There is a verse of Scripture that continually bounces around my feeble brain. There are few moments throughout the day that it isn’t there. Sometimes it is front and center, reminding me of my shallowness. Other times, it is tucked away in the deep, dark recesses of my mind tugging at my conscience, inviting me to look deeper still, but it is almost always there. What is that verse? Actually, it is not even an entire verse. It is just a single phrase. It is this: “Lord, teach us to pray…” (Luke 11: 1).

I think about the disciple who made the request of Jesus. I wonder which one it was. It could have been any of the twelve. It is pure speculation to try to guess which one. What strikes me, though, is the fact that it would come from any of the twelve. After all, these were praying men. They were Jewish. They had been raised and “taught” to pray the Shema twice daily. By this time in their life, they no doubt had spent countless hours reciting any number of other Jewish prayers. They were praying people, yet they had to ask Jesus, “Lord, teach us to pray.”

I feel that way most of the time! I grew up in a Christian home with a praying mom, and a praying grandfather and grandmother. I participated in worship, heard the corporate prayers of the body of Christ, was called upon to pray even as a youth. I have spent over 26 years in vocational ministry, have led the church in corporate prayers, prayed for the needs of the congregation and community, prayed at the bedside of the sick and dying, and I’ve attended classes and retreats (even led a few). Still, that little phrase lingers…more in my heart than in my mind…but, it is there. I find myself saying it almost every time I pause and even consider the idea of prayer…”Lord, teach me to pray…”

I suspect those first disciples saw both the discipline and the power of Jesus own prayer life, and as they did, they noticed something was missing of their own. For all the times they had prayed, for all the times they had recited learned prayers, for all the times they had gathered corporately as the people of God, there was something missing when they saw Jesus pray. So, they came and they asked, “Lord, teach us to pray.”

Jesus obliged. And, he still obliges to those who ask him…even those of us who have prayed long and often. Even to those who feel their prayers bounce off the ceiling and go unanswered for long periods of time. He obliges because he knows the power of prayer, and the power that was evident in his own prayers he desires to make real in the lives of his disciples.

So, what is it he teaches his disciples? More than simply a model prayer, he desires to take his disciples deeper into the practice of prayer, and I sense in reading his response a pattern to his power. Here is the pattern I see:

Powerful Prayer is Personal

Jesus prayed, “Our Father, which are in heaven…”

Prayer is rooted in relationship. I find myself caught in the mechanics of prayer. I stumble on the “How-to” rather than the reason for prayer. While concentrating on the “how,” I forget the purpose behind my prayer is to bring me into a more intimate relationship with the Father who loves me.

I’m reminded what Richard Foster says about prayer: “Simple prayer is ordinary people bringing ordinary concerns to a loving and compassionate Father.” God is not an abstract thought–up there, out there somewhere, but rather a personal, intimate loving Father who desires only the best for His children.

Powerful Prayer is Provisional

Jesus also teaches me that it’s okay to pray for my needs. It’s not selfish nearly as much as it becomes a confession of my dependence upon him for all my needs. Prayer becomes an acknowledgement that we have legitimate needs–for food, shelter and clothing, and unless those needs are met we are less likely to be attentive to the Spirit’s guidance in our lives. I can’t remember who said it, but “an empty belly has not attention span.”

He also teaches that prayer for daily needs is not simply offering our shopping list to Jesus. He is not our divine ATM, and a selfish prayer is to pray “God let me win the lottery and then all my needs will be met.” Rather, a sufficient prayer is to acknowledge our needs to him, lay them at his feet and trust that he will provide. We then come to realize our deepest need–the need for forgiveness.

Powerful Prayer is Persistent

Like a shameless friend who knocks on our door at midnight, who knocks and keeps knocking until we respond, God desires us to keep praying, keep asking, keep seeking, and in so doing, we’ll discover the riches of learning to pray. It’s a reminder that as long as I live, as long as I’m a disciple, he will keep teaching. Learning is a life-long process, one that develops over a period of time. Powerful prayer is not given to a one and done instance.

I suspect that if those first disciples were alive, they’d likely still be asking Jesus to teach them to pray. I find myself discovering the more I pray, the more I need to learn to pray, and the more he teaches me to pray, the more he is able to bend my will to his…and that’s when I make the real discovery of grace…that his purpose all along has been to bend my will to his.

The fact that the little phrase “Lord, teach us to pray” is still bouncing around my mind and heart reveals that my will still has some bending to do.

I’m also reminded what another prayer warrior said: “If I’m praying and not getting what I ask for, it’s not because God is withholding something from me, it’s because he’s got something better for me.”

As the Lord teaches me to pray, I notice that prayer becomes less about changing my circumstances, and more about changing me.

I still have a lot to learn. “Lord, teach me to pray…”

Until next time, keep looking up…

Take out a five-dollar bill and hold it up to the light. What do you see? You should see, very faintly on the right hand side, a watermark of the number five. That watermark is a special label that tells us whether or not we have a genuine five-dollar bill. To put it another way, the United States Treasury has put its mark of approval on this bill. We can take this bill and exchange it for goods and services because the U. S. Government puts its full faith and credit behind it. Did you know that you and I have been watermarked? Through the waters of baptism God marked us.  Do we bear that mark well?

JESUS’ BAPTISM

Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist in the Jordan River, and according to Matthew’s Gospel, his baptism wasn’t an afterthought. He didn’t wander by the Jordan River one day, see a crowd of folks getting baptized by John and say, “Hey? I think I’ll follow the crowd.” According to Matthew’s Gospel, it was an intentional act on Jesus’ part to participate in John’s baptism. That must mean that baptism was important to Jesus. As disciples, if it were important to Jesus, it should be equally important to us.

That truth is supported by John’s reaction when he saw Jesus standing in the line of sinners waiting to be baptized. “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” John stammered (Matthew 3:14). Think about it this way: Jesus coming to John for baptism is sort of like me cooking at home and Bobby Flay knocks on my door and wants me to cook dinner for him. “Hey, wait a minute,” I say, “You’re the expert. You’re the one who should be cooking for me!”

John’s baptism of Jesus reflects the truth that even John himself understood: Baptism is a gift from God–God-designed and God-ordained. Baptism is not something John the Baptist made up, not something Jesus made up, nor something the Church made up. Baptism was God’s idea and God’s gift of grace.

THE GIFT

We United Methodists believe baptism is a gift from God. The word we use to describe it is “sacrament”, from the Latin sacramentum, meaning “sacred.” We believe that God’s grace is given to us when we participate in baptism. The Bible teaches we are changed by God’s grace through the act of baptism. Thus, baptism demonstrates God’s actions, not ours. According to our Church’s official document on baptism:

“Grace brings us to an awareness of our sinful predicament and of our inability to save ourselves; grace motivates us to repentance and gives us the capacity to respond to divine love. In the words of the baptismal ritual: ‘All this is God’s gift, offered to us without price’.” By Water and the Spirit—A United Methodist Document on Baptism

Our baptism is special because it is a God-designed, God-ordained channel of grace into our lives, and thus, through baptism we are blessed beyond measure.

THE BLESSING

Baptism is a channel through which we receive God’s blessings. What do I mean? Think of it this way. Did you receive a gift card for Christmas? A gift card doesn’t look like much – a piece of plastic with some fancy writing on it, but it entitles you to a tangible blessing like a meal or merchandise. In the same way, baptism may not look like much more than a nice photo-op, especially when one considers we Methodists take a few handfuls of water and splash them over a person’s head while some fancy theological words are spoken, but baptism connects us to tangible blessings from God. John understood well that one blessing was the forgiveness of sins. That’s another reason he was so confused when Jesus requested baptism. Jesus didn’t need forgiveness, so why was he asking to be baptized?

Although Jesus didn’t need the forgiveness that baptism offers, he was baptized anyway. The events that immediately followed his baptism illustrate what happened at our baptism. Matthew tells us that after Jesus was baptized, heaven was opened, the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus in the form of a dove, and the voice of God the Father boomed: “This is my beloved Son, and I am fully pleased with Him” (verse 17).

It really is an amazing scene. When Matthew says that heaven was opened he wasn’t just saying that the sun managed to poke through the clouds; he was describing how God’s blazing glory burned through the skies. Accompanying this heavenly display was the Father’s voice marking who Jesus was. “This is MY Son, not Joseph, the carpenter’s son. He is the Son of God.” Not only did the Father identify Jesus as his Son, he went on to put his mark of approval on what Jesus had come to do when he said that he was “well-pleased” with Jesus. The same thing happens at our baptism. God put’s His name on us. He calls us his son, his daughter and says that he is well pleased with us. And, he sends the Holy Spirit to give us or strengthen our faith in this announcement. Through baptism, heaven stands open to us.

How do we know that we really receive these blessings from God? The dove is all we need to know! Remember the account of the flood in Genesis? It was a dove that Noah sent out from the Ark when the rain (another water image, I might add) stopped, and it was the dove that brought back an olive branch to show Noah that the floodwaters and, therefore, God’s wrath had receded. By alighting on Jesus in the form of a dove, the Holy Spirit was marking Jesus as the olive branch the Father was extending to us. In Jesus we find peace from God’s wrath because he came to switch places with us. Peace with God is what Jesus was signaling with his baptism. He got in line with those sinners at the Jordan River, not because he needed baptism but to say to the world, “I will become what you are so that you can become what I am. I will become what you are when I let God the Father sweep all your sins into his heavenly dustpan and dump them all on me at the cross. Yet, you will go free and will be declared to be what I am – a faithful child with whom the Father is well pleased.” Now, that’s a blessing if there ever was one!

Baptism is God’s watermark of approval. Just as the watermark on the five-dollar bill assures us that a $5 bill is real money, the watermark of baptism assures us that we have forgiveness and that we really are God’s children. I didn’t make this stuff up about baptism, nor did John the Baptist invent this sacrament of cleansing. God did…to put his mark of approval on us.

There is so much more that baptism means for we United Methodists. I’ve only scratched the surface, but above and beyond all that baptism is, it is a gift of grace to us. We must never forget that fact. Never forget…

Until next time, keep looking up…

A new year beckons us, and as I’ve scanned Facebook posts over the past 24 hours, I’ve noted many posts filled with the hope and promise of the new year–2017. That is appropriately so. One of the joys of the celebrating any new year is the opportunity to “start over,” as if starting over isn’t something a disciple of Christ must do every day. Actually, I’ve found myself starting over multiple times many days, but that’s another story (and also another reason the name of this blog is “Nottheperfectpastor”) for another day.

I began this new year with Paul’s words to the Philippian disciples on my mind–you know those from Chapter 3:

¹² I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me. ¹³ No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, ¹⁴ I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us (Philippians 3: 12-14 NLT).

As I reflect over these words on this first day of 2017, anticipating all that lies ahead, allow me to share three things I can do to make 2017 a fruitful year.

FORGET

I have said numerous times as 2016 drew to a close that I would never be so glad to see a year in the rear-view mirror. Taking a cue from Paul, I could make a list of all the things about 2016 that I’d like to forget. My problem is I’d likely want to forget the wrong things. Some things are best forgotten, and I’m grateful that God has the capacity and the desire to forget my sins, and to forgive them through the blood of Jesus Christ. I’d want to list all the bad circumstances, the losses, the failures and sadness, but I don’t think that’s what Paul had in mind.

Paul (in his notorious fashion) makes a list of those things he would forget as he offered his words to the believers in Philippi. What’s interesting to note is that he lists his achievements! That’s right! Paul listed those things that defined him for so much of his life–his zealousness, his righteousness, his connection to the Pharisees, his Hebrew upbringing, etc. He listed those achievements he had worn as a badge of honor for so much of his life. These were what he wanted to forget.

As I make my “forgetting” list for 2017, I want to forget my successes. I want to remember my failures, not because they depress me, but they remind me of God’s grace through them. They have lessons to teach me, and the lessons I’ve learned through my failures are vastly greater than the lessons I’ve learned through any success (perceived or otherwise). We should never forget the lessons we’ve learned as we’ve run the race of life, and we should never neglect to note the past faithfulness of our God.

Forget, yes, but make sure we forget the right things.

STRETCH

One of the images Paul uses in his words to the Philippians is that of a runner stretching toward the tape at the end of a race. Life is certainly a race, but it is a marathon and not a sprint. We’re in it for the long-haul, and we have to keep growing and keep going as we run the race. What ways can I stretch myself in 2017? Can I develop a new friendship? Can I develop a new spiritual discipline? Can I renew some friendships that have gone by the wayside? Can I begin a new friendship with someone who has a difference religious or political perspective than me? I’ll be challenging myself to stretch myself to become all that God has called me to be, and hopefully to do all Christ has called me to do.

One of the ways I’m going to stretch myself in 2017 is to invite more accountability into my life. It’s so easy for each of us (but especially for pastors) to isolate ourselves, and pretend that we can make it on our own. The reality is we can’t. We need each other, and part of what we need each other for is accountability–at least that’s what I need. That’ll be my stretch. What’ll be yours?

FOCUS

Paul had a goal. He would call it “this one thing.” A good word of advice for this new year is to define your “one thing.” If we know what the goal is, then we can develop strategies to help make THE goal become the reality. I think, too often, I’ve failed because I’ve tried to do too many things and to be too much to too many. Certainly, for those of us who call ourselves disciples of Jesus Christ, the goal is to always be a better disciple, but simply stating that fact leaves the achieving a bit nebulous. Focus is specific. State the goal in the beginning. Write it down. Review it daily.

I can’t define your focus for you. Only you can do that. I can tell you my focus for the year. It’s to be a better spouse. Sure, I need to be a better pastor. My children probably think I need to be a better parent. I know I need to be better engaged in the community, and I’m certain I could be a better follower of Jesus. I want to be all those things, but this year, I’m going to start by being a better spouse. Does it mean all those other things I want to be are not important? Of course not! But, I have to believe that being a better spouse will help me to be better in those places, too. That’s the focus I hear God calling me to in this new year. What about you?

Go for Gold

Here’s the reality–we can’t win the race looking in the rear-view. The race is before us. We only win when we look forward. Here’s to the best year ever. Forget the right things, stretch yourself and focus on the “one thing” that matters most.

Until next time, keep looking up…