"When all the people were being baptized, Jesus was baptized too. And as he was praying, heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: 'You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.' "

 

         I have been reading Lauren Winner's book about her coming to faith in Jesus Christ, "Girl Meets God." She talks about an experience that taught her to pray. One year just before Lent, she talked to the priest at her Episcopal church about what she might give up during that season. She was all set to fast once a week, and was surprised when he asked her to give up reading for Lent. Reading was her life. She was a graduate student in history, and in addition to reading all day in her studies, she writes that when the work of the day was over, she would read novels. Being new to the church, she especially enjoyed the books in the Mitford series by Jan Karon, which describe small-town life in North Carolina, and whose central character is an Episcopal pastor. So this is what she gives up for Lent, her reading for enjoyment.

         This is what she says of her Lenten reading fast: "At first I pray more because I have time on my hands. The Saturday after my decision, I was at home. I had finished my work and gone to dinner with a friend. Then I had come back to my apartment, listened to some music, taken a bath, brewed a cup of tea, made a phone call, and generally felt aimless. I had nothing else to do. So I prayed. And I have prayed every night since. I don't have anything else to do. But I also find myself praying more because I don't have my usual distractions. When I am stuck in a puddle of sadness and mistakes, I cannot take them to Mitford. I have to take them to God. I began to suspect that my pastor wanted me to give up reading because that might move me closer to Jesus. It might move me to my knees."

         When Jesus was baptized, Luke tells us that he began to pray. Why would Jesus pray? As we continue to read in Luke, we discover that something very significant begins at the baptism of Jesus. Immediately he is tempted by the devil. Then he is rejected in his hometown of Nazareth -- in fact, they try to throw him off a cliff. Then a demon confronts him. After that he finds Peter's mother-in-law with a high fever, and then the crowds won't let him alone.

         I suppose Luke intends us to see that, for that kind of life, Jesus would need to pray. Luke does not tell us what Jesus prayed for. But he does tell us what God gave to him:

• Heaven was opened
• The Holy Spirit descended upon him
• The Word of God came to him and spoke his identity, and expressed God's love, and affirmed Jesus as the beloved son. 

This is a model for our praying.

• We pray that heaven may be opened to us: that is, we pray for God's blessing in our lives. We pray to be able to live by faith.
• We pray to receive the Holy Spirit: that is, we pray for the comfort, guidance and strength of the Spirit in our lives.
• We pray asking to hear a word from God: that is, we desire to know our identity in Christ, to hear of the love of God for us, and to be affirmed when we may feel insecure or fearful or filled with failure. If we know who we are in God, and if we know God loves us, then we can face the temptations and struggles and griefs of our lives.

But there are obstacles to prayer. What is it that keeps us from praying in the model Jesus gives us?

Lauren Winner writes, "I have a hard time praying. It feels, usually, like a waste of time. It feels unproductive; my time would be better spent writing a paragraph or reading a book or practicing a conjugation or baking a pie. Sometimes prayer is boring. Sometimes it feels silly (after all, you look like you're just sitting there talking to the air, or to yourself, and maybe you are.)" Maybe you feel that way too sometimes.

         You see, we live in a secular age that tells us continually and in a thousand ways that God is not there to listen to our prayers. It also demands that we must go faster and faster to keep up, to be successful. And so we find ourselves going 200 miles an hour, but as my cousin told me in reflecting on his work for a large corporation, "People are rewarded for going 200 miles per hour, but they are going in a circle, and the circle is moving forward at only 15 miles per hour." That is what our age demands of us, but it is hard to pray when you are going 200 miles per hour in a circle.

         So Jesus teaches us to pray. But notice that in the Gospels Jesus does not give instructions on praying, in the sense of a comprehensive "how to" lesson. Mostly Jesus just prays, he teaches us by his example.

         I remember when my boys were young I felt an expectation that I should teach them how to play basketball. But whenever I would try to do that it would not go so well. I would get frustrated and they would get bored. So I stopped trying to instruct and simply invited them to go shoot baskets with me. And they liked that. We spent a lot of time just playing together at the hoop outside our house.

         Maybe Jesus just invites us to pray with him. Maybe he does not give a long lecture about the types of prayer or the proper words in prayer, but rather he prays and he invites us to join him.

         Luke mentions that Jesus prayed often. Sometimes he goes to a lonely place and sometimes he prays through the night. But it is a habit for him.

• Jesus prayed before important events, like choosing the disciples or before the Transfiguration.
• Jesus also prayed after significant miracles, like the feeding of the 5000. That is interesting to me. I wonder if praying after miracles kept him from temptation, from turning stones to bread.
• Jesus prayed for Peter before he went to the cross.
• Jesus also prayed when he was on the cross.

         In Acts we see that in the early church prayer was habitual, expectant and responsive. The church had a habit of praying together. I think praying with others is very helpful. I used to meet with a group at 7 a.m. each Tuesday morning and we would pray together for an hour. We would not study the Bible or talk about our requests. We would just pray for an hour, and in our praying we would sing, even though none of us could sing particularly well. And then we would go eat pancakes at a little greasy spoon. That was good for me. The early church got together often and prayed.

         The praying of the early church was expectant prayer. They always seemed to think that something would happen as a result of their praying.

         They saw it always as leading up to the work of God. They did not see prayer as a way to successful living. They saw it rather as a way to form their hearts to do God's will. You pray expectantly and then you find yourself living in ways not of your own choosing.

         Finally, the church prayed responsively, that is, they were quick to lay hands on one another and pray for healing or for commissioning. Their first response to need and to opportunity was to gather around a person and pray. They did not see prayer as a solitary experience. They saw it as relational. We too can pray with each other. We can be quick to respond in prayer with a person when we hear a need expressed or an opportunity presented.

         Come, Jesus invites us now to meet with him, to pray with him and to receive his grace.

         Amen.