gospels that Jesus wants all His followers to be people of prayer.
In today’s look at the prayer our Lord taught His first disciples, we focus on verse 11.
Just prior to the giving of the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus says to His followers, "your Father knows what you need before you ask him" (v. 8); yet he still has His followers pray,
v. 11 "Give us this day our daily bread,"
If God knows what we need before we ask, and He loves us, why should we need to pray? The context of the Lord’s Prayer suggests that God is pleased with our asking. Our Father God, who knows our needs before we ask, still wants us to ask. This form of prayer is called supplication or petition, and by supplication or petition, we demonstrate our “dependence upon and confidence in the one who is worshipped," (God with Us, p. 33) according to theologian Mark Allen Powell.
As our booklet says, “The first word is “Give,” which teaches us the ownership of God” (p. 19). Andrew Murray, the great South African church leader of the nineteenth century, reminds us, “The desire for independence was the temptation in paradise, and it is the temptation in each human heart” (The Best of Andrew Murray, p. 30). In praying, "Give us this day our daily bread," we are saying to God that we recognize our everyday dependence on Him. The Christian faith rightly admits that there are no self-made men or women. It is God who gives us our daily bread, and notice the “us” in this petition. As our booklet tells us:
The word us implies that prayer is not about you. This means that
you are to pray unselfish prayers. After all, prayer is not just for
me, or for you. Prayer is for us – the world, our nation, your
church, your family, your friends, the missionaries you know, and
many other people. [p. 20]
While what are booklet says is true, I believe, along with a good number of commentators, that the “us” in “Give us this day our daily bread,” refers to the church. After all, Jesus is giving the Lord’s Prayer to His followers. Those who pray this prayer should understand that all that the earth produces are gifts from the hand of God. All the abilities of "memory, reason, and skill," as Eucharistic Prayer C puts it, are likewise gifts from God. These understandings come from the faith that we have received from our Lord.
Jesus is explicit that our prayers should not be filled with "empty phrases,’ that is, according to Powell, we should not be offering to God, "rationales and other words intended to persuade the Deity" (Ibid., p. 38). Rather, we are to simply pray that God will meet our needs. Nothing fancy is needed, just good, honest prayer from the heart.
One of the great doctrines of the Christian faith is divine providence. Divine providence is the continuing work of God that sustains all of creation, including us. As John Calvin understood, creation and providence are “inseparably linked.” God is not a divine watchmaker who set everything in motion and then just sat back and observes from afar. The God who called everything into being continues to sustain, renew and order creation.
We do distinguish between God’s perfect and permissive wills. Everything that happens is not according to God’s perfect will. God does permit sin and evil, but He also intervenes with grace and mercy. Sin, evil and suffering will one day be completely vanquished, but until that time, we live in a world that often functions outside the perfect will of God. Against the sin and evil of this world, prayer is one of our strongest allies.
Supplication is not "a lazy substitute for work," as George Buttrick, a pulpit prince of yesteryear, put it. Prayer for an abundance of crops is not a substitute for a farmer planting and cultivating his fields. Prayer for our families is not a substitute for good parenting , although prayer for our children is a part of good parenting. Prayer is part of our cooperation with God in doing His will.
In the first sermon of this series, I spoke about the confidence in God that we express in our prayers. Our Father God who loves us wants us to be in regular prayer contact with Him. We can and should have confidence that God hears our prayers and that He desires to answer our prayers in the ways that are best for us.
Asking for our daily bread in the Lord’s Prayer follows the worship of God and desire to do God’s will that are in the first two verses. The correct sequence is we worship first, and then we ask the God whom we worship to supply our needs. As Mark Allan Powell says,
The true benefits of supplicatory worship derive not from a potential
for persuasion but from a potential to solidify the relationship between
the supplicant and the one whom the supplicant worships. [Ibid., p. 34]
Prayer is one of the most effective means at our disposal for building our relationship with God. We will never develop the kind of relationship that God desires to have with us by any other means. Our awareness and experience of God grows as we pray.
The 911 emergency system is a remarkable process for getting help. Dial those three numbers and you are almost instantly connected with a dispatcher. In front of that dispatcher is a computer screen displaying your phone number, address, and the name by which that telephone number is listed. The police, fire department and paramedics are also listening in. A caller may not be able to say what the problem is for whatever reason, but the dispatcher has enough information on that computer display to send help immediately.
Prayer is our 911, and while it is infrequent that any of us have to pray for our daily bread, that phrase of the Lord’s Prayer is a reminder to us about who provides for our daily needs. We may not at times even be able to put the right words together, but God hears and is always ready to help us.
Last week I mentioned that God gives us just enough light on our life path so that we can take our next step. Today, the Lord’s Prayer reminds us that God wants us to pray for this day’s need and trust that He will provide for those needs. God will take care of us today and we are not to be troubled by tomorrow.
In the final analysis, I don’t think Huck Finn was right at all. There is something to prayer, something extremely powerful. The power of God is available to meet our needs and for so much more. Let our prayers ascend to heaven, and may the power of God descend upon us.
Let us pray.
Most loving Father, whose will it is for us to give thanks for all things, to fear nothing but the loss of you, and to cast all our care on you who care for us: We thank you for making the earth fruitful, so that it might produce what is needed for life. We humbly pray that through your gracious providence we may all share the fruits of the earth. Save us from selfish use of what you give, that men and women everywhere may give you thanks; through Christ our Lord. Amen.
