Jesus teaches his disciples what prayer is like

I’m sure you or someone you love has had the quintessential human experience of assembling a piece of IKEA furniture. It all seems so straightforward. A flat-packaged box. Instructions with a friendly, unidentifiable creature (Is it human? No one really knows) showing you step by step how to put together your new billy bookcase. The problem is, the actual assembly of the thing is slow and time consuming. It means resisting the urge to throw away that useless little all-purpose tool that comes with every piece of IKEA furniture and assemble it your own way. (Not that I have any experience trying to assemble IKEA furniture my own way!)

In Luke’s gospel, when Jesus teaches his disciples to pray, he gives them all of the materials they need to assemble their prayer lives. He includes step by step instructions. He even throws in an all-purpose tool (the Holy Spirit).  

Step 1: “say, ‘Father, hallowed be your name”; Step 2, say: “Your kingdom come”; Step 3, say: “Give us each day our daily bread”; Step 4, say: “And forgive us our sins, For we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us”; Step 5, say: “And do not bring us to the time of trial.”

Easy enough, right?

He goes on to tell them a story to keep in mind when the praying gets tough. The story is about a friend who phones you up late at night and says, “Listen, my inlaws are coming into town. I just found out. I’m wondering if you have anything I can make for dinner.” 

You hear the desperation in your friend’s voice. But it's late. You just got the kids off to sleep. You have to work early the next morning. So, you say to them, “Look, I really wish I could help. Maybe next time?”

But before you can hang up, your friend says, “How about for the next 6 months I drive the kids to and from soccer practice.”

You say, “I’m listening.”

“I’ll even pack the sliced oranges, and I’ll wash the team uniforms when it’s your turn!”

You say, “I’ll have a lasagna delivered to your door within the hour.”

The point of the story is that you have to be persistent in prayer. Jesus teaches the disciples the Lord’s prayer not just to show them how to pray, but to show them what prayer is like. It might seem as simple as assembling a piece of IKEA furniture, but remember what it’s like assembling a piece of IKEA furniture. 

Further, Jesus taught the disciples how to pray so that they might know how to orient their political lives. Praying for God’s name to be hallowed, for all that God’s name represents to be set apart from all that God’s name doesn’t, this was no easy task. For Jesus’s disciples, in the face of oppression, starvation—attempted annihilation, the Lord's prayer was an act of faithful, daily resistance. 

How much more for those of us who follow Jesus today? God’s name has become aligned with detaining and abusing migrants. God’s name has become aligned with white supremacy. God’s name has become aligned with national policies that provide the weapons which enable the oppression, starvation, and annihilation of people in the very land where Jesus taught his disciples this prayer. 

When we pray “give us each day our daily bread” how quickly we confuse wealth and progress and success at any cost for daily bread, while one in five children in Gaza literally go without daily bread. And, can we even begin to imagine a world where countries that are in debt have what they owe forgiven? It’s much more likely for us to imagine a world where, like our American siblings, we, too, will one day be put on trial, to answer just whose kingdom we wish to see come on earth.

When Jesus teaches his disciples to pray, yes, he’s giving them a kind of instruction manual not unlike the one that comes with a piece of IKEA furniture. More importantly, he’s telling them what learning to pray will be like. It will require holding fast to a set of values contrary to the ones that the rich and powerful ascribe to, a set of values so very different from those who seem to get their requests granted like that [*snap*].

When followers of Jesus pray, they, we, don’t often get instant gratification—furniture assembled without issue and in our own way. God’s kingdom of justice and mercy will never be about who can get billions—quick, or who can get power—fast. When Jesus teaches people to pray, he reminds them to take the slow, time-consuming path of resistance and to recommit themselves to that path as often as they say this prayer, as often as the world is in need of this prayer. 

When I’m feeling particularly down about the state of the world, I try to remember what is said at St Clement’s whenever we begin the Lord’s Prayer: “Gathering our prayers and praises into one, let us pray as our Saviour taught us in the language closest to your heart.” 

I try to imagine millions of people around the world praying in their own language prayers of resistance, prayers which hallow God’s name, keeping it holy from all that profanes; prayers which put food in the hands of those who need it most; prayers which forgive the debts of those who will never be able to repay them; prayers which see ordinary human beings standing trial to say that we follow Jesus because we want to see God’s kingdom come on earth. Amen.