Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep
July 2010
Luke 11:2-4
I learned to pray at a very young age.
I remember my sister and I laying feet to feet in the twin bed,
And praying with my mom…
“Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep
If I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take.
God Bless…
Momma
Dad
Kari
Gramma and Granpa Miller
Gramma and Granpa Lee…
Even as I got a little older, and my mom stopped tucking us in at nights, I would still pray this prayer. At one point, I was terrified of dead bodies under my bed, so the prayer calmed me. If something was indeed under the bed, and killed me, at least I had covered my bases with God about my soul. It was a good prayer.
My grandmother prayed, too, every night. When we spent the night with her, after she would settle us on the pullout couch, she would go to her bedroom right off the living room, and leave the door cracked. In her nightgown, she would get on her knees and fold her hands and pray the Lord’s Prayer. She didn’t go to church much, but she did pray.
Prayer. Do you pray? What is prayer, anyway?
Do you go to sleep every night after you say your prayers, like I did as a child? Or first thing in the morning? I met someone once who confessed that he said the Lord’s Prayer every day in the shower. It was the time he would remember to pray? Maybe you are one of those people who just manage the days with “Please help me” and “Thank You”.
Excellent prayers.
How do you pray? The disciples were very curious about Jesus’ way of praying. They knew that Jesus, their teacher had a completely different way of knowing G-D than they had been brought up in their synagogue. They noticed that Jesus had this habit of praying—wherever, and whenever
They can’t stand it any more. Teach us to how to pray, Rabbi…teach us. And so, Jesus, tells them how—by giving them words that have become known to us as “The Lord’s Prayer.” Luke’s version is the shortest, but you get the gist.
Now. I learned the Lord’s Prayer, just like many of you, in my childhood, by saying it in church every Sunday. But as I got closer to God, as an adolescent, I didn’t find any meaning in those words—as a prayer, anyway.
I wanted to TALK to God. I had a lot to say.
So, I started to journal my prayers, and I would spill my heart out.
Pages of thoughts, of wonderings, of asking for forgiveness, and to be led into the journey that was God’s will for me. I fell out of habit of praying the Lord’s prayer, as I forged my way through college, and doing youth ministry.
I taught the young people I worked with about prayer—prayer was from the heart, it was talking to God, it was about being in relationship with God. Prayers are not something one recites.
I ignored the Lord’s prayer for years, for the most part.
Imagine my chagrin then, in my first call, where, like here at Eliot, the congregation prayed the Lord’s Prayer at the end of the prayers of the people.
I told my colleague—I can do this, but I can’t call God exclusively father. Nope. I am going to pray, Our Mother and Father in heaven, or pray, Our God in Heaven. I also was NOT going to say “kingdom” either. It was patriarchal, and defined a world where power was hierarchical. Nope, I believed in the KIN-dom of God, where all participate in equal and loving relationships. To his credit, my colleague was fine with that.
Mr. Ken, who was 95 years old, and gave his life to missionary work overseas, was not. This really troubled him. He called my colleague to complain, who told him to talk to me. He did. I listened, and as a fresh out of seminary feminist know it all pastor, I just said, “I respect that you think that Jesus wanted us to call God literally Father, but to me, God is not a Father…and for people who have had abusive relationships with their fathers, or have been oppressed by patriarchy, the word is meaningless. I think it is important to have descriptive language for God, and especially in the Lord’s Prayer, we ought to widen the options.” I suspect, also, that I was a bit smug in my response.
Then, 9.11 happened. In all of its horror and tragedy.
Do you remember, though, the story of Lisa Jefferson, who was a Verizon supervisor, who took a call from one of the passengers on US Airways Flight 93—the one where the passegers tried to take over the plane? The passenger’s name was Todd Beamer. They spoke for a little bit, and then they prayed together—they prayed together The Lord’s Prayer, and Psalm 23.
And everything changed for me.
You see, the Lord’s Prayer meant something to two strangers, that could miraculously say it together, as a source of comfort and strength, before the passengers revolted….
Mrs. Jefferson and Mr. Beamer, recited those words….
Our Father…
Who art in heaven…
Because, for both of them, it was a legacy, something they had learned in church, or from their parents, and in a time of great need, they had words…words imprinted on their minds and hearts
That came to them
In a time of unusual and terrifying need.
And then I got it. Sometimes, we just need words…to mumble…because we might not have words otherwise…or ways to connect with the saving love of God.
I don’t know if Jesus meant that we should only pray the Lord’s prayer…
And I really don’t think he cared if we used the exact words the biblical writers used…
But the prayer embodies so much about the spiritual journey, the closeness to God that Jesus emphasized in his teachings.
What is the point of prayer, then? What good is it?
Jesus says, Ask, and it shall be given. Seek and you will find. Knock, and the door shall be opened to you.
And we pray…for ourselves, for others. But rarely, if you have noticed, are people cured. We all lament at Angela’s cancer, and her heroic battle with it. But she hasn’t of yet, been cured. Prayer doesn’t cure mental illness, or even a common cold. (Sarah Miles, Jesus Freak) We ask questions, like, “why did I get cancer?” “why did God do this to me?” He is such a great person, why did this happen? Doesn’t God hear our prayers? Why doesn’t God answer them?
Sara Miles, author and director of The Food Pantry and Ministry at St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church in San Francisco, argues that prayer is not about a “cure”, but about healing. She writes:
Prayer can’t cure. All prayer can do is heal, because healing comes embedded in relationship, and prayer is one of the deepest forms of relationship—with God and with other people. And through relationship, there can be healing in the absence of cure.
This is the work that Jesus gives his followers. It isn’t about turning ordinary humans into miracle workers who say magic words over a sufferer and restore the sick to perfect health. The power and the responsibility Jesus gives all of us are more frightening. We are, he says, to know the truth, and from that ground enter into new relationships of healing….
And real healing, means, more than anything, follow in the truth: and thus a call to change and conversion.” (ibid)
Miles reminds us that Jesus always asks the desperate people, “Do you want to be well”…because healing can hurt. It sometimes means separation from your old identity into something new—do you want to be well more than you want to stay the same?”
These are hard questions…
And thus we pray…
By asking, seeking, and knocking….
Not for cures and fixes,
But for healing.
Not for fixing…
But asking God, your Abba, your Amma, the one who knows you inside out,
To change you,
To become closer to who you are created to be.
So really, the Lord’s prayer….and even my childhood prayer, are dangerous, aren’t they?
They shouldn’t be treated flippantly, or something that we just say because that’s what we do.
They are real…
They draw us into relationship,
Into seeing Jesus in each other, and in ourselves, especially when it is the most inconvenient or hard.
Does prayer work? Is there a point?
Only if we are serious….
And ready…
For miracles of healing that will surprise and scare and lead us,
At the same time.
If you dare,
I invite you to pray slowly with me now, in your hearts, as I pray the Lord’s Prayer….
Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins
as we forgive those who sin against us.
Save us from the time of trial
and deliver us from evil.
[For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours
now and for ever.] Amen.
