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.

The Answers Are Getting Harder: Shamelessness in Prayer

Album art from Blues Traveler's fourth album Four.

The first CD I ever purchased on my own was the 1994 Blues Traveler record Four. I loved that album, and still listen to it regularly. While the singles “Hook” and “Runaround” garnered much of the attention, I devoured (and nearly memorized) all the tracks of the hour long recording. As I have been preparing for preaching this week, I found myself mysteriously singing the second song from Four, a track entitled “Stand” (You are going to want to listen to it before continuing... do so here).

For the first two verses and refrains of the song, the lead singer John Popper makes a series of declarative statements, which lead to the theme that sometimes in life it’s a long way to fall. These statements are almost universal beliefs that we as humans hold subconsciously—beliefs like talk and tragedy are cheap, wounds heal in time, and decisions we make come back to us in one way or another. Right before the two-minute mark of the song though something shifts. Popper begins an intense harmonica rift that gives way to a calmer and more transcendent sounding harmony from the rest of the band. It’s at this point in the song when I realize why my subconscious spit out this tune during this particular week.

As the harmonized vocals return, the band sings, “The answers are getting harder.” This feels like the most accurate depiction of our current state of complicated existence in this polarized world of have’s and have not’s. Sure this song is turning 25 years-old this September, but the words that John Popper wrote for Blues Traveler’s fourth album remain as true as they were in the mid-1990’s. The answers are getting harder. And, the band repeats this statement three times before adding another belief in the background, “If an answer comes to those who pray.” What could this possibly mean?

Taken together these statements read, “The answers are getting harder if an answer comes to those who pray.” To me this means that even in our practice of conversing with God as we grow the answers become more complicated. Perhaps this is a belief that Popper discovered as he matured in his life as a musician and a man. The real power and a true connection to this Sunday’s Gospel lesson from Luke 11 comes in what happens next in the song.

At the 3:45 mark the tempo increases and Popper sings:
“The answers are getting harder and harder
And there ain’t no way to bargain or to barter
But if you’ve got the angst or you got the ardor
You might faint from the fight but you’re gonna find it
For every challenge could have paradise behind it
And if you accept what you have lost and you stand tall
You might just get it back and you can get it all
So now you know why it’s a long way to fall
Yeah cause it’s a long way to fall.”

While it’s not explicit if Blues Traveler is referring to the act of praying and receiving answers, the implication is clear: persistence in prayer and in life will carry you through challenge, loss, and even falls. Taken in concert with this Sunday’s Gospel lesson this song pushes my own understanding of Jesus’ response to how one ought to pray.

In Luke 11:1-13 Jesus uttered the familiar words of the Lord’s Prayer, but he also offered up a teaching about our posture during prayer. No, I’m not talking about standing or kneeling, I am referring to the vigor and persistence with which we pray. In Luke 11:6-8 we hear Jesus describe a persevering neighbor knocking on his friend’s door in the middle of the night. The man inside does not want to give this pesky neighbor any bread for he’s already in bed with his kids asleep. Still he does get up and give into the request because of the friend’s persistent knocking—not because of their preexisting relationship. Some take this to mean that we are to persevere in our prayer and life—and I agree—however, there’s more here, and it relates to what Popper sang about in “Stand.”

A more honest translation of the word we quote as “persistence” in Luke 11:8 is actually “shamelessness” or “importunity” or “un-modesty.” The knocking neighbor has no shame in asking, which is a very different thing than being persistent. In truth this unlocks a completely different way of viewing God. God’s not waiting on us to be persistent in our prayer life before God grants our requests. Rather, we are to have no shame in asking boldly for what we want, laying our entire lives for God to view, and pushing onward for our will, as we allow it to fall in line with God’s own will.

This shamelessness insight dovetails nicely into what Popper sang. As the answers to our prayers and in our world become harder and harder, there’s no way to bargain or to barter with God for a reply. Instead as we express our anxiety and passion to God we are to without modesty share our entire existence with Him/Her/Them. As we bear our entire souls to God we might faint from the fight (see: Jacob wrestling with God in Genesis 32), but as we persevere we discover heaven on earth right within/beyond our challenges. Accepting the losses of life, instead of denying their existence, allows us to stand within our truest selves and like Job we get back not what we had but something even greater. So, while we pray that God lead us not into temptation, the truth is that God guiding us through the evils of this life leads us into a promised land. This paradise is so fathomless that it exceeds our imagination. Even now as we pray shamelessly to God, nakedly laying out our entire selves open to the one who knows us entirely, we dwell in the intersection of heaven and earth with the one who creates, feeds, forgives, sustains, and loves us completely.

So, when you pray stand tall as you boldly lay bare your whole self to God. It is not about the words you utter, but the posture of shamelessness you invoke. For God will never shame you (see: Old Testament lesson from Sunday Genesis 18:20-32)—so ask emphatically for what you want. And while God may not answer precisely how you desire, know that beyond and even within the challenges of life God is bringing heaven to earth, as God’s will is always done. Stand, stand and walk with God.

Glory

Not too long ago Evan and I were in a Presbyterian church for a funeral. As we sat in the congregation, he leaned over to me before the service started to remind me that “trespasses” and “trespass” in the Lord’s Prayer were replaced with “debts” and “debtors”.

On Christmas Eve I find myself spellbound listening to the broadcast of the Lessons and Carols service at King’s College in Cambridge, England. One of the moments that most captivates me comes when the congregation prays the Lord’s Prayer with distinct differences: “Our Father, which art in heaven,” (not who art in heaven) “in earth as it is in heaven,” (not on earth) and “as we forgive them that trespass against us” (not those).

On Thursday mornings during Centering Prayer we end our twenty minutes of resting in God’s presence with the Lord’s Prayer. Sometimes as we speak those words slowly and intentionally I forget a phrase, as I am wrapped up in words that have just left my mouth. If I am not careful I will not think about the words of prayer that Jesus taught his disciples and us.

At the end of the version we most often pray there is a phrase that stands out to me on this Wednesday in Holy Week: “For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.” These words do not appear in our translation of Luke’s or Matthew’s telling of the Good News from which we get this prayer that is a part of our every liturgy together. It was not until 1662 that our Anglican forebears added this big finish, so from where does it originate?

Allegedly the Early Church added these words. They added them so early in fact that some of the first Gospel manuscripts carried this doxological statement. While most scholars will attest that Jesus probably did not speak these words when teaching his disciples how to pray, we still gain so much by uttering this statement that caps off the Lord’s Prayer. We are reminded at the last that it is God’s Kingdom, Power, and Glory that we seek, not our own. What does this look like though?

In today’s Gospel account we find ourselves reclining around a table with Jesus and the disciples at dusk on Maundy Thursday. In John’s telling of the story Christ Jesus through whom the entire cosmos came into being remains in control, even of his betrayal by Judas. When Jesus gives Judas the piece of bread only then does Satan enter the disciple, so that he carries out the terrible deed. Jesus even adds on, “Do quickly what you are going to do,” revealing his complete humanity alongside his entire divinity. Right as Judas leaves to betray his teacher Jesus turns the conversation to glory.

The text puts it in the following way: “When he had gone out, Jesus said, ‘Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once.’” Perhaps you find this to be completely normal, but I see this connection as completely paradoxical! Betrayal glorifies God? Judas’ action to go out to hand over Jesus is the way in which God will glorify both the Father and the Son? How can this be?

We live in a self-glorifying age, and if I am not careful I fall victim to self-aggrandizing feelings, actions, and thoughts. Sometimes those of us who profess faith in God attempt to clothe our showy behavior in a shroud of false humility. One example immediately pops into my mind: well-intending athletes who after scoring a touchdown point up to heaven or who after winning a tournament say in an interview that God was responsible for this victory. This happens at award shows and elsewhere too in our society, but seemingly athletes exhibit this behavior most readily.

On the surface nothing is wrong with this action of turning the attention off of oneself. In fact, if it is sincere this stands out as an admirable recognition that all things stem from God. And yet, this is also where the dilemma arises. In Jesus’ words it is not a moment of triumph that is celebrated as God’s glory, but instead the darkest betrayal of all time! God’s glory is revealed not in victory or accomplishment, but in defeat and even death. Returning to our athlete analogy this would be the equivalent of striking out in the bottom of the ninth on a full count with the bases loaded in game seven of the World Series, and then pointing skyward to give God the credit. This would be like an athlete fumbling the ball on the one yard line and having it returned for a touchdown to lose the Super Bowl, and then getting down on one knee to thank God. In a world of competition the type of glory that Jesus embodies does not make sense, but to tell you the Truth trophies, gold, and recognition are not part of the Kingdom that Jesus inaugurated this week long ago.

The Son of Man, the Eternal Word, Christ Jesus came to show us the fullest extent of reality by transforming the most shameful instrument of torture into the ultimate expression of God’s love. God’s glory may best be seen in the complete failings of human beings to recognize God among us—as instead of accepting Jesus we crucified him—and still in that moment and throughout all time God says to us there is no way that we may escape God’s love. This is the glory that we pray for in the Lord’s Prayer, not a type of pride that pats us on the back, but an overwhelming love that turns the most gruesome defeat into the greatest victory of all time!