All the readings today speak about prayer. Luke’s Gospel is noted for many things: for instance it is the gospel that speaks most about women; it is the gospel in which angels are mentioned at several key points; it is the gospel with most emphasis on the Holy Spirit; but it is also the gospel with the most about the prayer life and the teaching on prayer of Jesus.

Perhaps the most important thing for us to hear today is that Jesus prayed. “Jesus was praying in a certain place”. That example of prayer is so important. Two models of praying people are etched on my psyche: one is my late mother who I can see praying night by night kneeling beside her bed as I passed by her always open door. Mum was not a person who talked about her faith much: she was too English for that: but she worshipped and she prayed. The other was the dean and chaplain of my seminary. We had daily mass at 7.30am Monday through Saturday attendance at which was expected. I used to try and arrive in the chapel early before anyone else only to find the chaplain already at prayer, curled up in a corner of the darkened chapel. As a result he was not running late or distracted when he came to the liturgy but deeply focused and attentive to the things of the Spirit. Jesus was such a person of prayer. From Luke’s Gospel we know that he prayed regularly, often early in the morning, often on the hillside or lonely place, and certainly strategically. What I mean by the latter is that only Luke notes that Jesus was praying after his Baptism when he received the Spirit; only Luke mentions Jesus praying all night before he called and commissioned the Twelve; only Luke says that Jesus went up to the mountain where the Transfiguration took place to pray; only Luke gives graphic description of Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane; and it is only Luke who gives most of Jesus’ teaching on prayer some of which we heard in today’s Gospel.

To say that Jesus was a person of prayer is to say also that he modeled the life of prayer for us. We who follow in the way of Jesus pray because that is the example he has given us. It is often said about prayer that we read books about it and seek advice on how to pray and so forth. But ultimately there is nothing quite like just doing it. Teresa of Avila, that feisty Spanish nun of the 16th century, used to say to people enquiring about prayer: “Just get on you knees and begin”. What we see in the example of the praying Jesus is a model which is regular and disciplined. Paul says “be constant in prayer”. In other words pray each day not just when there is a crisis! Sometimes our prayers will be more formal; sometimes our prayer will be passionate and may be even ecstatic. But most often like life itself our prayer will be the humble stuff of routine: the simple morning prayer “Thank God for the gift of this day”; the prayer before going to sleep at night; the prayer sitting quietly in a church; the snatched prayertime on the subway, in the office or at home. Jesus was praying and so we pray.

And Jesus said to the disciples” When you pray, say “Father” or as we know the prayer, “Our Father”. Whatever else we could say about prayer at its heart it is about our relationship with God. To call God “Father” in prayer is not a gender statement but a recognition that God is like a parent who treats us like a beloved child, part of the whole family of God. It is to that loving parent we turn in prayer confident in his steadfast, constant and saving love. It is that sense of deep relationship with God which is reflected in the Pauline literature in the phrase “in Christ”. Listen to those words from today’s second reading: “As you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving”. The writer goes on to describe the Christian’s intimate relationship with Christ in terms of Baptism: “when you were buried with him ….you were also raised with him.” It is this relationship with God through Christ which we have in Baptism that is the very basis of our prayer. Prayer is not a way of gaining access to an otherwise indifferent, uncaring God but rather it is the natural expression of a relationship which is ours; it is a means of communication between the Lover God and the Beloved. In other words prayer is not some occasional or exceptional activity but is the natural, loving communication between friends. Prayer at its heart is about relationship. There is story told by the Cure D’Ars of observing a peasant kneeling before the Crucifix and saying “Jesus, Jesus” over and over again and returning to the church later to see the same man still kneeling in the same place with tears streaming down his face and saying “Jesus, my Jesus”. Prayer does not have to be complicated but like the communication between lovers is often simple or silent.

The prayer Jesus gave his disciples, the familiar words of the Lord’s Prayer, is in itself a “pattern prayer”, a model upon which to base our prayer. If the prayer initially about relationship, “Father”, it is also about petition, “Hallowed be your name”; “your kingdom come”; “Give us”; “forgive us”; “lead us not into temptation”.

That petitionary prayer is alluded to in the parable and teaching that follow as well by the extraordinary interchange in the first reading between Abraham and God where Abraham intercedes with or petitions God on behalf of the few righteous people of Sodom and Gomorrah. The parable about the friend at Midnight tells us in part about the persistence of the friend seeking help at an inconvenient hour. It is that persistence that Jesus commends in the teaching which follows: “Ask and it will be given you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened for you.” To be persistent in prayer is not about an uncaring God who needs to be forced into action but rather a sign acknowledging that God is always the source of true help. We pray and we continue to pray because we believe God is the source of salvation, healing, reconciliation and forgiveness.

Last but not least the readings today remind us that prayer has to do with the Character of God. Colossians points to the fundamental fact that our whole relationship with God, that relationship we articulate in prayer, is what it is in and through the loving initiative of God through the Cross of Jesus. The writer describes that in most dramatic terms: “and when you were dead in trespasses….God made you alive together with him, when he forgave us all our trespasses…..He set this aside, nailing it to the cross.” God opens up this relationship of love which is ours in prayer through the cross of Jesus. Again we see something of the character of God in that strange first lesson from Genesis. What we see there in the dialogue between Abraham and God is the fierce righteousness of God being tempered by God’s mercy. It is Abraham’s sheer doggedness, his selfless concern for the people of these cursed towns, all articulated in these series of petitions, that reveals to him something more about the character of God.

Prayer, whether it be the formal, corporate prayer of the liturgy, or your informal, private prayer, is at the very heart of our life for it is a reflection of our relationship with God, whom we are privileged to address as “Our Father”. Amen

Return to "Sermons"