Teach Us To Pray

The disciples have a simple plea for Jesus, "Teach us to pray," so why is prayer such a mysterious art?

Hosea 1:2-10
Psalm 85
Colossians 2:6-15, (16-19)
Luke 11:1-13

 

©2025 The Rev. Seth Olson

This sermon was preached on July 27, 2025 at the Episcopal Church of the Holy Apostles in Hoover, AL.

Holy God, may my words be your words and when my words are not your words, may your people be wise enough to know the same. Amen. 

“Lord, teach us to pray…”

 

It’s a beautiful request. Not, “teach us what to pray” or “give us the perfect words,” but, teach us to pray. Teach us how to live in this strange, sacred rhythm of communion. Instruct us in how to enter the mystery that holds us. Educate us in how to show up—even when we’re tired, confused, or grieving. Even when we’re joyful or just busy. Teach us to pray.

 

Because prayer is not something we master. It’s something into which we enter, like a gateway. It’s not something we perfect; it’s something that perfects us—over time, like water smoothing stone. And, perhaps most importantly, prayer is not something we do as much as something we become.

 

When the disciples asked Jesus this question, he didn’t respond with a lofty lecture or even a story right away. He gave them words. A model. Something simple.

 

Not flashy. Not proud. Just: “Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. Forgive us our sins… and do not bring us to the time of trial.”

 

The verbs Jesus employed are bold imperatives—Give! Forgive! Lead! Deliver! There’s an urgency to it. But there’s also intimacy: “Father”—in Aramaic, Abba—Papa or dada is the more colloquial form in English. This does not depict a distant deity, but a loving parent. One who already knows what we need before we ask. One who invites us to keep asking anyway because Lord knows I don’t always hear my children’s requests the first time they say it.

 

And there’s something else here, something that connects this prayer across centuries and continents: it endures. 

 

What I mean is 2,000 years later, it’s a prayer within every Episcopal service we offer. And more than that, the Lord’s Prayer is one of the most universal prayers in all of Christianity. Maybe the only supplications more well-worn are the ones Anne Lamott, the theologian and writer, lifts up: Help. Thanks. Wow. 

 

The prayer Jesus taught us has been whispered by children at bedtime and recited in crowded churches. It’s been said in the hush of early mornings and the chaos of emergency rooms. It echoes through recovery meetings in church basements, and sometimes it’s the very last thing a person with Alzheimer’s remembers how to say. It’s simple, powerful, and rooted in trust—and it came in response to this honest plea: “Lord, teach us to pray.”

 

But let’s be honest—sometimes prayer feels like shouting into the void.

Especially for those among us who are grieving… who are aging and feeling their bodies change in ways they never asked for—losing taste, smell, or mobility… who struggle to hear their grandchildren’s laughter… who are facing health diagnoses or wrestling with spiritual fatigue.

 

We also have folks who feel anxious about the return of the school year—whether they’re students, teachers, or parents counting down the days. We have those who are hurting from recent loss. 

 

We have those who are flourishing—empty nesters rediscovering themselves, retirees finally enjoying rest, and people entering exciting new chapters of their careers or relationships.

 

And we have some who are wounded by the hurts of the world—by war, famine, political division, economic injustice, and the slow, aching burn of God’s Creation crying out as we continue to pollute and ignore Mother Earth. In short, we have people all over the physical, spiritual, emotional, and psychological maps… So, it’s worth wonder…

 

What unites us? What draws us together as one?

 

Well, prayer! That’s part of why we’re all here right now. And perhaps even more what binds us together is that we still don’t know how to pray. At least, not perfectly. We are stumbling and fumbling into God’s presence together, and that’s okay.

Because prayer is not a magic trick to make life better. It is not a transaction with a vending-machine God. Prayer is not about presents (what we get), but about presence (who we are with). As Frederick Buechner wrote, “We all pray whether we think of it that way or not. The quiet, tired, aching part of us is always praying.”

 

Prayer is the language of longing. Of trust. Of communion.

And sometimes it sounds like silence. Sometimes it sounds like screaming. Sometimes it’s tears. Sometimes it’s song—when you pray twice. And sometimes it’s just showing up—again and again—like the neighbor in Jesus’ parable.

 

Let’s talk about that neighbor.

 

It’s midnight. One friend is knocking on another’s door, demanding bread. The host is annoyed—his kids are asleep in his bed (very relatable, as I awoke this morning to find Teddy next to me). The man’s locked in for the night. But Jesus says, the neighbor doesn’t give up. And not because of friendship, but because of word we misinterpret from the Greek. In our Gospel lesson I read it as persistence, but it’s closer to shamelessness.

 

That friend is without shame. He’s bold, unfiltered, unembarrassed to ask for what he needs on behalf of someone else.

And Jesus says… that’s what prayer can be like.

 

Shameless in our need. Bold in our trust. Relentless in our knocking—not to wake up a sleepy God, but to awaken ourselves to the divine presence that is already within and around us, so that we might act—that we might respond as God’s hands and heart in this world.

 

The Episcopal tradition teaches that prayer is “responding to God, by thought and by deeds, with or without words.” Did you catch that? Prayer doesn’t start with us. Prayer is always a response to what God is already doing. And sometimes the best way to pray is just to notice. To be aware. To be willing.

 

Willing to sit in silence. Willing to name our wounds. Willing to ask boldly, even if we don’t know what we’re really asking for. Willing to be changed.

 

Friends, I don’t think prayer is about getting what we want. I think it’s about becoming who we are.

 

Because if we are made in the image of God, and if God is the Great Mystery, then there’s something mysterious in each of us too. Prayer is the meeting of our mystery and the Great Mystery. It is not always rational. It is not always productive. But it is always holy.

 

In prayer, we don’t solve the mystery of God or of life or of ourselves. But we can be saved by it. Transformed by it. Freed by it—to live more fully, more honestly, and more courageously.

 

And maybe that’s where this sermon lands: not with answers, but with an invitation.

 

To pray. Shamelessly. Boldly. Simply. Consistently. To show up for yourself. To show up for the neighbor knocking and the neighbor who has traveled from far off. To show up for the world.

 

Because when we pray—whether it’s in our hearts or in our bodies, in this sanctuary or stuck in traffic—we are not just talking to God out there. We are communing with the God who dwells within. We are aligning ourselves with the divine grace already present. We are awakening to the truth that even our smallest prayers stretch outward to the farthest bounds of God’s Creation.

 

We are not alone. We are connected. We are loved. And we are heard.

So pray. As you can. As you are. Not to change God’s mind, but to change our lives.

 

Amen.