My First Sermon at Rural Retreat Parish

This was recorded at Grace Lutheran. Enjoy.

In the name Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Let us pray, “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.”Psalm 19:14

The parables of Jesus have been long debated stories. Their meaning has remained somewhat hidden over the 2000 years. Some, if not all, are difficult to understand. But at the same time, Parables give us a glimpse into the coming dominion of God. Complicated vs. Simple. Whoever said God was simple?

For myself, I struggled over the interpretation and understanding of this parable. At first, I thought the parable was about prayer and how God will give us everything but then I start thinking. I know “Danger Will Robinson.” I wondered about what happens when we do not receive what we were expecting? What does it mean when we pray but only feel forgotten by God? Was I not persistent enough? Do we need to work harder? These questions are what anger me about some of the theology being promoted today by tele-evanglists and the religious right wing because everything is put on our shoulders and we forget that there is still evil left in the world. Where is the grace? We forget the life and death Jesus lived and we put the sole responsibility of our situation on ourselves--Not onto the life, death, and teachings of Jesus Christ.

But why do we need prayer? I just said our actions and deeds do not control the will of God. Why, then should we pray? Brian Stoffregen, a Lutheran Pastor in Yuma, Arizona writes:
“First of all, we need to admit that prayer is not "putting coins in a vending machine." It is not putting our prayer in the right slot, pushing the right button, and waiting for the vending machine God to spit out exactly what we want. God is not a vending machine."
God is so much more than just someone who sits on a throne and answers yes and no to our requests. That word “Father” (πάτερ--pater) in the Lord’s Prayer shows an intimate relationship—literally means daddy in the Greek. Luke is trying to show kind of relationship we all have or, in some cases, desire to have with our parents. (πάτερ--pater) identifies what we are to God. We know we belong to God because of our baptism and this Lord’s prayer reminds us of the community we have been baptized into--We are one of God’s Children. Since God is our Parent, our (πάτερ--pater), we now have establish what God means and does for us. We can look at our relationship with some of our parents and see the relationship I am talking about. I do not know about anyone else is parents but my parents were not a vending machine. They would not sit in their lazy boy reclining chair and say yes and no to my brother or me. They would play with me. They would teach me. They would be with me. That is our God. Our God is our (πάτερ--pater)—our daddy. We do not have a God distant from us, rather, we have an intimate relationship with God.

It is this relationship that we all share with God and that creates our community--God is our “Father” (πάτερ--pater) and we are God’s children. This prayer--this Lord’s prayer--is meant to be prayed as a community and to gather us as a community. “Lord, teach us to pray...” and “When y’all pray” (literally that is what the Greek says). This prayer creates a community for us. It binds us together because of the relationship we all share with our (πάτερ--pater) so that when one cannot pray this prayer there are 20 or 30 others (sometimes maybe just one other person) there to pray for that one individual and lift them up.

It is with this perspective of community, communal prayer and worship, that we read this parable. We should no longer view this parable as persistence with prayer or God being a vending machine but view it as a parable that shows the Dominion/Kingdom of God is going to be a community: where there will be ample bread, where the needs of guests and outsiders are taken care of, where our neighbors will not stay in their beds but will rise up and help those in need.

Martin Luther writes in his explanation of the first four petitions of the Lord ’s Prayer (particularly the 3rd petition) that “In fact, God’s good and gracious will comes without our prayer but we ask in this prayer that it may also come about in and among.” We pray because we know that when we knock that door will opened for us. We pray because we know that Jesus will always be with the last, lost, least, little, lifeless--the outcasts of our world. We pray because something better will happen. And this is all made possible because of the gift Jesus gave to us on the cross. This parable may sound complicated but there a great message throughout this entire section of Luke--God Calls us to be in communion--live in community with one another:
--To pray and worship together.
--To care for the strangers that arrive at midnight.
--To wake up and help a neighbor.
--We do all of this because the dominion/kingdom of God going to be so much better than this.

This past week in VBS, we all lived in community with one another. We all gathered as one and ate supper. We all worshiped as one. We all learned the same stories of our faith as one. We worked together to raise money for mosquito nets so that people in developing countries would have protection from mosquitoes who carrying deadly diseases. In turn, we also raised awareness in our community about the struggle many people around the world face every day. And most importantly, we all prayed together. VBS showed our kids and our leaders a foretaste of the community God has in store for us.

We must always remember that this community (Grace Lutheran, Saint Paul Lutheran, Rural Retreat Lutheran Parish, Virginia Synod, the ELCA, GOD’S CHILDREN) is a great gift from God. What we have here is a blessing. We have a God who always opens the door when knock. We have a God who has ample bread and gives us what we need and not always what we want. We know that Christ will come again and that everything is in God’s hands. The evils of this world—whatever they may be for you--will not win because Christ has and will continue to deliver us from them. These evils might at times cause us great despair now but GOD WILL NEVER LEAVE US but will lead us to a hope we cannot even imagine. That is our Gospel message. Let us live it as one people by God’s grace and not by works in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.