(Scripture: Luke 11:1-4) PREPARATION Luke 11:1, You’ve probably noticed that our order of worship is a bit different today. I’ve structured the service in the order of themes depicted by phrases of The Lord’s Prayer as recorded in verses 1-4 of the 11th chapter of the gospel of Luke. Verse 1 focuses us on preparation and reads, “Jesus was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.’” The disciples of Jesus longed for the same sense of intimacy and connection with God that they witnessed in the disciples of John the Baptist. They weren’t just told how to pray, they took the initiative to ask Jesus, they approached him with the excitement and anticipation and expectation that they also could encounter God.

When we come to the start of worship, there’s a lot on our minds. We may be exhausted from a busy week and a bit resentful of missing out on some precious Sunday sleep or morning relaxation. We may have battled to get the kids in the car and arrive in the nick of time only to park a ways away and have to scurry in. Then there’s the quick exchange with a few friends that we want to connect with, because we can’t stay following the service with other commitments looming immediately afterward. How prepared are we on Sunday morning at 9/10:30 to truly encounter the creator of the universe? Perhaps we’d get far more out of our hour of worship if we began by centering ourselves with the same excitement and anticipation and expectation of the disciples that we too will have the struggles of our heart assured, the ponderings of our mind stirred and the yearnings of our spirit satisfied. I invite us to quietly center ourselves as Carol plays a segment of her prelude once again.

PRAISE Luke 11:2a, There’s an old story that I’m sure most of you have heard about a little boy who was standing in the foyer of the church staring up at a large plaque. It was covered with names and small American flags mounted on either side of it. The little boy had been staring at the plaque for some time, when the pastor walked up to greet him. “Good morning Pastor,” said the boy and then he inquired, “What is this?” The pastor said, “Well, son, it’s a memorial to all the young men and women who died in the service.” Respectfully, they both stood there for a moment staring at the plaque and then with a trembling voice the little boy asked, “Which service, the 9 or 10:30?”

Unfortunately, we sometimes act as if someone has died in the service we attend. There seems to be a popular notion that to be a very good Christian you have to be very reserved and very serious. Well Jesus begins his instructions by saying in verse 2a, “When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be your name.” The significance of pairing the sacred name of God with Father was not to assign some gender identity to God, but rather to indicate three things: First, that our relationship with God should be as warm and friendly and intimate as our relationship with a parent; Second, that we should come together in worship as if we are all children of the same family; and Third, as a reminder that the first biblical reference to God as a parent came from Moses pleading for the liberation of the Hebrews from Pharaoh. Consequently, worship should be a time of joyous liberation and freedom. May we offer our praise with the hymn, “Praise to the Lord, the Almighty”.

PROCLAMATION Luke 11:2b, We read the petition, “Your kingdom come” in verse 2b. It invites our reflection on how our earthly living can more clearly reflect heavenly values. A faith that attests to heaven as boundless and eternal seeks to emulate that same unconditional and inclusive justice and mercy here on earth, beginning in our own backyard. Proclamation roots us in historic Christian teaching and tradition and helps us to see how that teaching and tradition informs and directs our actions and attitudes in the present and future. In the context of worship, we have the audacity to speak for God to God’s people with the hope that hearts, minds and doors will be opened! The message of God may come to us through a myriad of human words and mediums.

SERMON, We rely on being able to do some things automatically, without thinking our way through them. Our body has countless autonomic functions that protect and sustain life, like breathing and swallowing and sneezing and blinking. Some skills we’ve learned so well that we perform them without fail, like walking and riding a bike and reading and driving a car. And other things like applying deodorant and turning off the stove and putting on a seat belt and closing the garage door -- are habits we’ve have developed so fully that we no longer realize we are doing them.

But in other parts of our lives, we don’t want to be on automatic pilot or to rely on programmed skills or habits to get us through. In some situations, we need to give our full attention and demand that same degree of attention from others. Spouses can quickly tell the difference between an automatic, “I love you,” and a heartfelt expression of genuine love. Our kids can tell the difference between an automatic, “What did you do today?” and a parent’s honest, authentic interest in the events in their lives. Friends can tell the difference between an automatic, “Hey, how are you?” and the compassionate reaching out of one soul to another.

I sometimes wonder if we assume that God hasn’t yet caught on to the difference between our expressions of genuine spirituality and our automatic, rote recitation of The Lord’s Prayer. How many times have we uttered The Lord's Prayer in Sunday worship and weddings and funerals with minds and spirits on autopilot? The words are so familiar that we can be on cruise control for the entire prayer. For too many of us, in too many situations, The Lord’s Prayer has become little more than a meaningless mantra. How ironic, that the very prayer Jesus gave us to keep us spiritually alert and engaged, and free from mumbling vain repetitions, has slowly deteriorated into one of the biggest vain repetitions of all!

According to the gospel of Luke, it all started when some of Jesus’ disciples asked him to teach them how to pray; not what to pray. Jesus responds not with some script of magic words to be memorized, but with a process, a template, an outline for connecting with the power and grace of God; essentially teaching the disciples and us not only how to pray, but more generally, how to worship.

It’s important to point out that The Lord’s Prayer as we recite it today, does not appear anywhere in the Bible. The words we’ve come to know are a product of the early church with a variety of translational and denominational preferences thrown into the mix. You don’t have to attend many funerals or weddings in other Minnesota traditions to have stumbled on past the sudden ending of the Catholics to “deliver us from evil” or stopped short of the “forever and ever” conclusion of the Lutherans. And then there are the various fans of debts and trespasses and sins. Much briefer versions of The Lord’s Prayer appear only in the gospels of Matthew and Luke. Today’s passage from Luke 11:1-4 is considered by most biblical scholars to be closest to the original words of Jesus and provide the structure and commentary throughout our service this morning.

I ran across a story from an unidentified author. It reads, “I come from a logging family from the hills of West Virginia. My grandfather had three brothers who were in competing sawyer businesses. One of the family stories was of a new recruit to the logging crew who set a record on Monday but was fired on Friday. ‘But I’m the hardest worker you’ve got,’ the young man protested. ‘I arrive first. I leave last. I even work through my coffee breaks. And no one can swing an axe more times per minute than I can.’ The foreman thought for a minute, and then asked ‘Have you been sharpening your axe?’ The young man replied: ‘I’ve been working too hard to take the time.’”We may be working ourselves to the bone to be successful in our careers, provide comfortably for our families, be responsible and productive members of the community, but start to feel like we hardly make a dent in all that needs to be done. We feel like there’s no time to pray, much less worship, but it’s precisely in those moments of prayer and worship that we sharpen the ax and that connection with the power of God enables us to address far more than we could ever accomplish alone!

OFFERING Luke 11:3, We pray, “Give us each day our daily bread” acknowledging both our need and our gratitude for the basic necessities of life. In worship our time of offering isn’t just some plea to pay one’s fair share of the church bills, but rather an opportunity to respond with gratitude for all that God has given us.

N.T. Wright is correct when he says, “It is impossible truly to pray for our daily bread, or for tomorrow’s bread today, without being horribly aware of the millions who didn’t have bread yesterday, don’t have any today, and in human terms are unlikely to have any tomorrow either”. It seems to be a cheap grace to pray, “give US OUR bread” without a willingness to be an instrument of God to provide bread to others both literally and figuratively. Offerings of money and our personal fellowship enables our church to be a place where others are fed physically, mentally and spiritually.

INTERCESSION Luke 11:4a, “And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.” We do not live by bread alone. We also need to forgive and to be forgiven, lest mistakes and misjudgments eat us up from the inside out or imprison us behind walls of animosity. The very act of looking beyond ourselves to pray for the wellbeing of others brings wholeness and healing to ourselves as well.

This past week I received a hand addressed envelope at church from a woman I’ve never met named Mary March. Inside were several photographs of people I didn’t recognize with an accompanying note of explanation. In May, Mary bought a used purse at our ASP garage sale and when she started using it, discovered a few photos inside. Mary thoughtfully took the time to try and return them to their rightful owners. Fortunately a business card from Duane Dull was stuck to one of the pictures. I caught Duane and Kathy at church and they identified the photos. They were noticeably touched that someone they didn’t even know took the time to consider their feelings and welfare. There is power in intercession that we may never completely see.

SENDING FORTH Luke 11:4b, “And do not bring us to the time of trial.” We have gathered for worship and now we are scattered to serve. We know there will be times of testing, but trust that the grace and power and love we experience together in the refuge of worship will also sustain us individually in the trials we may face in the week ahead.

In a survey on prayer conducted by the Barna Research group, they discovered that among adults who pray most thank God for what God has done in their lives (95%); ask forgiveness for specific sins (76%); praise God’s superior attributes (67%); and ask for specific needs or desires to be met (61%). However, it is less common for people to be silent during prayer times to listen for God’s response (only 47% indicate they do so). In this light I offer our benediction today: In the silence, in the still small voice…..