Call to Worship: Psalm 31: 14 -15
I trust in you, O LORD; I say, "You are my God." My times are in your hand;
Song: Lead us Heavenly Father, lead us
Prayers
Refrain: Jesus be the Centre
Prayers of silent confession
The Lords prayer
Notices and Offering
Refrain: Faithful noe
Setting the Scene: Interview about prayer: Paul Charman
Bible Reading: Luke 18: 1-14 Keith Hardy
Hymn: Dear Lord and Father of Mankind
Talk / Sermon:
Intro:Pic
Every now and then someone in the congregation asks me if I can preach on a certain topic, this I am happy to do, and so we move away from the usual lectionary programme and for the next thee weeks we look at prayer.
The place of prayer in our lives – what is prayer, what does it mean to be a people of prayer?
Next week – the privilege of prayer – we look to Gods word and hopefully discover the freedom of prayer, and the benefits of prayer. The following week in our family service, David will lead our thinking in the pattern of prayer, looking at the form and rhythm of prayer, as we focus on the way Jesus prayed.
Just a short three part series, where we will begin to scratch the surface on this huge topic. It’s a topic I could spend the next few years preaching on and never exhaust it. I am aware of ministers who have done that – each week their theme has been on prayer – different prayers from Gods word, and main theme has been to encourage their people to prayer.
But I want to begin by asking a simple question: What is prayer? (receive answers)
Give out : Prayer is the Soul’s sincere desire
Pic: Prayer group
The thing about growing up in the church is you learn who can really pray. It wasn’t unusual in the tradition I was raised in for the leader of the service to leave the service open for prayer. After the first hymn, the leader would invite someone lead us to the Lord in prayer – and they would sit down, in faith believing. What happened next was interesting – if the silence lasted for say 40 – 50 seconds (I know I had a watch with a second hand) you could guarantee that one of two people would stand up and pray. Fred – who really knew how to pray with authority and passion. You really felt that God sit up and listened to Fred. Well I did! Or Isobel was the other person who would pray – Isobel’s story was that she had received God’s forgiveness, and her prayers were always full of praise and gratitude. Isobel prayed with gentleness and grace, you had the impression that God loved Isobel and she loved God.
Occasionally someone else would pray but that was a rare event – because we knew who could pray and so we left them to do it! So I decided to sit quietly and let them get in with it, lets be honest - I could never pray like they did. Many people have this feeling – people even say “I can’t pray” simply because they can think of people who they have heard pray and think they cant do it like that. But prayer is personal, natural and we can all do it.
Pic: Lord teach us to pray
When Jesus was teaching about prayer he said; in Matthew 6: 7 “When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard because of their many words. These insights can began to shape our thinking on prayer - we may not pray like other people pray – but we can pray. All of us can pray, and in fact do pray – going back to the hymn we looked at a few moments ago, prayer is within us, a burden, a sigh, a tear and look. Prayer is the hearts desires, our very breath.
When the disciples asked “Lord teach us to pray” – they asked for advice, not that they couldn’t pray already, but that they wanted guidance, they wanted to learn more. An effective prayer life is about growing, learning, changing. It’s interesting that the response Jesus gave to the request “Teach us to pray” – resulted in what some people may have used so often through the years that they have many words and empty phrases. Yet, prayer is about growing and a flowing, it’s about slowly but surely - getting more in know the heart of God.
Pic: P& T
In this mornings reading Jesus point us to two men at prayer. These men with things in common and things which made them from almost different worlds.
Lets see what they have in common – location, location, location: Same City, same temple, same time, same faith.
We come across both these guys in the Temple , the Jewish place of worship. Let me stop right there and ask you to become aware of each other. Everyone who gathers for worship brings their own baggage with them. We are not aware of the physical, practical and spiritual condition of each other; if we are honest most of the time we don’t want to share everything with everyone, we share a little – we are guarded about what we say and what we keep to ourselves. Yet here we are in the same city, the same church at the same time – sharing the same faith! Just as the Tax Collector and the Pharisee were.
We may look around and judge others to be richer, wiser, more spiritual, more committed – whatever – but this is mostly based on assumptions that we make and we really don’t know the whole facts. A wonderful factor of corporate worship is bringing difference into unity. It happens every time a church opens its doors and people gather, and despite our differences we agree at prayer. Corporate prayer is a mutual agreement – when we say Amen we agree together – we approve a motion together. Amen is indeed a statement that expresses joint approval.
Let us look closely at these two men at prayer, let us compare and contrast these two characters: On first look what do we see.
One problem we have with this parable is that we know it so well. We cannot possible put ourselves in the place of those first hearers. This parable will never raise in us the feeling it raised in the minds of the first hearers. This is a parable that was to shock people.
It was another Good Samaritan parable – where the holy man who was expected to be glorious was disappointing, but the outcast – the Samaritan or the Tax collector becomes the hero. Jesus loved to tell these stories with a twist - No one listening to this parable would have wanted the Tax Collector to be the humble, contrite seeker, they would have been cheering for the Pharisee - their whole society admired Pharisees and despised Tax Collectors. They listened to Pharisee – and avoided Tax Collectors, but here Jesus paints their outcast, their enemy as the one who was beginning to grasp the truth.
How would those first listeners have seen these characters: Let’s try to enter the minds of those first listeners:
In Jewish society Pharisees were not bad you know! A good Pharisees was indeed a good man. He was not a crook, not a timewaster; not a womanizer. He took nothing he hadn’t honestly earned, he gives everyone he knows full and fair measure, he is faithful to his wife, patient with his children and steadfast with his friends.
The Pharisee however is not only good, he is religious (Like you and me!) And no not hypocritically religious, but one who is outwardly righteous and inwardly disciplined. He fasts twice a week and he puts his money where his mouth is – 10% of all he has is gladly given to God. And it doesn’t stop there – The Pharisee thanks God for his happy state! His life is good! No real problems evident to the innocent bystander.
Let’s be honest – if we had several of this kind of person asking for church membership – we would not say no. We may even pray that people like this come and join us – financially Bob they would be an asset to the church; spiritually they would be a God send to any congregation.
Just think; they could become reliable Church members, possible candidates for church council; , pastoral visitors, they would deliver yellow leaflets, teach Sunday school, serve at Communion, Joan they would even stewards the building midweek We would really like them as part of our fellowship. We would respect them, and learn form their wisdom.
He is not at all like a publican (or tax collector), he would have been the worst kind of crook that walked the streets of Israel . A crook who got away with it – a big operator, a mafia style enforcer working for the Roman government (The enemy working for the enemy) on a nifty franchises that lined his pockets. He would have been living for years on the cream he has skimmed off other people milk. Tax Collectors were fat cats – today they would drive stretch limos, be accompanies by Chavs, loads of solid silver and gold “bling, bling”, women, wine and casinos.
As for the Tax collector – if this kind of character pulled up on Sunday we may be polite, but we would be wary. There would be whispers of stories around the coffee bar, some of us would have had first hand experience of their corruption – we would want to warn others. The truth is we don’t want this kind here – this kind never changes. We would watch our backs, count the teaspoons after coffee, not give them an inch.
Any interest in being involved in the life of the church would be discussed fully at Church meeting - we need to listen to other people hurt and think clearly before we get commit to share life with someone like this.
And yet Jesus said that by their prayers, and the words they used, the body language, the state of heart – on this occasion it was the Tax Collector who went home justified.
Prayer is not about outward appearance, social standing, always getting it right, correct religious observance. Prayer is about vulnerability ,openness, honesty and humility. Pray is about starting where we are and moving on. That’s how we all can pray – that is the place that prayer has in our lives – the place is here, the time is now. Prayer that stirs the very heart of God is the sincere honest utterance of one seeking his presence.
Pic: Roy
Roy Searle, this year’s president of the Baptist Union has made as his focus for his presidential year the theme: “I just want to be with you” – Roy tells a story of one night, as he was working in his study, the door opened and in came his younger son, whom came and sat near his desk. Roy says it was good to see him and after several minutes of a father and son chat, he asked him what he wanted – did he want pencils, a bedtime story, to use the computer,? Or was he hiding from his mum, avoiding bedtime, up to some mischief. Why are you here? The child sat and looked at his father, and simply said “I want to be with you Daddy”. Roy says this little encounter changed his life as he realise that work and ministry had distanced rather than drawn him closer to God and that he had allowed things to lead him away from the heart of God into a far country of activity, drivenness and falsehoods. ‘I just want to be with you’ was an invitation to a homecoming, a call to the heart, a call to return to that first love for God who calls us to be with him as well as to be sent by him.
Pic: Father and son
When the Tax collector and Pharisee wandered into the Temple that day – did they simply desire to be with God?
When we entered the building this morning, who of us had on our hearts the desire to just spend time with God.
True prayer is about building a relationship with our Father, its about getting closer, speaking, listening, making time and just saying “I want to be with you Daddy!”. Prayer is a living relationship with someone who loves us.
Dear friends; whether the events of this week has left you feeling as righteous as a Pharisee or as shameful as a Publican – we are invited to pray.
Whether you entered this place today to prove your own righteousness or to seek forgiveness – we are called to prayer.
Prayer can be made whatever state we are in. Don’t be one of those people who only pray when they feel like it – or those people who don’t pray when they can’t face God. The truth is, we can’t not face God for we always look to God. God cannot be avoided and has a way of entering our day when we are least expecting him. Prayer is to have a place in our lives, a central place. With this growing awareness we soon become so attuned to James Montgomery sentiments – prayer is indeed everything we do and say and are.
This parable of the Tax Collector and Pharisee should leave us pondering the questions:
What the kind of relationship does God wants with us?
What approach does God desire from us?
What is our true standing in his eyes?
In the business of prayer we all start at the same point – we are all learners, all of us are invited to take stock of where we are and to say again to God “Lord have mercy upon me!” Amen.
Hymn: Lord, you have my heart.
Communion with creed
Intercessions
Hymn: Thank you
Benediction
The Grace