Seventh Sunday after Pentecost July 27, 2025
On the road to Jerusalem, having visited the home of Martha and Mary, Jesus and the disciples stopped to rest. In the Gospel of John, chapter 11, we are told that the two sisters lived with their brother Lazarus in Bethany, a village about two miles east of Jerusalem.
No doubt tired and feeling drained, Jesus needed a break. He needed some quiet time – time apart from the many people and demands he was meeting along the way – and time, time to pray!
As the writer of the Gospel according to Luke tells it: “Jesus was praying in a certain place.” Luke 11:1
No indication of where that ‘place’ might be. Having left Bethany, they stopped somewhere within a day’s journey of Jerusalem – a place probably off the main road where they could be relatively on their own for a while.
Now, Luke doesn’t say whether the disciples were seated close-at-hand, within earshot, quietly talking and trying to make sense (as you and I would probably do!), trying to make sense of what had happened, where they might go next and what they and Jesus might encounter in the days ahead.
Perhaps they gathered at a separate and respectful distance from Jesus to give him some space and some quiet time alone. What Luke does say: “after [Jesus] finished” praying, one of the disciples quickly stepped forward with a question. Was it Peter? Peter, the one disciple who speaks up, often it seems without much forethought.
Was it one of the two brothers, James or John? Those other disciples whose voices are also heard in the gospel stories speaking up on behalf of the twelve. The disciple asked Jesus: “Lord, teach us to pray as John [the Baptist],” like all good teachers and rabbis, “taught his disciples.” Luke 11:1
Jesus quickly answered with a prayer, a prayer short on words and phrases, yet broad in the territory it embraces.
What we call ‘the Lord’s Prayer’ has remained at the heart of Christian life and community for two thousand years.
The Our Father is found in the writings of the earliest Church fathers. It is found in the Didache (a document attributed to second century Church fathers). It is in the form we find in Matthew with the addition of a doxology: ‘for yours is the power and the glory unto the ages.’ It is the same doxology found today in the liturgies of the eastern Orthodox Churches.
The Our Father is the one constant and reliable prayer we all fall back upon when our own words fail us. It is the prayer said by many at the start of the day. For many, it marks the end of the day, said before the light is put out and you climb into bed – or, if you are like me, more often said once in bed!
The Lord’s Prayer is the ‘go to’ prayer for most Christians. We reach for it in times of personal distress – when we are faced with an emergency, or an impending personal trial. Or, at other, happier moments, when all is calm within us, or something good and wonderful happens and the desire to pray surprisingly bubbles up.
We fall back on the Lord’s Prayer when we are put on the spot. Asked to say a prayer at a family celebration? A wedding, a birthday or an anniversary dinner for example. And we just don’t know where to start…? Well, the Our Father is a good beginning!
When you and I are at a loss for words, we can always rely on the Lord’s Prayer to carry us through. And, of course, the Our Father is fittingly prayed at every Mass following the Great Thanksgiving, or Canon.
The language and the flow of the words are familiar and comforting – ‘comforting’ in the sense of both reassuring and strengthening: “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name…” It’s like the comfort of a parent’s voice to a hurting child.
Now, there are not one, but two versions of the Lord’s Prayer found in only two of the four Gospels. One is Luke, chapter 11 (which we have read this morning). The other version is found in the Sermon on the Mount as told by Matthew.
Not really ‘a sermon, it gathers together Jesus’ teachings and stretches from Matthew chapter five through chapter seven. (If you search for it, it is found in Matthew 6:9-13.) Interestingly, in Matthew, the Lord’s Prayer follows a section in the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus is speaking about the place and importance of prayer – just where you might expect to find it!
Matthew’s version has some phrases which aren’t present in Luke’s which is shorter. Matthew’s is the version we are most familiar with. There is some controversy among students of the bible over the words and how best to translate them. For example: are we forgiven our ‘sins’ or are we forgiven our ‘debts?’
Actually, ‘debts’ is the word much truer to the original word used by Jesus. ‘Debts’ in terms of what we owe each other apart from either our actions, or the actions of other people. We owe every human being: respect, dignity, care and concern – not because we might like or choose to do so. Because it is our duty one to another. As the great Summary of the Law reminded us at the beginning of today’s Mass!
Where and how does the Lord’s Prayer end?
2
In Matthew, the prayer ends with: “lead us not into temptation,” and “deliver us from evil.” In Luke, the prayer ends with the phrase, “do not bring us to the time of trial.”
I remember a Lenten study about the Lord’s Prayer when a member of the group spoke up. “There’s a misprint in the bible! What about ‘the kingdom, the power and the glory…!’” The ‘doxology’ has been attached to Jesus’ words for so long that we are surprised when we don’t find it included in scripture.
Now, all four gospels make it clear that prayer is vitally important to Jesus. For Jesus, prayer was but a breath away…and something he could move into with little effort – unlike ourselves, who stumble around trying to find the ‘right words.’
As the gospel writers tell his story, Jesus prays…and prays many times, in a variety of situations! He calls the disciples (and the crowds!) to prayer…and examples of prayers pepper the gospel stories.
In Luke’s gospel alone, Jesus is said to be at prayer at his baptism; he appears deep in prayer during the forty days and forty nights he wandered the Judean wilderness; praying before he called his twelve disciples to leave their daily chores and to follow him; praying before he tells the disciples about his passion and what awaits him when they arrive in Jerusalem.
Jesus is at prayer at the Transfiguration on the mountain; and he is praying on the Mount of Olives as Judas, with the priests and the soldiers come to arrest him. And he prays while dying on the cross.
Prayer is important to Jesus…and a necessary part of life.
As well as describing Jesus at prayer, Luke also included several stories where prayer is front-and-centre and not far from what is going on – for example right here, in the section of his gospel the readings are taken from these Sundays after Pentecost.
Now, faithful Jews expected all rabbis and teachers of the Law to teach their students how to pray in addition to teaching them about the commandments and the prophets. John Baptist, a zealot convinced God’s kingdom was come, would have taught his followers about prayer and how to pray. Jesus’ disciples, as students of God’s kingdom, naturally asked him to teach them about prayer and how to pray.
But prayer is difficult for us, something one learns – learns through experience, by trying to pray, by falling away from prayer, by taking a stab at prayer once again, many times over – by failing at it (we feel and judge) and by persevering (by grace) even when feeling we will never get it right.
There are two things prayer is definitely not! Prayer is not mysterious! And prayer is definitely not otherworldly!
3
Prayer, true prayer, is not disconnected from this world and our fraught, yet wonderful experience and lives in it.
We forget so often that prayer is rooted – not ‘out there’ in the nether-nether world – but rooted in our lives, in the rough and tumble of daily living, in the push and pull of our competing emotions and wants and desires, in our behaviour – in what we regret and find embarrassing. And in what we take pride in having accomplished and achieved.
Prayer is rooted in the centre of who we are. Prayer is down-to-earth. It is a conversation!
And, if prayer is conversation (a conversation with God) then, like all communication, it needs words (a vocabulary) and a structure (a grammar) – some might say: ‘a formula.’ Nothing fancy or complicated is required.
Prayer is as down-to-earth and as easy-to-understand as the sayings following the Our Father in Luke, chapter 11.
Sayings touched with a little honest humour and irony once you strip away the unnecessary religiosity we can coat them with. I can picture a smile on our Lord’s face as he said them!
Prayer, conversation with God, is as real as any heart-felt discussion we might have with a friend about what is bothering us and them at any time.
What helps us enter the conversation with God is really a simple guide to ordering our thoughts and emotions. Without ‘intention’ and without ‘attention,’ prayer can end up like many a conversation – going nowhere, leaving the speakers no closer to each other and understanding each other no better than when the conversation began.
The Our Father is Jesus’ answer to a disciple’s request to be given a formula, a guide, a method for praying. In the Lord’s prayer, Jesus is teaching a way to pray, and what to pray for…more than the proper and correct words to use.
The Our Father is essentially and primarily a form to be said by the community and not a private prayer – although in practice it has become both.
It begins by praising God. So, prayer, the conversation with God, starts with God, with calling upon God and recalling God’s holiness and glory…and his will for us and his creation. Three petitions follow.
The first: “Give us today our daily bread.” Day by day pray, Jesus says, to receive enough to sustain and keep our lives…nothing more and nothing less! “Daily bread” embraces every aspect of our lives…for every good thing ultimately comes from God.
4
The second: “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.” Pray, Jesus says, for our sins to fall away and be blotted out forever while we forgive others the debts they owe us…and dismiss the wrongs done to us from memory.
The last petition: “Save us from the time of trial, and deliver us from evil.” Pray, Jesus says, to not fall away from God when testing comes our way that even on the final day, when the kingdom comes, God will save us and keep us safe from all that strives and works against God and his love, all that can separate us from our Creator and Redeemer.
When I began, I said that prayer is short on words, yet broad in the territory it embraces.
The Lord’s prayer embraces the kingdom of God. And the kingdom’s sign and reality is forgiveness and healing…and the setting aright of all God’s creation.
Forgiveness and healing is the common currency of the kingdom of God: the signs of grace, God’s grace and mercy.
The Our Father makes room for everything in the conversation with God!
Like all good and fruitful conversations, the conversation with God has no boundaries – for everything is worthy of prayer.
Finally, in the Our Father, Jesus teaches his disciples to pray boldly…to pray with courage…and to pray with expectation!
“So I say to you,” says our Lord, “ask and it will be given you; search and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened.” Luke 11:9
Amen.
Fr Ted Hale