No scorpions, no serpents

Genesis 18.20-32 ‘Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak,’

Colossians 2.12-14 ‘God made you alive together with him, having forgiven all trespasses.’

Luke 11.1-13 ‘Ask, and it will be given to you.’

‘Lord, teach us to pray’

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The Lord’s Prayer, the ‘Our Father’, is the model and pattern of all Christian prayer, given to us by Jesus Christ himself.

It is the starting point, and the destination of all prayer.

To have this Gospel reading given to us by the Church today is providential because we are baptising Esther, a new member of the Body of Christ who becomes an adopted child of God, and who can call God her Father, as much as he is mine and yours.

This prayer is the one that Esther, and all Christians must know and use.

The early Christian text known as the ‘Didache’, The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, says we should pray the Lord’s Prayer three times a day – in the morning, at noon and at the close of day.

The Lord’s Prayer is a great gift to teach the new Christian so as to learn to know God's holiness, his will, provision, mercy, and protection: it’s all there.

Christian parents, godparents, catechists and nurturers should all pray the Lord’s Prayer themselves and teach it to the young in faith.

We must all be men and women of prayer to encourage and teach others in prayer.

As the Gospel told us, the disciples needed to be formed in prayer by Jesus.

It was after they had seen Jesus praying and, remembering that John the Baptist’s disciples had seen him pray and been taught how to pray, that they were ready to ask Jesus how to do it: ‘Lord, teach us to pray’.

Now you might ask, how do I teach my child, grandchild, niece, nephew, friend to pray?

Seeing you pray and praying with you are the most effective ways.

That means embedding prayer in your daily life.

In prayer give thanks for the gift of a new day; for the food you eat and meals you share; ask for guidance in how to live; bless God at the close of the day, for your ‘creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life; but above all for thine inestimable love in the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ, for the means of grace, and for the hope of glory’ (Book of Common Prayer: A General Thanksgiving).

So, what is prayer?

Prayer is the way we grow into closer union with our heavenly Father, with Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Prayer draws us into the divine love and presence, which is the goal of the Christian life.

Prayer forms our dependency on God who is the generator of our lives.

And from that deepening communion you can ‘in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.’ (Philippians 4.6)

That’s St Paul’s way of saying that it is not just okay, it is fundamental, to ask things of God in prayer.

Abraham repeatedly asks things of God in our first reading, where he pleads on behalf of the righteous people for all those left in a sinful city.

Yet Jesus warns that we must be careful about what we ask for, as he did to the apostles James and John who asked for prestige in the Kingdom of God: ‘you do not know what you are asking’ he says. (Matthew 20.22)

They want glory, but it will be glory revealed in suffering.

We cannot know what God’s answer will be to our prayer.

We can be sure, though, that we will not be tricked – no scorpions or serpents - even if God gives what we do not expect:

 ‘If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!’ (Luke 11.13)

It may not be what you want, expect or hope for, but God’s answer will be good and beautiful and true.

‘Lord, teach us to pray.’

The disciples ask - and they learn - that prayer is the ability to walk and talk with God in the way that Moses did: ‘Thus the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend.’ (Exodus 33.11)

And we speak to God as a loving, concerned, accepting parent: ‘Our Father, who art in heaven’.

When you pray, pray like this, says Jesus: he is my Father and yours, he is ‘Our Father, who art in heaven’.

Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. (1 Peter 5.6,7)