Luke 11:4-13

     The form of the prayer that Jesus uses in Luke’s account ends with the request about temptation and Jesus goes on to tell a story. He begins by posing a question. Who of them who has a friend will go to that friend at midnight to ask for bread to feed a guest? And the friend refuses because of the hour and his family, but if you persist he will give what is asked for simply to avoid the persistence.
     It is an odd story. Posing he question in that way almost makes it sound as if there are two layers to the story. Who will dare go to a friend at midnight? Especially for bread? One might go for an emergency--the house on fire, a grave illness, word of an enemy approaching...but who would bother a neighbor otherwise?
     But, if one did have the audacity to trouble a neighbor for such a request, the normal response will be a rejection. It’s late. You’re bothering me and the family. Go away. But persistence will still gain the result.
     So, Jesus says, I tell you, Ask and it will be given you...
     One author says that the message here is that in prayer, the important thing is not to give up. Then he goes on to speak of what a loving earthly father will do. It certainly won’t be to give something evil and dangerous to a child. And if faulty humans can do that much, how much more will God?
     So Jesus begins with the question--who has a friend to whom you can go at midnight? Concluding as he does with the story of the father, we are led to the answer of the question. There is one friend to whom a midnight visit can be made without fear of rejection. Still Jesus seems to be recognizing the reality of the fact that prayer is not like going shopping at a store. If “answers” are not immediately apparent, that isn’t a cue to quit, but instead to persist. Knock, and keep knocking.
     The conundrum of prayer will likely continue to exercise the minds of the faithful in every generation. At Monterey United Methodist Church we print a long list of prayer concerns in our Sunday bulletin and newsletter. With it, we include the statement that you don’t have to understand prayer in order to practice it.
     Jesus doesn’t try to explain prayer, nor the mystery of either answered and unanswered prayer. His message is to persist with the knowledge of God’s loving nature.

What in prayer is the biggest challenge for you?
What would you tell someone struggling with the subject of prayer?

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Luke 11:4 - Lead us not into temptation...

     Asking God “lead us not into temptation, and deliver us from evil” to use the traditional phrasing, leaves open the question, “Does God ever lead us into temptation?” That is, does God tempt us, especially does God tempt us to do wrong?
      Some might suggest that God might do so as the test is to find out whether or not we will succumb. Yet God surely already knows how the individual will respond to temptation. It would be a pretty brutal test, with many failures, if the only purpose was for the individual in question to learn how he or she will respond to temptation. And for something to be tempting, it must be attractive and enticing. If God, literally, leads us into temptation, then God is cast into the role of making evil and wrongdoing attractive and enticing.
      In Jewish Literature, a prayer for retiring says "Bring me not into the power of sin, iniquity, temptation, or contempt; and let the good impulse have dominion over me, but not the evil impulse. In the Jewish Prayer Book it reads "Lead us not into sin or temptation..." let not the evil inclination have sway over us."
      The ecumenical version of the Lord’s Prayer is “save us from the time of trial.” “Lead us not into temptation” can be seen as simply another way of saying the same thing.
      The early church fathers understood this part of the prayer to mean: "Do not allow us to fall into temptation." In some of the ancient liturgies it reads: "Do not let us succumb to temptation." One wonders if this question was raised in the early church, for the book of James makes it clear that we are the responsible ones in temptation. "No one, when tempted, should say, "I am being tempted by God"; for God cannot be tempted by evil and he himself tempts no one. But one is tempted by one's own desire, being lured and enticed by it; then, when that desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin."
       In other words, we can't blame anyone else when we are tempted and when we sin. It's all our own fault. However, honesty requires us to recognize that, if God does not bring temptation or trials, God also does not prevent them. If God is all powerful, whatever happens is at least allowed to happen. To say anything else is to say that God is not God, that there is a power greater than God.
       "Lead us not into temptation," or "save us from the time of trial," both include that acknowledgement, that God is God. God has allowed us to be tempted or rather has allowed us to tempt ourselves. God has allowed us to sin, perhaps in the same way we have to let children make mistakes, or else they will never become mature adults. In fact, the book of James also implies this.
      The African Bible Commentary makes the point that to pray to be saved from temptation is a warning against any smug assumption that we are holy or virtuous. That without God’s help we would all fail the trial of temptation.
     Phillips Brooks wrote: Oh, do not pray for easy lives! Pray to be stronger men! Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers; pray for powers equal to your tasks! Then the doing of your work shall be no miracle. But you shall be a miracle. Every day you shall wonder at yourself, at the richness of life which has come in you by the grace of God.
      To be delivered from evil will depend upon the individual’s understanding of evil. Is it personified? Is it human? How much of it is inside and how much found in the people and circumstances around us?
      Praying to be delivered from evil may mean to be delivered from the tendency toward evil and wrong choices in our own selves. It may also be to be delivered from the evil choices made by others.

      The prayer to be saved from failing in temptation has been considered controversial for another reason. Was this also the prayer of Jesus? That is, did he ask God for strength against temptation? The movie, The Last Temptation of Christ” raised a firestorm of debate, as though to be tempted is in itself somehow sinful or embarrassing.  Yet the book of Hebrews tells us that Jesus was tempted in every way that we are, but did not sin. (Hebrews 4:15)  Hebrews makes a definite distinction here between the temptation and the sin. Everyone is tempted, not everyone gives in to temptation.
      Again in the book of James, we read, "Happy the man who remains steadfast under trial, for having passed that test he will receive for his prize the gift of life promised to those who love God." Another translation says, "the crown of life." Not that we earn grace or love from God, nor does anyone ever resist all temptation, but James recognized that temptation conquered leads to a more abundant life.

What would it mean to you to say that Jesus was tempted by the same things that tempt us?
Do you prefer “Lead us not into temptation” or “save us from the time of trial”?
What do you personally mean in asking to be delivered from evil?

Luke 11:3

     Sorry, everyone, for the late post. 


     After teaching his disciples to pray for their daily bread, Luke tells us that Jesus taught them to ask forgiveness for their sins, linking it to the way they forgave those who sinned against them. In traditional renderings of the Lord’s prayer, the phrase is stated in two ways. “Forgive us or trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Some denominations say, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors - the phrasing used in the musical rendition as well. The more modern ecumenical version states simply, forgive us our sins as we forgive those who have sinned against us.
     In Matthew 6:9-13, we also hear how Jesus taught people to pray, this time taught as part of the Sermon on the Mount. This is where debts rather than trespasses or sins is used. Both variations have significant meaning. Trespasses or sins would include the harm we have done, and the harm directed at us. Debts would refer to the good we should have done and the good that someone might have failed to render toward us.
     Jesus definitely links what we ask for with our own willingness to offer the same to others. It is not a situation of quid pro quo--that is, Jesus wasn’t saying we can earn what we ask for, or deserve it. But he was concerned with spiritual health, and he knew that to ask for forgiveness without being willing to extend it to others, is to miss the meaning and power of grace. A commonly used image in past years in reference is the Dead Sea. Water flows into it, but not out. The salt has therefore built up and it can no longer sustain life. To ask for forgiveness without giving it is likened to asking to receive without giving.
     Jesus doesn’t want us to live a life that circles only into ourselves. God didn’t make us for that kind of life. God made us for community and love and mutual support.
     The prayer of Jesus thereby seeks to turn out hearts to our neighbor, even our enemy. To forgive sins is to resolve conflict. In the version Jesus taught the people, we are reminded of the good we are supposed to do, and that which others are called to do as well. If the prayer for bread symbolizes talking with God about all that we need, perhaps the prayer for forgiveness is also about our service and discipleship.

What do you find hardest to forgive?
What good might you have done, yet failed to accomplish?

Luke 11:3

     Give us this day our daily bread.
     This request that Jesus taught his disciples to make is a reminder of the fact that God cares about our physical needs and that Jesus didn’t expect his followers to be unaware of that. The world and life in it is good; after all, God created it.
     The prayer Jesus taught may be understood as outline, or brief mentions of whole categories. Daily bread can be seen as representing all that is needed for the needs of physical life. Luther, according to one scholar said that to pray for daily bread was to pray for that which is needed to have and enjoy one’s daily bread. And, at the same time, it is to pray against everything that interferes with enjoying it.
      As we pray for daily bread, perhaps we are praying for the storekeeper who brings the bread or flour, for the truck driver who delivers it, the miller who grinds it, the farmer who grows the wheat, the fields lying under the sky.
     Of course, this study is being written in a land of abundance. Many people in this world of abundance are often more worried about how their daily bread is affecting their waistlines, than they are about having it in the first place. In the United Methodist Women’s study, Food and Faith, from a few years ago, it was pointed out that simplicity of eating was most common through most of human history. For special occasions humans feasted, but the rest of the time, fare was simple, even sparse. But in today’s affluent societies, “feasting” happens every day and we have lost the understanding of it, having to amp up what we have continuously in order to have the sensation of feasting.

What does this say in a world in which there are still people whose daily bread is seriously in question? Should this portion of the prayer call upon us to look at the difference between need and want?
How often are the two confused in this society?

Luke 11:1-2

     Jesus must have had a dynamic prayer life. Observing it. The disciples came to him that day and asked him to teach them how to pray. Jesus proceeded to teach them what we have come to call the Lord’s Prayer, simply because it’s the prayer he taught. It is likely that he was not trying to institute a particular set of words, but to do what the disciples asked - teach them how to pray. The prayer he taught includes brief statements that he may have intended to point at subject matter.
     A significant moment for Moses was when he stood at the burning bush and asked God's name. He knew, of course, that this was divinity, holy beyond imagination. He was ready to do what God asked of him. But he wanted to be able to say something more to the Israelites than "this voice spoke to me out of a burning bush..." And the voice said to Moses "tell them that 'I AM' has sent you." That is probably about as much as we humans could handle in a name. After all, how do you sum up the infinite God in a name? God is. The Israelites took this name to heart. Later they wrote it down in what we call the sacred Tetragramaten. YHWH.
      The Israelites received the Ten Commandments. They heard that they should not take the name of the Lord in vain. The New Revised Standard Version translates it as "You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the LORD your God." However, there is something to be said about "not taking the Lord's name, specifically, "in vain." Merriam Webster's definition of "vain" is helpful. 1. devoid of worth or significance. Synonyms: empty, hollow, idle and a few I've never heard before like nugatory and otiose. Related words are profitless, unprofitable, useless, valueless, void, worthless, ineffective, ineffectual, fruitless, futile. To speak God's name in vain is not just swearing or using foul language. It is to speak God's name in ways that are empty, hollow and idle. It is to speak about God in ways that are profitless, useless, valueless, void, worthless, ineffectual, fruitless, and futile. To speak God's name in vain is to speak of God with as little thought as we give to the rug we walk upon. To pop pebbles idly into a pool, with no purpose and no profit. It is to take the holy out of God's name and person.
     The Israelites were faithful to the commandment. You might even say they went overboard in their faithfulness. Eventually, they forbade anyone to ever speak the name of God aloud. Instead, they used titles such as Lord or king. They wrote the name down. YHWH. No vowels. Everyone knew what the vowels were and it was always necessary to save space, so the vowels were left out of all ancient manuscripts. Of course, after a few centuries of never speaking God's name out loud, and given a few wars, changes of language and other difficulties, no one now knows how to pronounce God's name or what the original vowels were. The written name was also revered. Any bit of writing that contained the name of God was saved. Even a schoolboy's practice copying from the scriptures was preserved. There was a medieval synagogue that was excavated some years ago. In a special vault under the floor were centuries of scraps of paper. Saved, because they held the name of God and you don't casually set aside anything having to do with the most holy.
      Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
      Some scholars suggest that Jesus did not intend this statement to hang by itself. A few phrases later we hear, "on earth as it is in heaven." The scholars would say Jesus was pointing to a condition "hallowed be thy name on earth as it is in heaven." Or in other words, "may we humans hold your name holy in our minds and hearts. May we never speak of you fruitlessly or pointlessly." And, if we really mean the prayer, it calls upon us to live in ways which hallow God's name -- that those who see the name of God connected with our lives will know that it has meaning, because our lives will be evidence of it. A witness to those for whom God is simply a word which slips out thoughtlessly when they hit their thumb with a hammer. A testimony to those who do not take God into account as the authority for their lives. A light for those who do not understand that God is a loving parent who will eagerly, gladly give meaning and purpose and hope to living. Pray then, and live, in this way: "Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name."
   
Aside from the obvious response (profanity) In what ways is the name of God not kept holy in today’s world?

How can we live in such a way that God’s name appears as holy to the people around us?

Luke 10:29-42

      Another thing to note about the story of the Good Samaritan is to reflect back to the event Luke recorded in chapter nine. There, a Samaritan village had refused hospitality to Jesus and his disciples. John and James had wanted to call down fire upon the Samaritans, but Jesus had rebuked them. (Some translations say he also said, for the Son of man came not to destroy human lives, but to save them). Now, a short time later, Jess is telling a story where a Samaritan came out as the good guy of the tale. (Imagine his sideways glance at James and John).
     After all this Jesus proceeded to a village where he stayed with a woman named Martha. She rushed about to provide hospitality while her sister, Mary, sat at Jesus’ feet listening to the conversation. Martha came in and asked Jesus to tell her sister to come and help. Jesus noted her distraction with many details, added a comment that there was only one thing that was necessary. Finally he said that Mary had chosen the better part which would not be taken away from her.
     This story is one that often provoke people to feel uncomfortable. Many women, in particular, feel torn between the practical needs of life and the spiritual one. And the story has frequently been interpreted as a judgment against those individuals who deal with the tasks of daily life. Martha has been sometimes seen as fussy, unimaginative, a-spiritual and dull.
      Yet other stories of Martha indicate the opposite and should be taken into account when evaluating this event. She was intelligent—Jesus had theological discussions with her in which she understood truth faster than most people he talked with. She was unselfish – when her brother had died, she met Jesus on the road and would no doubt have preferred to stay at his side, yet she went back to get her sister so Mary could also be with Jesus. She was a generous hostess.
      No, Martha wasn’t perfect. She had a temper and shouldn’t have embarrassed her sister in front of a group of men. (It’s true that Mary might have been more thoughtful about the work Martha was doing to provide for an unexpected large group of visitors). Martha may have been over-doing, yet given the sacredness of hospitality in those times, we can understand how difficult it would be for her to keep it simple. Some scholars speculate that this is what Jesus meant when he said that only one thing was needed—that they didn’t need anything fancy.
      Jesus was not saying that attending to the needs of people was wrong. On the night he was arrested, he even washed the feet of his disciples.
      The idea that Jesus was praising the contemplative life in favor of the active life was the opinion of Luther, who once commented that Jesus was saying that Martha’s work must be punished and regarded as worthless while he only wanted that of Mary, which is faith. Luther, of course, was interpreting Mary and Martha with the bias of the controversies of his time. The church was going through abuses in which people believed they could by purchasing indulgences or otherwise earn God’s grace. It became an issue of works versus faith, and Luther was promoting faith.
      But it is unfair to look at Mary and Martha only through the telescope of an ancient controversy. Taken to extreme it would cut out service, which is a clear hallmark of Christian life.
      One commentator points out that Martha’s work is repeatedly described as diakonia. This later became a technical term for service at the Lord’s table, proclaiming the good news and providing leadership in the church. Since diakonia is presented as a positive in every other place it is used in the New Testament, it seems highly unlikely that Martha’s work was seen or interpreted as a mistaken or wrong choice.
     Martha’s problem was not the nature of her work, but the attitude with which she was performing it that day. Her mistake is the same that everyone makes—doing the right thing with the wrong attitude.
      Few people can have the luxury of a life that is only contemplative, and if they do, it is provided by the hard work of many Marthas. Most people struggle, rather, to find the right balance between contemplative and active time/activities.

Have you ever felt “judged” by this story of Martha and Mary?
How do you balance your time for service and for contemplative activities?
It is unfair that Martha is remembered most for one of her less positive moments. If you were to be remembered for that, what would it be?  If you were remembered for your best, what would that be? 

Ouch!  If a bible study doesn't get loaded tomorrow - or this Saturday, it's because of some more computer issues.  Technology - love and also hate it!  We'll get back to the study as soon as possible.  In the meantime - the youth had a great weekend.  Please continue in prayer for them as they grow in the journey of faith.