Sunday Service 30th August
- 3 hours ago
- 9 min read
Our Dad
30/8/26
Call to worship
Hymn 156(JP): Lord Jesus Christ
Time for all Liz
Hymn 160(JP): Majesty (x2)
Dedication of Offering
Reading: Luke 11: 1-13 Anne
Prayer (The Lord’s Prayer will be on the screen)
Hymn 268: O God of Bethel
Sermon
Prayer
Hymn 547: What a friend we have in Jesus
Benediction
Welcome to our meditation for 30th August.
Words are important, and the version of words we use is even more important.
Is someone an acquaintance, a friend or a pal? They all mean roughly the same thing...and yet their meaning to us, and their significance to us, are very different.
As we will see in our reading today from Anne
Prayer of Dedication of Offering
Heavenly Father,
We reflect on what we do give you. We reflect on the time we spent with you this week.
We reflect on the work we did for you this week.
And we reflect on all that you have given us in support, health and fellowship.
May our thanksgivings be reflected in all our offerings.
Amen
Sermon
In personal conversations I have told the story of Roseanna appearing with a cross stitch and it was the biggest cross stitch I had ever seen; four foot by three foot, roughly the size of a car windscreen.
And I looked at this and she said, ‘I want this to be for our new house. And you have plenty of time to do it because we are not moving for another three years.’
And I said, ’But it is huge. It might take three years to finish.’
To which she replied, ‘You have the time then.’
If anyone else had given me that cross stitch and asked me to do it I would have said NO.
And it would have been a very emphatic NO. I wouldn’t have the time the effort or the enthusiasm to do it.
So why did I do it?
Relationship.
That unique relationship I have with Roseanna.
That every night I have to sleep in the same room as her and in the same house is lots of kitchen knives.
That is not a very good combination.
I am only kidding.
Though only partly...
It is that relationship that in the end made the decision that I would have a go at it.
That is the same in our parable today.
That is the point that Jesus is making; though we might miss it because our world is very different from the world of the parable.
In our world when we read this story...this is the way we imagine it.
Someone has come to our house unexpectedly late at night and we don’t have any food. We go to our neighbour and they are asleep and we have woken them up.
‘Go away; they say.
But we keep on knocking and knocking until they answer the door and give you food.
And they give you food, not because they care anything about you. They give you food so that you will just go away.
So we read that into our passage on prayer and the idea we get is that Jesus is saying, ‘Keep praying. Pray all the time, because eventually God will answer your prayer, not because he particularly cares, but because you have been so persistent that he wants you to go away.’
The scary thing is...even though we come to that conclusion we kind of know it has to be wrong.
We just can’t work out where it is wrong.
We hope it is wrong because we really hope that that is not the way God looks at us, as some inconvenience that is just annoying and the first time he can dump us he will.
We hope it’s wrong because it kind of makes us selfish brats as well; who are only in the relationship for when we are in trouble.
So the thing we need to remember is that this parable is not set in an individualistic society like our own where you may not even know your neighbour, you may not have talked to your neighbour in months.
This parable is set in a society where you see your neighbour every day.
You work with your neighbour.
Your children play every day with each other.
You go to the synagogue every week with them.
Your parents, who are probably sleeping on the floor next to you, have been friends with their parents for over forty years.
Your lives have been intertwined for generations.
That friend arrives at your house late on at night and you don’t have any food to feed them.
The sun has set, the place is dark, you go to the neighbours and you know the situation there.
Everyone, and I mean everyone, is in the one room sleeping on the floor.
You knock their door and you know they will be asleep, because it is dark and everyone goes to bed when it is dark.
But you need food, so you knock the door and a voice says, ‘Go away, we are all sleeping.’
You know that will always be the first response.
But you plead your case.
And the man of the house comes to the door and gives you food.
And the question is why?
That is the point Jesus is getting to.
When that person gets up to give you food it is not, deep down, because you have forced him to get up and he just wants to get rid of you.
Now all those feelings may be going through their head when they answer the door...
but deep down...he answers because he is your friend, and he wants to be your friend tomorrow, and he wants to be your friend in the future, and he knows that if the situation was reversed, that you would answer the door to him and give him food..
It is because of that relationship he answers the door.
That is the point Jesus is getting at.
And the reason Jesus is making that point is because the disciples have been asking about prayer.
And the reason the disciples have been asking about prayer is not because they care about prayer.
The reason the disciples have come to Jesus is because they are struggling.
Remember over the last few weeks Jesus has been confronting them about all kinds of things.
But the main thing is about their idea of happiness.
They have felt their happiness came with being close to power Jesus was manifesting in his healing and teaching.
Power gave influence,
influence gave control,
control gave security,
security gave contentment
and contentment happiness.
So as they move closer to Jerusalem and the potential conflict of Jesus’ power with the political and religious power there...there is one truth...one of those powers would win.
They believed Jesus’ would and then there would be an empire to run.
The higher the job in that empire, the more power, influence, wealth, security...happiness there was to get.
And in response to this Jesus put a child into the middle of them and said, ‘This child has more happiness than you.
Why do you think that is?
The child has less of everything you have, but is happier than you are. Why?
Because his security is in his parents, not in himself and what he can do.
And unless you come to God like this child, you will never find that happiness.’
Now weeks later they are still trying to work that out in their head.
And the more they look at Jesus and see how content he is, the more it doesn’t make sense...because he isn’t striving for all the things that they think would make him happy.
Jesus doesn’t have any money and doesn’t seem to be concerned that he hasn’t any money.
Jesus doesn’t seem to be striving for more power, in fact every time the crowds want to declare him to be king he disappears.
He isn’t even putting conditions on his healings. He just does them and doesn’t ask for anything in return.
He just keeps on talking about his Fathers kingdom.
And eventually they give up.
Jesus has a life they want to have, but they don’t know how to get it.
Jesus has a relationship with God that is so attractive, so enticing, as if he knows everything will be well no matter what happens...because God is with him no matter what happens.
And a big part of that seems to be prayer.
But not the prayer they already do. They have been taught how to pray since they could speak; learnt so many prayers off by heart. But Jesus prayers are different.
So they ask Jesus how to pray.
And Jesus says, ‘It is not the prayers that are different, it is the attitude.
But if you want an example...here is one.
Dad, ...’
You see the irony of this passage is that the translators thought that the word for father was too informal; too childish...in Hebrew it would be closer to DADA. And we all know you should always show respect to God, so they changed it to FATHER.
But with that came all the images of someone who should be obeyed, someone who controls you, someone who dominates over you.
Now God should be obeyed, God is always dominant over us, God should always be in control of our life...but the word changes the context...
It is like the parable we looked at earlier...the context is everything.
Just as there is a big difference between the neighbour...
answering our door because we are banging away and forcing him to answer...
and him coming as a friend to help us.
The difference being the next day the first neighbour hates us, despises us and wants nothing to do with us
and the second neighbour wants to know how our friends and we are doing and if there is anything else he can do to help.
So there is a difference
if our relationship is to a dominant Father who we are scared to offend, who may help us but we know there is going to be a cost later on, and as soon as he can punish us he will...
and a dad who is helping us because he loves us and cares for us and in the end wants the very best for us...
a dad who wants to guide us and encourage us and warn us.
I know the future seems a bit scary just now.
We will be changing our worship time...and although that isn’t such a big thing, it feels like it is; that times are changing and we don’t know in what other ways they will change. Our help here is that Jesus is talking disciples who are facing great change as well. So what he says to them is relevant to us.
The truth that Jesus wanted the disciples to understand, and I think us too, is that our fears are never taken away by what is happening in the environment round us...we can never create a world which is so safe that we feel safe.
The only way we will find that contentment, that peace,
is in a relationship with God, and understanding that relationship...
trusting that that relationship is of deep love and care.
Like a loving father that loves their child.
Like a neighbour who has lived his life with his friend and his family beside him, and would even get up in the middle of the night to help him...not because he has a nagging need, but because he is a friend.
Let us pray
Abba...dad in heaven.
That bond of love that you had with your son was so close, so intimate, so trusting and loving.
We would long for that.
Though in truth we probably didn’t feel it was appropriate.
You are God after all, creator of the universe.
But also the one who gave us all those laws and commandments.
Sure it was for our own good, they were meant to be a guidance to help our lives in a way that brought us closer to other people.
But we didn’t look at them that way, and most of the time we still don’t.
We kind of look at the rules as a test.
The more rules we obey the better we are, the more rules we break the worse sinners we are.
We think it helps us, following those rules, it gives us the false impression that we are doing OK, well better than all those others breaking the rules.
But it doesn’t give us peace.
We still feel there should be more, that we are missing something.
May it is the trust we lack.
Deep down we are waiting for you to punish us for the rules we do break.
Deep down we are waiting for you to be ashamed of us for the indifference we often show.
Deep down we are waiting for you to criticize us for the hurt we have caused others.
We are like an infant who is unsure of their father’s response and is terrified that you are angry at them.
So treat us like an infant, reassure us that you are still our loving God, and that we are still your beloved child.
May that change our hearts so that we are full of hope and joy and longing to be the child you want us to be.
May we want to strive to show your love to others,
confident of your never-ending love for us...and them.
Amen.
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