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DAVID'S EMAIL BIBLE STUDY:
Talking (and Listening) with God
NOTE:
Prayer is about talking and listening with God. David's sermon last Sunday (9/30), called "My Prayer Life", is available on our website and Facebook page. It is a fuller exploration of the basics for a readily doable prayer life. You can read it, listen to it, even share it!
A. INTRODUCTION
... Prayer was important to Jesus; it energized him. Throughout Jesus' three-year ministry people looked to him for guidance, example, inspiration. His own well-spring came from prayer.
C. SUMMARY.
Two great events, and quite telling, from Jesus' life. He visits the home of two sisters, Mary and Martha, and a big crowd gathers to hear him. Martha is the hostess. She has to welcome, shop, cook, feed, and clean up after not only Jesus and 12 disciples, but the crowd, too. Mary prefers to sit and listen to Jesus. Martha complains to Jesus and Jesus tells her that she has her priorities wrong, while Mary has her priorities right. Luke 11 then moves into the area of prayer. The disciples, having watched Jesus pray for two years, ask "Lord, teach us to pray." He responds with a shorter version of the Lord's prayer than we are used to and that we take from Matthew's Gospel. Here's the Lord's prayer as we know it:
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil;
for thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.
D. KEY POINTS
- MARY vs MARTHA Christianity. Mary sits, listens, learns, watches, takes it all in, reflects. She is passive attentive, allowing herself to be inspired. Martha scurries about, active, busy, doing, working, helping, making things happen. Years ago the titular head of Protestants in the old Soviet Union spoke at my church in NYC. At the time Christianity was heavily restricted and oppressed under communism. He said that American Christianity was Martha, Soviet Christianity was Mary. Soviet Christians were only allowed to sit and listen in church. American Christians are able to be activists, impacting society and the world with good works. He yearned for the day when his Mary church could be more like our Martha church.
- "BITING the HAND that FEEDS You!!" Jesus comes to a house as a guest, bringing at least 12 friends, attracting even more people, and Martha is left alone to take care of food and drink and comfort for everyone. Yet Jesus says that the idle Mary "has chosen what is better" by sitting "at the Lord's feet listening". I'm pretty sure that Jesus was really forgetting Martha's attitude, not her hard work. The story says, "Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made," and then complained to Jesus. My guess is that she "harrumphed" and slammed pots and pans and grumbled and scowled as the day wore on. This happens when we do the right thing for the wrong reasons; or we don't want to in the first place. The "Martyr Complex", we call it. Whining is never attractive. To be fair, we all need a Mary/Martha balance. Those of us inclined to work ourselves to a frazzle (even for the Lord) need to stop and smell the roses. And rose-smellers need to look up and around more often.
- LORD'S PRAYER, Part 1. I may return to this next week. For today, a quick look at the background to Jesus teaching then a model prayer. In Luke 11 Jesus responds to a request for help. Asking about prayer may well be the #1 request in my career: how, where, when, why, what? Even who? To God alone? To Jesus also? What about saints and Mary? In Matthew 6 Jesus teaches about prayer in the middle of a long, complex "Sermon on the Mount" that lays out the basics of Christian life and behavior. Prayer is part of that Christian life and behavior. In Matthew 6:5-8, Jesus warns against using prayer as show, and against mindless and endless prayers. His model "Lord's Prayer" gets to the point. And the #1 point is that prayer is as intimate as a parent/child relationship. Whether we choose Jesus' reference to God as FATHER, or you prefer parent or mother or some variation, it implies an inherent, personal, familial, yes loving link. Once you believe you are that close to God, that opens the door wide for your prayer life. We talk to God as our heavenly parent, then we proclaim our desire that "they kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." That really opens the door wide!! If we want our earthly life to mirror God's heaven, wow - what do you start praying for?
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