Username and Password!

Text::  St. Luke 11:1-13

Theme:  "Username and Password!"

10th Sunday after Pentecost

July 28, 2013

FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

Denton, Texas

Rev. Paul R. Dunklau

 

+In the Name of Jesus+

 

One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.”

² He said to them, “When you pray, say:

“‘Father,^[a]
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come.^[b]
3 Give us each day our daily bread.
⁴ Forgive us our sins,
    for we also forgive everyone who sins against us.^[c]
And lead us not into temptation.^[d]’”

⁵ Then Jesus said to them, “Suppose you have a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; ⁶ a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have no food to offer him.’ ⁷ And suppose the one inside answers, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is already locked, and my children and I are in bed. I can’t get up and give you anything.’ ⁸ I tell you, even though he will not get up and give you the bread because of friendship, yet because of your shameless audacity^[e] he will surely get up and give you as much as you need.

⁹ “So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. ¹⁰ For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.

¹¹ “Which of you fathers, if your son asks for^[f] a fish, will give him a snake instead? ¹² Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? ¹³ If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

Today's message is about access. It's something we either have or don't have.  Take financial access, for instance.  No doubt, some of you here this morning use cash, and that's fine.  But some of you -- maybe quite a few of you -- use a debit card when you purchase something.  In order to access that debit card, the business needs something from you called your P.I.N. or "Personal Identification Number". 

 

Another example:  in these high tech days, many of us maintain memberships and subscriptions or what have you online.  Organizations with members may have an internet site that can be visited, as they say, by anyone.  But if you're a member, and you want to get information only for members, it will require you to have a username and a password.  How many of you have ever forgotten a username and/or a password?  There are even links to help you recover your username or password or come up with new ones.  It seems everything requires a username or password anymore.  There are even iPad and smartphone applications designed to help you keep track of all your usernames and passwords.  It can get very confusing -- especially with these passwords.  They want you to include a lower-case letter, an uppercase letter, a number, and some symbol or character.  You punch in your choice and then confirm it.  The website sometimes will tell you how safe it is.  You don't want to get hacked, do you?  You don't want to become the vicitim of identity theft.  You want safe access that no one else will have access to. 

 

Or how about hotel rooms?  In the good old days, you'd get a key at the front desk.  Nowadays, you get something resembling a credit card. It has a magnetic strip with a random code on it that links up with the lock on the door.  A little push into the lock and -- voila' -- you gain access into the privacy of your own room -- except, though, if that key card has been de-magnetized by, say, another credit card in your purse or wallet.  Then you have to access the front desk to get another card to access your room. Like I said, it's all about access.  And I haven't even began to speak about fingerprint access or hand access -- or the embedded microchip.

 

In Luke chapter 11, one of the disciples noticed that Jesus Christ Himself had access, and the disciple wanted some of that access for himself.  I'm speaking of that unique kind of access that we Christians call prayer.  He observed that Jesus was praying in a certain place.  In short, through prayer, Jesus had access to God. Any place was a certain place for Jesus to pray.  He prayed on mountaintops and on beaches.  He prayed briefly; it even says He prayed all night on occasion.  Martin Luther, who learned to pray the Jesus way and had access to God through prayer, once remarked:  "I have so much to do today I'll have to begin with at least three hours in prayer!"  That may be a bit of exaggeration for effect, but not by much.

 

Prayer, truth be told for most of us, is something we squeeze in to our day -- if we do it at all.  Of course we pray on Sunday morning; prayer is an act of worship.  But that act of worship is often conspicuously missing from daily worship, from Monday through Saturday.  We have a really good, solid, well-rehearsed hand full of excuses for this.  For starters, we tell ourselves we don't really know how to pray, so we leave that to professionals like the pastors.   Or we're embarrassed about prayer -- especially in public; people might think we're a religious wing-nut or something.   Or, getting brutally honest,  we're really not sure that prayer works.  We're not sure that government works to our benefit (they tax us) or business works to our benefit (they cheat us).  What makes us think that prayer is going to do us any better?   It seems the answers come more slowly; the results take longer.  We've been domesticated into thinking that everything we need has to be instant.  We've become grown-up versions of those two to three to four year olds who want what they want when they want it -- and that's usually right now! In short, we want reasonably speedy access to our needs being met -- and sometimes some of our wants. 

 

Did Jesus have that kind of access?  Did He get his needs met?  There must have been something to that personal praying that He was doing all the time.  What kind of access did He have? Was He the only one that had it?  To put it in modern terms, was he a member?  Was He a subscriber?  Did he have a username and password to gain Him access and get him connected?  Was there some flow of information back and forth that only He was privy to? Apparently, he was on the email distribution list.   Just this past week, I heard about an individual who goes into what he or she calls a "prayer closet" in his/her home.  Apparently, this person gets messages from God, through prayer,  and then relays them to his/her spouse.  The spouse then sends out these messages through email to a list of friends. Wow, this person must have a "Username and Password" that I'm not familiar with.  I'm certainly not on the email distribution list.  And do you know what?  I don't want to be. 

 

Who knows what was going through the mind of that disciple when he asked Jesus to teach a lesson on prayer?  Actually, we do know.  He observed that John the Baptist taught his followers to pray.  All things being equal and in the interest of everything being fair, we want our lesson too.  Obviously, prayer isn't just for the experts or the super-religious.  So kudos to this disciple; he makes a solid request. 

 

Folks, I've seen about all of it when it comes to prayer.  I've watched people bow their heads at Burger King. I've seen a man in a locker room at the gym praying over a banana he was about to eat.  I've seen folks hold hands.  At a hospital once, I found myself with a company of Pentecostalist motorcycle riders who spoke in tongues.  I've heard people use flowery language with prayer.  I've heard lengthy prayers that seem more like sermons or like infomercials for the church.  Some of the best I've heard were short.  Some prayers I've heard draw more attention to the person praying than to the God they purport to pray to.  To carry the analogy through, there appear to be all kinds of usernames and passwords employed to gain access to God.  But appearances can be deceiving.

 

One thing's for sure:  we're not born with a prayer on our lips.  In other words, it's something that needs to be taught.  And if it's taught, then it must be practiced.  Only then will it become a habit -- a regular part of our day and, dare I say, part of our spiritual DNA.    We don't come into this world knowing how to tie our shoes; eventually we must learn how to lace them up and make that bow. 

 

Is this practical stuff?  You bet it is, and Jesus does not disappoint.  He doesn't hand out a tract and then tell you to read it and get back with Him some other time.   He doesn't invite the disciple to take his hand, bow his head, and listen to him as he rattles off some tearful, rehearsed, choreographed "Sinner's Prayer".  He doesn't hand out an autographed book at the Jerusalem Barnes and Noble called "The Prayer-Driven Life" that his literary agent hopes will hit the New York Times best-seller list.  He doesn't hand out a bumper sticker that says "Prayer Works", or "Prayer Changes Things", or "When All Else Fails, Try A Prayer".  And He doesn't ask if the disciple has a username and password.

 

Instead, He answers:  "When you pray, say this: 

 

“‘Father,^[a]
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come.^[b]
3 Give us each day our daily bread.
⁴ Forgive us our sins,
    for we also forgive everyone who sins against us.^[c]
And lead us not into temptation.^[d]’”

Then Jesus tells us a story along these lines: You've got a need; you've got a friend who can meet that need.   You ask for the need to be met.  The friend kind of balks at your request.  "It's the middle of the night; I'm asleep, for crying out loud."  But in the end you get what you need from that dear friend because of what Jesus called, in our text, your "shameless audacity." 

 

There's something I could use a little bit more of in my prayers:  shameless audacity.  In so many areas of my life, I don't have simply because I don't ask.  I don't bother to ask because I'm going to sound needy. I don't ask because I may come off sounding self-centered -- on it goes.  But if God is your best friend in the middle of your long night of need, then, for crying out loud, ask; ask with "shameless audacity."  It doesn't require a username or a passcode.  You don't have to be some sort super or hyper-Christian.

 

Ask!  Seek! Knock! You'll get your answer; you'll find what you're looking for; the door will open.  It may not be exactly be that tailor-made answers you're looking for, because your heavenly friend might have something better in mind.  But by all means ask, seek, and knock -- with shameless audacity. 

 

You don't need a username or passcode.  Because of Jesus, who died and rose for you, you have access.  You are a disciple, a follower, a child of God.  So ask -- ask with shameless audacity.  God, your heavenly parent, is going to give you fish and eggs ( to use the language of Jesus) and not snakes and scorpions.  Good parents don't give their kids snakes and scorpions.  They give them fish and eggs!

 

And you get the Holy Spirit thrown in as a gift as well!

 

I hope this message has been of some help to you.  The more I studied the text, the more it helped me.  Nevertheless, even in being aware of all this, you may still feel pretty weak when it comes to prayer.  You may feel as though the cables are broken and the lines of communication cut.  Your access seems non-existent.

 

I close with good news for you, too.  St. Paul writes to the Romans: 

 

 

The Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.  And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.

 

Folks, it's nice when we share our joys and concerns; it's great when others pray for us.  But this is different.  This is the Spirit of Jesus Christ praying for us too. Don't grade your prayer life. Celebrate your access.  Go at it with shameless audacity knowing that you are loved!

 

Amen.