Jesus and His Bible Part 6

One Misunderstanding after Another

After Jesus had chided the disciples for worrying about having literal bread, and he had healed a blind man, they walk along through the villages of Caesarea Philippi. He asked them what they think about him. Peter answered, “You are the Christ.” 

Jesus followed this up in a way that surprised his disciples. He told them plainly that the Christ, the Son of Man (Jesus’s preferred title for himself), must suffer and be rejected and killed, only to be resurrected on the third day. Peter objected, and Jesus treated his objection as he did the temptations of the devil in the desert. All this must have been very surprising to the disciples and likely hurtful to Peter.  

I wonder if this relates directly to the two-part healing of the blind man, especially after Jesus pointed them towards the double meanings of his actions. At first the blind man saw unclearly, similar to their understanding of the work of the Messiah. It was not enough that they identified Jesus as the Christ because they also continued to misunderstand the work of the Christ. So Jesus went to work to clarify their vision, and they did not get it even then.

And Jesus makes it more poignant by insisting that those who want to follow him should expect their own cross, should expect to trade their whole lives in for the work of following Jesus. 

Jesus then took Peter, James, and John up the mountain where they saw him transfigured and accompanied by Moses and Elijah. They were astonished, and Peter blurted, “Let us make tabernacles here for the three of you.”

God replied, “This is my beloved Son; listen to him.”

They did not yet understand what Jesus was telling them about dying and rising again, and they were still unable to look at the scripture with imagination, so they asked when Elijah was to come to herald the Messiah. Jesus said, “He has already come, and they killed him.” From this they could have realized that the prophecy was a parable also, and that John the Baptist had filled the function of Elijah. 

They arrived back with the other disciples to discover that a child had been brought for healing who was so oppressed by evil so that he could not speak and had dangerous seizures. The disciples could not heal him, and the father begged Jesus to intervene “if you can.” Jesus admonishes the father to have faith and then heals the boy.

When the disciples got Jesus alone, they asked why they could not cast out this evil. It is not surprising they were puzzled because earlier Jesus had given them authority to do just this (see Mark 6). Jesus responded that this kind came out only by prayer, which must have puzzled them further, and still puzzles people today.  

On the way to Capernaum, he again told them he must die and then rise again; their response this time was to talk among themselves about which of them was the greatest. Jesus had to correct their understanding of greatness by telling them that whoever wanted to be great must serve everyone else.  

So they’ve made three mistakes in understanding Jesus since the one about leaven. They refused to see that he must die, they wanted to make him an object of worship, and they thought he would set them up in a hierarchy. 

These are mistakes we still make today. We judge people based on their obedience to religious traditions. We deny the necessity of dying, the requirement to take up our own cross every day, the unavoidableness of suffering. We want to keep Jesus in a religious house where we can go to worship him. And we think Jesus set up a hierarchy.

We come to one more error, one which resonates today in the midst of our culture wars here in the United States and similar conflicts everywhere.  John told Jesus, “We found someone casting out demons in your name and we told him to stop because he wasn’t one of us.” 

This was a fraught issue, given that they had just failed to cast out a demon themselves, so it is not surprising they were unhappy to see someone else being successful. It is a human tendency also to want to keep any kind of power within one’s own in-group.  

But Jesus told them that “whoever is not against us is for us, whoever gives you water to drink because you follow me will be rewarded, whoever causes a little one who believes to stumble would be better off drowned in the sea; if your hand, foot, eye, causes you to stumble, get rid of it; better to enter God’s kingdom maimed than to be cast into Gehenna ‘where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.’ For everyone will be salted with fire (Mark 9:48). 

We can learn from what Jesus says that those doing good in Jesus’s name should be encouraged to continue, that those who cause other believers to stumble would be better off dead, and if we are controlled and hindered in discipleship by our ability to control, to be mobile, or to oversee our world, we’d be better off losing all control, mobility or vision in order to be able to enter God’s kingdom.  

The quotation is from Isaiah 66:24 and is for those who rebelled against God: “For their worm shall not die and their fire shall not be quenched” and they shall be an abhorrence to all humankind. And who are those rebels? Those who perform the rituals but prefer their own way. God promises to come in fire and whirlwind and execute judgment by fire on them. I am reminded of the cautionary comment in Hebrews, “Our God is a consuming fire”  (Hebrews 12:29), and of the passages in Paul’s epistles where our works are tested by fire in the judgment. Fire and wind are purifying and sanctifying agents, as witnessed at Pentecost with the sound of a strong wind and tongues of fire. By invoking this passage in Isaiah, Jesus taught his disciples to expect that God would indeed purify and sanctify them from their dependence on religious rituals and their preference for their own way.  

Isaiah goes on to add: “But to the ones who are humble and contrite and tremble at my name, I will extend peace and I will comfort like a mother comforts and nurses her children.  I will take some of them for priests; all humankind will come to bow down before me."  

What we learn: God prefers the humble, the contrite, and those who are awed by God’s name to any who set themselves up as enforcers, or any who perform the outward signs of religion while secretly following their own lusts and disobeying, or any who simply prefer their own way to God’s way. Jesus reinforces that by puncturing the disciples’ sense of being special: whoever is not against us is for us. I am not just for you twelve or seventy-two or the inner circle. 

And forbidding others to do good in Jesus’s name is like offending one of the little ones who believe in Jesus. It is a serious crime against life.

Jesus continually corrected the disciples’ misunderstandings to emphasize to them that they had to embrace suffering and humility and graciousness in order to follow him.  

Jesus Hums a Little Tune for Me

On a Tuesday evening about a year ago, I saw a plume of smoke on the mountain directly above my house, about two miles away. I checked local information on the internet to discover reports of a vegetation fire. The conditions were "red alert" for wildfires--hot, dry, very windy. I let my neighbors know, and then I watched the smoke off and on for about an hour. It grew. When I saw a train of cars coming down the road from the mountain top, I knew it was time to leave. I said goodbye to my things, took my favorite shoes and some documents and electronic devices and a few articles of clothing and my three dogs and left the house.  My husband came a bit later in our pickup. We stayed at our daughter's house in town for over a week, while firefighters on the mountain held the line at a road less than a quarter mile from my house.

My emotions were a mixture of numb on the surface and panic way down deep, and they stayed that way all night and the following day. I watched the smoke during the day, the flames during the night, and the online posts, which fueled my anxiety. I took the dogs out several times a day, and that first day walked over six anxiety miles.  

As I was walking one day, a song from the distant past hummed its way into my memory. The Christian singer Evie sang this in the 1970s: 

    When I think I'm going under, part the waters, Lord.
    When I feel the waves around me, calm the sea.
    When I cry for help, O hear me, Lord, and hold out your hand.
    Touch my life, heal the raging storm in me.

As my skittish dogs dodged windblown objects and bushes and skirted manholes and storm drains, I tried to remember the rest of the song. "Knowing you love helps me face another day," I hummed, but couldn't get the rest until I got to my computer and looked it up.

    Knowing you love me through the burdens I must bear,
    Hearing your footsteps lets me know I'm in your care,
    And in the night of my life, you bring the promise of day.
    Here is my hand, show me the way.

    Knowing you love me helps me face another day,
    Hearing your footsteps drives the clouds and fears away,
    And in the tears of my life, I see the sorrow you bore.
    Here is my pain, heal it once more.

What I find meaningful and true here is that the songwriter, Charles F. Brown, does not pretend that knowing Jesus loves us takes away all the burdens and pain. Instead, knowing Jesus helps us bear them and gives us hope. And one of the reasons knowing Jesus helps us is that we remember that Jesus also bore sorrow and pain; as Isaiah wrote, "Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows."

Jacques Ellul wrote that though Jesus carries our suffering, he does not put an end to it, and we do not emerge from it unscathed. (Ellul was a leader in the French Resistance to the Nazis during World War II.) But, he wrote, when we believe, we can know and "even feel that we are no longer alone in this suffering. Someone else is suffering along with me, like me, next to me....I have a true companion in suffering, a companion who bears and shares this horror, this pain, this grief, this desertion. All I need to do is turn to him and find once again my communion with him; the opening occurs; and I then am accompanied in truth. Thus I suffer less because I am not alone" (If You Are the Son of God: The Suffering and Temptations of Jesus, retrieved from Google Books, pp 17-18).

It is helpful to me to remember that knowing Jesus helped Jacques Ellul through the horrors of war and its consequences. It is also helpful to me to remember that Jesus has been truly human, and my human experience of weakness is not unfamiliar to him And I appreciate his humming Evie's old tune into my heart and head when I needed to hear it.

https://books.google.com/books?id=0nENBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA17&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=4#v=onepage&q&f=false

Meditations on Plants and Gardening

Recently I left my job, so I've had some time to tend to my gardens. Here are some parables that came to me as I trimmed, weeded, and planted.

Part I

The Violent Seize It by Force

Matthew 11:12, Luke 16:16

As a person who loves plants, I often wait to see what a volunteer seedling will turn into before I consider it a weed. As a result, I have volunteer evening primroses in my flower bed. They provide a spot of pale yellow and the deer prefer them to the plants I deliberately included. Now I like them so much that it distresses me to see them bitten off by my neighborhood herbivores.

However, the most persistent volunteer is a common hawthorn that I did not plant and is not in a place where I want it.  We have cut it back for twenty years with the result that it is bushier and hardier than ever. I suspect that the only way to get rid of it is to dig it up completely or to poison it.  But I just don’t hate it that much. And at this time of year, August, the hawthorn provides a lovely spot of color with its red berries that feed the birds. 

I also meditate as I’m trimming this thorny bush. I think about the vital force that the hawthorn has put into persisting as part of my landscaping. I think about what it adds to the beauty of my yard and how it feeds birds. I think also of a parable about the kingdom of God and those who are forcing their way in, even to the discomfort of local gardeners. Why not appreciate the energy and vitality of their search for God? It’s clear that they are responding to the good news Jesus came to share and be for us. 

In my home denomination, we have spent so much energy trying to prevent the full inclusion of LGBTQ persons in our churches, and we set limits on their freedom to listen to Jesus themselves and obey what Jesus tells them and contribute the gifts Jesus has given them to our congregations. Maybe our energy is better spent on our own seeking first God’s kingdom and God’s rightness and justice rather than protecting our space and justifying ourselves.

Part II

Pruning and Shaping

Hebrews 12:6; John 15:2

So, given that this hawthorn has violently forced its way into the kingdom of my plants, and it will not go away, what am I doing? I’m trimming it and shaping it. I mutter to it, “Whom the Lord loveth, He chasteneth,” and “If you’re going to stay, you can’t grow any old way you please, particularly into the roses.”

It takes some finesse to trim up a thorny plant like roses and hawthorns. I need long sleeves, gloves, long-handled pruners, and clippers.  I need to move slowly and cut judiciously and quickly.  I need my pruners and clippers to be sharp. I need not to slip on the hillside and fall into the bush. I need to know something about how pruning affects the plant’s growth. 

Today I did research into how to help a hawthorn look its best. I found out I need to cut out suckers that grow up from the bottom.  So I went in after them.

We’ve mistreated this hawthorn so much by severe pruning that it has sent up numerous suckers in order to survive. I decided that anything less than one-half inch diameter could come out. To my surprise, these stems were very hard to cut through. It seemed possible my bicep might be the thing to tear. Additionally, pulling out the cuttings required a firm but gentle grip—firm because they were tangled in with the other branches, gentle because, well, long sharp thorns. With all my care, I walked away with one or two new puncture wounds. But the hawthorn looks so much better.

I see a parable here in the harm the inexperienced or thoughtless gardener can do with clippers and pruners. We turned a potentially lovely, airy, flowering tree with three lovely seasons into an unwanted pest partly by never bothering to find out what it is in itself and how best to help it be beautiful.

How often do I look at others and wish they would give up trying to be part of my “landscaping,” my church? They cause me pain, and they intrude on my space. They don’t fit in with how I thought the church should be. But they also won’t go away, despite my lack of welcome. What if I get to know them so that I can see how best to welcome them, how to make space for the gifts they bring, how to help them fit in without destroying who they are? What if I decide I'm willing to suffer a little so they can experience God's freedom?

Part III 

The Wayward Rose Bush

Luke 15:11-32 “It is fitting that we should be merry and glad; for your own brother was dead and is alive again; he was lost, and now is found.”

Besides the hawthorn, another volunteer is a rose. Its parent plant is above a cinder block rock wall. I think the parent chose to send up a shoot—a scion—at the bottom of the wall, right by the water tap where the hose connects.  I love it because it has beautiful blooms. My husband wants to destroy it because “it thrashed his arm” while he was getting out the hose. We are presently compromising by cutting it away from the hose. I fear if we attack it aggressively, we will kill the bush above, which is attached to it by its roots.

But I might be wrong. So I asked an expert, my friend Phil, and he confirmed my fears. Killing the offshoot might kill the parent plant as well.

I see a parable here. Children in Christian families often grow up to share some values and reject other values their parents have. Parents can find this wounding, and churches can be offended and even blame the parents. I remember when I was a young “elder” and an old saint was complaining about young people not being brought up to follow a particular taboo. I said, “My parents brought me up with that taboo, and I’ve never shared their belief about it.” She may have been offended at my brashness, but she didn’t cut me off from relationship with her or the church. If she had pushed for this punishment, she might have lost my parents also. I’ve seen such things happen.

Even more tragic, I see parents confused between establishing boundaries for relationship and seriously damaging relationship with their own children when their child rejects their values. How can parents and children trim back the thorny branches so they don’t “thrash” our hearts without causing deeply felt estrangement between parent and child?

Perhaps looking for and affirming “that of God”—the equivalent of blossoms—in each other can help. Parents bear the greater responsibility to speak healing and affirmation to their children for those unique gifts each child brings into our world. And children can also initiate loving affirmation for the many good things they inherit from their parents. We need both generations to flourish for each to be healthy.

Part IV

Artificial Scarcity and God's Love

“I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” John 10:10

When I first began cooking, I used spices and herbs bought at the grocery store in small glass bottles for large prices. I did not know any other way, and I assumed, because of the packaging, that scarcity dominated the spice and herb world.

Then one day, my husband brought home five pounds of cinnamon and five pounds of nutmeg.  Such a lot of spice! My concept of spices and herbs began to include the idea of abundance (and as a side note, of artificially enforced scarcity.) Now, 30 years later, we still have nutmeg from that original purchase, though we ate our way through the cinnamon years ago. I blame cinnamon toast.

Today, I have many herbs growing in my garden. Most spectacular is an oregano plant that resists drought, winters over, hosts bees in the late summer and produces enough oregano to flavor the sauces of 10 to 20 cooks. I have parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme. I have lemon grass, basil, marjoram, summer savory, and fennel. Some of these are perennial, some are annual. All produce far more than I can use. I even discovered that when my cilantro seeds out, I can harvest cardamom, an actual spice.

I see a parable here of the evolution of my understanding of the love of God. When I was a child, I saw the love of God as scarce and expensive, something I had to work hard to earn. I began to be aware that the scarcity was artificial, perhaps even promoted as a way to shape and control my behavior. Now I find through experience and belief that the love of God is abundant, that it just needs a heart ready to let it plant itself, and God will produce enough love to satisfy an individual and even pour out over an entire village.

Part V

The Diverse Mint Family

John 10:16, Matthew 12:41-42, 50

I celebrate today the many plants I love that belong to the mint family.  The Lamiaceae  (according to Wikipedia) are “a family of flowering plants…frequently aromatic in all parts and include…basil, mint, rosemary, sage, savory, marjoram, oregano, hyssop, thyme, lavender and perilla.” Family members can be found all over the plant-supporting globe. Many are grown to eat or drink, some for beauty, some for repelling deer and other plant-eaters.  Salvia and dead-nettle are in this family. They characteristically, though not universally, have square stems, and their leaves are in opposing pairs, each pair at right angle to the one above or below. 

When I breathe in the scent of my salvia plants, I feel a deep sense of pleasure. I say to the plant, “Thank you for smelling so wonderful.” When I water my mint, oregano and sage plants, I enjoy their aromas. I love the strong mint tea I bought at the souk in Tunisia, and I’m fond of “curiously strong mints.”

I cannot believe how many members there are in this family, how tenacious they often are of life, and how they send out runners underground and seeds overground to ensure their persistence.  Lemon balm has invaded my yard. It propagates very successfully and will crowd other plants out, so I pull it up, but I can never pull it all up.

The parable that comes here relates to the wide variety of the individuals and worshiping communities and denominations that make up the church universal. Unbelievably, the gospel propagates itself both underground and above ground, through root—families of faith—and through seed—converts who hear and give heart space for the gospel to sprout and grow. The sweet scents, lovely blooms that feed the bees, and the multiplicity of usefulnesses for human beings are an aspirational analogy to us as individuals and congregations. Do we make our communities more beautiful, more livable, more equitable for our neighbors? Do we soothe their pains, sweeten their existence, and spice up their days?

To paraphrase Jesus’s parable about sheep, “Other mint varieties I have that you have never heard of or did not recognize. These also fulfill God’s will for the mint family, and will add beauty and pleasure and healing to your lives.”

Part VI

Sedums and Gifts

Genesis 3:8, Psalm 91:1-4, Matt. 23:37

Someone I didn’t know very well lived with my husband and me for a number of months. He was shy, quiet, and well-behaved, and we didn’t do a good job of getting to know him. Years later, I discovered that he went hungry in my house because he was in his 20s and we were in our 50s, and we were eating salads and other light meals in a vain effort to lose weight. He had that miraculous metabolism that can eat an entire calf. I am still embarrassed at my lack of perceptiveness.

He also loves plants, and he planted some that are still here a decade later. A group of fall-flowering sedums has survived an enormous amount of neglect and drought to bring forth lovely flowers right on time.  So today, in late September, I weeded them.  I’d like to actually see the blooms.  And I’m watering them as we are in our dry season. I hope they don’t die of shock.

There are several parables here. First, pay attention to those in my orbit and under my care. What do they actually need? It is probably not identical to what I need. Perhaps asking them if they have enough to eat, literally or figuratively, is a good place to start.

Second, care for the relationship. Even if it survives on benign neglect, it is in my own best interest to keep it healthy and to let the other person’s virtues shine in it. If I let it be smothered or even just kept invisible by my neglect, I have no one to blame but myself if I miss its beauty.

Third, do not ignore or disparage the gift someone brings. Even if I didn’t ask for it, it represents an effort to be friends. (At the same time, gifts are not quid pro quo. That’s more of a trade and should be negotiated openly.) And when I give a gift, I need to give it cheerfully and without strings attached.

Sometimes we neither bother to get to know what God really wants from us, nor do we value the gifts, particularly the grace-filled love, that God has given us. We might do well to take a little time to listen and to weed out the things we have let grow that make it hard to see the beauty of God.

Part VII Caring for Plants with Thorns

Isaiah 53:5 "He was wounded for our transgressions."

As you can see, I love roses. They need clipping. I love berries that grow on spiny vines. They need pruning and tying up to wires. I love my horse who gets burdock burs in her mane and tail.  I have to work them out without pulling out all her hair. My life is filled with, wait for it, thorny problems.

Once I trimmed my berries or my roses, wearing gloves of course. A day later, my wrists and fingers ached, sort of like arthritis. I discovered then that I am allergic to thorns, that they are just a little poisonous to me. The medical term is “plant thorn arthritis.” I went after each with needle and tweezers and then a little rubbing alcohol. Sometimes a surgeon has to help remove tiny fragments of thorn that elude the home needle, though this didn't happen to me.

This makes me think of a parable or two. First, the work of ministry can include thorny patches, leaving the minister scratched and perhaps a bit poisoned. Sometimes careful self-examination and removal of the poisonous bits from the soul can be done at home, and sometimes the ache and swelling remain and the minister must seek professional help. It’s important to address these small problems before they become systemic.

Second, Jesus himself found his ministry to be wounding. He was despised, rejected, mocked, betrayed. He knew what we humans are like, and he still acted out his love for us, doing for us what we needed rather than what we wanted. This is the same today. He also felt thorns both figurative and literal, and he died to give us new life, abundant life. By his wounds we are healed. We are grateful every day that Jesus showed us God’s true nature of love and made it possible for us to turn toward that love. We recognize every day that though we need pruning, we protect ourselves with strategies that wound others.  Let’s lean in to God’s love, trusting that God will take away what we need to lose and give what we need to gain.

Prayer in the Teaching and Life of Jesus

Preached at South Salem Friends Church

July 7, 2013

When we want to get to know Jesus better, we go to the Gospels and read about what he said and did.  Then we have to think, because what Jesus said and what Jesus did do not always seem identical.  So then we have to be willing to ask what truth is there for us in the disconnect, because as Christians, we believe that Jesus came from God, that Jesus was God as well as human, and that when we see Jesus speaking and acting in the Gospels, we see who God is.  So here’s one riddle to work through, and it has to do with prayer.

First misunderstanding: Prayer should always be private.

We see that Jesus would withdraw to deserted places and pray (Luke 5:16). Furthermore, in Matthew 6:5-8, Jesus gives advice to his followers about prayer.

“When you pray, don’t be like those who pray so that people can see them praying.  These hypocrites stand on street corners or in synagogues and pray out loud so that others will see them.  The attention they get is their only reward.  But when you pray, go into your private room, shut the door, and talk with your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees you praying privately will reward you.”

(We do not now recognize how explosive the teaching that God is “your Father” was at this time.  Watch for how often Jesus connects prayer with this intimate familial relationship to God Almighty.)

Now many folks have read this and felt like Jesus was forbidding or devaluing public prayers.  But this cannot be so, because Jesus himself prayed aloud in front of other people. 

Jesus prays aloud:  “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent, and revealed them to infants, yes, Father, for such was your gracious will” (Matthew 11:23-24).

Looking up to heaven, he blessed and broke the loaves and gave them to his disciples to pass out to the crowd (Matthew 14: 19). He took the loaves and the fish, and after giving thanks, he broke them and gave them to the disciples to give to the crowd (Matthew 15:36). He regularly gave thanks for food. There are other times also when he prays publicly. Therefore, we need to learn how and when to pray publicly.

Second misunderstanding:  Prayer should always be spontaneous and original.

Back to Matthew 6: “Also, when you are praying, don’t heap up empty phrases as those who worship false gods feel they have to; they think that only if they repeat their requests over and over will they be heard.  Don’t be like them.  You have a Father who knows what you need even before you ask.”

Many folks have read this and concluded that repeating a set or liturgical prayer is not the best way to pray, even though the most famous of these, called The Lord’s Prayer, immediately follows. As Luke tells it, 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.” He said to them, “When you pray say: Father, hallowed be your name, Your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us. And do not bring us to the time of trial” (Luke 11:1-13 ). Jesus himself used a “set prayer” in his cry from the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” a shorthand reference to Psalm 22 (Matthew 27:46). Therefore, we need to feel free to borrow the prayers of others when they express our need and our trust in God.

Third misconception: if we get it right, God will grant our requests.

In Matthew 7:7-11, Jesus teaches further about prayer.  Ask, he says, seek, and knock.  The asker receives, the seeker finds, and the door opens for the one who knocks. “Think of God as a parent like you.  Would you give a stone to a child who asks for bread?  Would you give a snake to a child who asks for fish?  So if you, evil as you are, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will our Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!”

Many folks have read this and felt like this guarantees that they will get what they pray for, particularly if they quote this to God.  But that cannot be exactly what this means, because Jesus himself asked God for something that he didn’t get. He prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane to be spared from death on the cross.  God did not answer this prayer.  Instead, God answered the second half of the prayer, which was “not my will but your will be done.” “Abba, Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me; yet, not what I want but what you want (Mark 14: 36).

Therefore, we cannot conclude that when we experience hard things, it is because we do not have enough faith.  Instead the passage challenges us to believe that God is expressing God’s will through our lives, and that in our suffering is nutrition for our whole selves.

Fourth misunderstanding: if we get several other people to agree to pray for the same result, God will give us what we ask for.

“If two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them” (Matthew 18:15-20). Intriguingly, the immediate context for this is conflict or wrongs done between Jesus’s followers.  “If anyone sins against you, go and point out the fault, etc.”  This suggests that we must remember in conflict with another that coming to talk to that person directly brings Jesus into the conversation.  Jesus is right there.  The point may be that when the two in conflict can agree to ask for the same thing from our Father, God gladly answers their shared prayer.

Fifth misconception: it is inappropriate to ask God for the same thing more than once.

Jesus teaches persistence in prayer through several parables—the unjust judge and the persistent plaintiff and the neighbor who needs bread from the person who has already gone to bed.  These are funny stories that encourage us to keep asking God to meet our needs—for justice, for daily bread, just as in the prayer Jesus taught the disciples.

Sixth misconception: having faith means getting what we want in prayer.

Jesus taught that prayer itself is an act of faith.  It is not “a done deal,” not like adding baking powder to the biscuits.  Instead, having faith means we believe in the giver of good gifts, our Father, and so we ask.

Additionally, Jesus taught that when we pray, we need to forgive in order to be forgiven. And Jesus taught that our attitude in prayer is humility and asking for mercy, not self-congratulation and bullying God.

So in one central incident, let’s see how prayer works for Jesus.

John 11 Back Story:

Lazarus has died, and Jesus tells his disciples that Lazarus has fallen asleep and he must go wake him up.

He says: “Lazarus is dead. And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there so that you can learn to trust. Now, let’s go to him.”

Jesus arrives back in Bethany.  Lazarus has been dead and entombed four days.  Martha, his sister, meets Jesus, and says “If you had been here, Lazarus would not have died.  But even now, I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give to you.”

Jesus says to her, “Your brother will stand up again. “ Martha responds, “I know he will rise in the resurrection at the end of time.”

Jesus says to her, “I am the resurrection and I am life.  All who trust in me, even if they die, shall live, and all who live and trust in me shall never die. Do you trust me on this?” She replies, “Yes, Lord, I trust that you are the Messiah, the Christ, the Son of God, who has come into our world, our universe.”

Lazarus’s other sister, Mary, also comes to meet Jesus, and she greets him similarly to Martha, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

Jesus sees her tears, and the tears of the whole crowd, and he also weeps. 

They walk to the tomb where Lazarus is lying dead, and Jesus asks them to roll away the stone from the opening.  Martha says, “Lord, he’s been there four days and now stinks.”

Jesus says to her, “Didn’t I tell you that if you would trust, you would see the positive judgment, the glory of God?”

This is the part I want to emphasize:  after they roll away the stone and while the stink of death is in their nostrils, Jesus lifts up his eyes to heaven to talk to our Father.

Jesus says, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me.  I know you always hear me.  But because these people around me don’t know that, I said it aloud so that they may trust that you have sent me.”

Then he shouts, “Lazarus, come out.” And from the opening in the earth, Lazarus shuffles out, looking like a mummy.  Jesus says, “Release him and let him go.”

Many onlookers trust Jesus as being the one sent by God on that day, but some go to tell his enemies what Jesus had done.

What can we learn about prayer from this passage?  First, we learn that when Jesus said to pray in a closet, he obviously didn’t mean all the time.  Here he is praying out loud just so that the crowd can hear.

Second, we learn that Jesus knows there is nothing magic about praying out loud.  It doesn’t make it more likely that God will do what we ask.  Instead, he prays out loud to demonstrate his faith that God has told him to come to Bethany and return Lazarus to life.

Third, we learn that Jesus doesn’t take a long time to explain things to God.  He just acknowledges to God what God has told him to do, and in his prayer explains to the crowd why he is praying aloud: so that they can believe God sent him to do this work, so that they can see he has faith that God is his Father.

Fourth, it is clear that a whiz-bang miracle like this one is not enough to win everyone to trusting in our Father God who sent Jesus to show us what God is like.  Some will still work against this truth.  It is not enough that a person rises from death into life.  So we don’t have to succeed in getting what we specifically ask for in order to prove to people that God is real or that they should also be following Jesus.  

Fifth, Jesus’s prayer here is an acted parable for all of us about what our public prayers are for:  They are to demonstrate our faith that God has sent Jesus to do the work of setting people free from spiritual death into abundant spiritual life.  We are a part of the crowd that unbinds people and lets them go free. 

So we have read what Jesus said about prayer and we have seen him pray.  We have learned that Jesus did pray privately, but he also prayed publicly, including thanking God for food and blessing it, that he sometimes used the prayers of others, that Jesus prayed on purpose so others would witness that he and God were in a son/father relationship, that Jesus prayed for spiritual and for physical needs, and that even for Jesus, prayer itself was an act of faith, as it also is for us.

Luke 10:21 At that same hour Jesus rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.”

Jesus shows us that prayer is important, so I encourage you to be people who pray in private, in public, for spiritual needs, for physical needs, using spontaneous prayers or prayers written by others, but for sure, be praying people. If any of you lack wisdom, ask God for it; God gives it liberally without scolding; pray to the Lord of the harvest of souls to send workers to bring them in.  Pray often, and pray simply, just like God’s little children.