Me? Of Course I’m Righteous!

October 26, 2025

Luke 18:9-14

            In today’s story we are given yet another golden opportunity to bash a Pharisee.  Jesus tells a parable about prayer and… surprise!  The bad example in the parable is another Pharisee.  But I think that we should be careful about making generalizations.  Acts 15:5 tells us that, at the First Council of Jerusalem, there were “believers who were of the party of the Pharisees”, and so clearly there were Pharisees who became devout followers of Jesus, and in fact, leaders of the early Christian community.  The Gospels also tell us about a few Pharisees who were secretly followers of Jesus during His ministry.  Those of us who are watching The Chosen have seen this in the characters of Nicodemus, Jairus, and Yuseff.  (And by the way, for my fellow The Chosen fans, the name Yuseff in English is Joseph and there is speculation among the on-line The Chosen community that Yuseff is actually Joseph of Arimathea.)

            One of the commentaries that I read this week stated that, in the Gospels, the Pharisees often come across as the “moustache twirling bad guys”.  And since our understanding of the Pharisees is mostly limited to what we read in the Gospels, it’s not surprising that we WOULD view them as the bad guys, but I think that it is important for us to have a somewhat more charitable view towards the Pharisees, and the reason that I believe that is because, if we dismiss the Pharisees as the unrepentantly self-important, inflexible, and arrogant people that the gospels appear to make them, we lose the ability to see ourselves in them  And we need that ability in order to be able to learn the lessons that Jesus seeks to teach in these parables.

            So, let’s talk about the upside of the Pharisees for just a moment.  The Pharisees were extremely faithful, they were deeply concerned about the purity of their faith, they were committed to teaching the Law and to guarding against false teaching, and they zealously advocated for righteous living.  And these are all good things.  And so, if we look at them in this light, it’s a lot harder to think of them as being the bad guys.  In fact, understanding that they aren’t the bad guys can go a long way towards having us not view them as caricatures, as the perennial poor example in everything, but rather see them as the real people that they were… trying, and sometimes failing, to live their faith.  And that is something that should sound familiar to us all.

            In today’s parable, a Pharisee positions himself prominently and conspicuously in the middle of the temple.  In the traditional Jewish posture for prayer he would have raised his arms and looked to heaven to pray.  And though his prayer began by addressing God, the rest of his prayer was fixed entirely upon himself.  He thanked God that he was not like the robbers or the evildoers, or the adulterers… and then he singled out the tax collector who was also there to pray.  Thank God I’m not like HIM, the Pharisee said.  Then he told God about all of the good things that he does, fasting and tithing more than is required, you know, because he was so holy. 

            Meanwhile, our tax collector friend hides in a corner of the synagogue, beats his chest, a traditional Hebrew sign of sorrow, and begs God for mercy.  And to give us an idea of the depth of the tax collector’s understanding of his sin, he didn’t say he was “a” sinner, he said that he was “the” sinner; a confession of the fact that he identified his sin as the worst of everyone’s.

            There are a couple of things to unpack here, but I think that the first and most important thing that we need to identify is where is the Pharisee’s heart in all of this.  All three synoptic gospels tell us the story about a Pharisee asking Jesus what is the greatest commandment? With Jesus answering that the commandment to love God and love others is the most important commandment, and indeed is the summation of all of the law and the prophets.  And so, our first question this morning is, is there any hint of love at all in the Pharisee’s condemnation of the tax collector?  In fact, the Pharisee’s prayer shows contempt for more than just this poor tax collector.  Chelsey Harmon tells us that, “Even as [the Pharisee] comes to pray to his loving God, he has compared himself to all of the people he’s walked by and rather than finding himself wanting, it’s everyone else who fails to measure up”.  [1]

            The simple truth is, it is not possible for people to compare themselves with others and love them at the same time.  Barclay says that “No [person] who despises [other people] can pray.  In prayer we do not lift ourselves above [others].  We remember that we are one of a great army of sinning, suffering, sorrowing, humanity, all kneeling before the throne of God’s mercy”.  [2]  At its very core, love demands grace.  It demands making allowances for other people’s weaknesses and failures… just as we desperately need for others to make those same allowances for us.  And so, one of the mistakes that our Pharisee friend made this morning is a failure to love others.

            A second problem is the Pharisee’s understanding of how grace works.  Our Pharisee friend is of the opinion that his goodness is the key to God’s acceptance, and he evaluates his goodness relative to those around him.  But the question that this Pharisee, and indeed ALL of us need to be asking is not “are we as good as the best of all the others” but “are we as good as God”, and the answer to that question for the Pharisee; and for all of us is a resounding “NO”.   

By now you all are probably tired of hearing me explain that the Greek word in the Bible that is the word most commonly translated into the English word “sin” is ἁμαρτία (ha-mar-teea) which is a word that could appropriately be translated as “imperfection”.  Sin is, in fact, anything and everything in our lives that fails to be completely Christ-like.  It is the prevailing experience of my Christian walk that, the closer I get to God, the farther away from Him I realize I am.  Erdman says, “The nearer one is to God, the more conscious are [they] of [their] own sinfulness.  And the less likely to boast of [their] own moral attainments.”  [3]  Christ-likeness is an impossible standard for humans to achieve, and so, God’s grace is the one and only way to the Father.  We absolutely cannot do it on our own.  It is only by God’s grace, secured in the blood of Jesus, that we are able to enjoy a restored relationship with God and look forward to an eternity in heaven.

Our parable today ends with Jesus telling us that it was the tax collector who went home justified, not the Pharisee.  Justification in the Bible means to be in right standing with God.  This doesn’t mean that any of the tax collector’s actions were justified, it simply means that, in throwing himself on God’s mercy, his sins are no longer counted against him, and he has been restored to a right relationship with God.  The Pharisee, finding no reason within himself to ask for God’s mercy, remains in his sin and is still outside of fellowship with God.

And so, with us intentionally viewing this Pharisee not as the bumbling bad guy who never gets it right.  And instead thinking of him as someone who may be somewhat like us, a faithful person trying, and in this particular instance, failing to understand God’s call for him.  Our Pharisee friend has decided that he is to be a defender of the faith, one who calls others to faithfulness and admonishes those who fall short.  He is zealous in these tasks and thoroughly convinced of the propriety of his actions.  And one would think that all of these things are laudable goals.  But when it comes to the truth of God’s grace he has missed the boat entirely.  Garland tells us that, “[The Pharisee’s] prayer functions to reveal what he assumes it means to honor God and to be ‘upright’.  He has developed a righteousness scale by which he can gauge his and other’s rectitude and reports to God what he has done and what others have not done”.  [4]  His zeal for the purity of the faith fails to take into account the fact that, no matter how “good” he is, no matter how hard he tries, he can never EARN his way into heaven,  because he, just like us, will never, in this lifetime, be fully Christ-like

In the beginning of our reading today, Jesus stated to whom this parable is addressed.  It is addressed “To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else.”  The NRSV translates verse 1 in this way: “He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt.”  Have you ever noticed how self-righteousness always seems to go hand in hand with the condemnation of others?  This is what happens when we begin to compare ourselves to others, instituting our own personal standard of what constitutes “good” and “bad”.  Those who don’t measure up to our standards will then be viewed as “bad” or less worthy of our consideration and subsequently, less worthy of our love.  And in the process of doing that we fail to follow the first and most important commandment: To love God and to love others as we love ourselves. 

And so, our Pharisee friend, standing prominently in the center of the temple, hands outstretched to heaven and informing all who will listen about how good he is, in the process publicly violates a central commandment of his faith.  He looks with disdain upon the tax collector, failing to love him. 

If love is to be the standard of our lives… if we are to be faithful to live in ways that exhibit Christ-likeness… then our faith cannot; MUST not be a faith that compares ourselves to others.  Yes, there are times when it is appropriate to admonish a brother or sister in the faith when they have strayed from faithful living, but it is of the utmost importance that this is done in love, without the slightest hint of superiority or self-righteousness on our parts.  If we can’t admonish in love then we have no business admonishing at all.  Garland says, “No one can expect justification before God without also accepting God’s justification of others and showing love, not contempt for neighbors.”  [5] 

My dear brothers and sisters, the song says that they will know that we are Christians by our love, and that is the way things should be in the church of Jesus Christ. But that is not always the way that things are today.  Today’s church has, in some circles, become known more for what we are against than for what we are for.  And if we dismiss the Pharisee in our story today… if we fail to identify with him; to see ourselves in him, then we run the risk of repeating his mistakes.  And if we fail to learn from his mistakes in this lesson that Jesus has put before us today, then we run the risk of failing to be the loving, inclusive, accepting, and affirming believers that we are called to be.

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[1] Chelsey Harmon, CEPreaching.org, Commentary on Luke 18:9-14

[2] William Barclay, The Gospel of Luke, Pg. 224

[3] Charles R. Erdman, The Gospel of Luke, Pg. 182

[4] David E. Garland, Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament: Luke, Pg. 718

[5] David E. Garland, Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament: Luke, Pg.722

When Prayer Seems Not to Work

October 19, 2025

Luke 18:1-8

            The ancient Israelites used the priesthood to resolve disputes.  When there was a disagreement or issue between two people or two parties the matter would be brought before the priests and the priests would mediate a solution.  But in Roman occupied Palestine there were certain types of disputes, most notably, those involving property, which were required to be resolved by the Roman court system and not by the priesthood.  The judges in the Roman court system were Roman employees, and the corruption of these judges was legendary.  William Barclay tells us that, “Unless a plaintiff had influence and money to bribe his way to a verdict, he had no hope of ever getting his case settled.  These [judges] were said to pervert justice for a dish of meat.”  [1] The official Roman title for these judges translates into English as “Prohibitions Judge” but by changing just one letter in that original Greek word for prohibitions, you changed “prohibitions” to “robber” and “Robber Judge” is what the Israelites called them.

            The widow in our story today had no power.  She had no money to bribe the judge and as a woman, she wasn’t permitted to even stand before the court, and so, with no one to advocate for her, she had absolutely no hope of obtaining justice from her adversary, who was, more than most likely, trying to steal her land.   But our widow friend had one thing going for her… persistence.  These judges were itenerant, and so they would conduct their trials from within a tent that was moved from place to place.  Our widow friend apparently stood outside of the tent and shouted at the judge, she very possibly accosted him on his way to and from work, in the marketplace, and anywhere else where she could create a disruption.  Finally, the judge gives in, not because he cares about her, or about her issue, or even because he cares about justice, but just because she was making his life miserable and he just wanted to be rid of her.

            Now, we might look at this parable and think that the message is that persistence in prayer is necessary to wear God down until He gives in and grants our request, but that is not at all what Jesus is teaching here.  What Jesus is really doing is that he is making a contrast.  Anyabwile tells us that, “If an unrighteous judge who fears no one is eventually moved by persistent pleading, how much more does a righteous God, moved by compassion, goodness, mercy, and faith, hear the prayers of His people who pray night and day?” [2]

            No, in this parable Jesus is not asking us to try to influence God with incessant prayers.  So, the question becomes, what IS He asking?  Well, how often do we pray prayers that appear not to be answered?  How often are we discouraged when we ask, and ask, and ask, and no answer appears to be forthcoming?  What persistence in prayer DOES is, that through all of this, it keeps us connected to God.  At the times that we feel that our prayers are hopeless, continuing to pray is an important part of reminding us that we do serve a loving and caring God who does answer prayer.  It’s just that sometimes the answer to those prayers comes in most unexpected ways.

            Romans 8:28 says, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”  While we like to think that WE know what is good for us… God actually DOES know what is good for us, and His answers to our prayers are the answers of a deeply loving God, intimately involved in the details of our lives, and truly seeking our happiness.  But it is a kingdom happiness that our God seeks for us.  It’s not that God does not want our lives on earth to be happy, He does, but God looks at us with a view towards eternity and answers our prayers in light of THAT perspective.  And so, we are called to pray persistently, unceasingly, that our relationship with the Father may be strengthened through our prayers.

            Warren Wiersbe tells us that, “Prayer is much more than the words of our lips; it is the desires of our hearts, and our hearts are constantly ‘desiring’ before Him, even if we never speak a word.  So, to ‘pray without ceasing’ means to have such holy desires in our hearts, IN the will of God, that we are constantly in loving communion with the Father, petitioning Him for His blessing.” [3]  In a nutshell, we are called to pray persistently not for God’s benefit but for ours.  We are called to pray persistently so that our faith is not hampered when prayers appear to go unanswered.  We pray persistently so that we may learn to share the mind of God, and in so doing, trust that He loves us and cares for us; that He protects us and that the first thing in His mind always is our eternal well-being.

            In the end of today’s reading, Jesus asks the question, “when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”  It’s an interesting question that, while it at first glance, doesn’t exactly seem to fit the rest of the narrative, it actually does tie directly in to what Jesus is talking about.  Jesus spent the first part of this parable telling us why persistence in prayer is so important, not because we need to remind God of our needs or to persuade Him to act in our behalf, He already does all of these things… and delights in doing them.  Persistence in prayer actually reflects a rock-solid belief on our part that God ALWAYS acts in our behalf, even when every shred of current evidence seems to belie that truth.  When one is not persistent in prayer, then God’s seeming silence, or God’s failure to answer those prayers in the way that one wishes, can create distrust and can cause some to doubt God’s goodness.  This is why Jesus is asking if He will find faith.  Are His followers persistent enough in their prayers and in their faith to believe even when belief becomes difficult?

            When I first moved to New Jersey from Boston in the late 70’s I lived in Eatontown but worked in Cherry Hill.  At this point in time they had not yet built Interstate 195 so a good bit of any route that I took to Cherry Hill was two lanes, and I needed an hour and forty-five minutes to get there and an hour and forty-five minutes to get home.  And I was driving a ten-year-old Volvo station wagon that basically worked when it felt like it.

            One morning my old Volvo decided that it didn’t feel like working that day and my prayers that it would start so that I could get to work were not answered, at least not in the affirmative.  And with the anger born of a frustration with a car that was unreliable and a bank account that was unlikely to be able to remedy that situation anytime soon, I directed my anger squarely to where I thought it belonged… at God.  It was His fault that He didn’t choose to keep my car running when I really needed it, and it was His fault that my finances were not sufficient to cover my needs.  I had grown up in the church, and as many of you well know, starting in 7^th grade, I wanted to be a pastor.  But in that moment, and in my deep frustration, I came to the conclusion that there probably wasn’t a God, and that if there was, He didn’t care about me or about my needs.

            And this was the attitude in which I remained stuck for just about two years.  How I eventually was able to escape this place of anger at God is too long of a story for this sermon, but I did end up finding my faith again.  And in the process, I learned one of the most valuable lessons that I have ever learned.  And if we read between the lines, today’s lesson teaches US exactly what my little spat with God taught me… And that is the fact that prayer isn’t all about me.  My dear friend, Army Chaplain Major Greg Monroe once said to me that “Prayer is not us bidding God to do our will, prayer is us asking God to incorporate us into His will”. 

            In Mark Twain’s book, “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”, Miss Watson tells Huck that whatever he prays for he will get.  Well, Huck had gotten ahold of some fishing line, but he had no hooks, so he prayed that he would get some hooks, but he didn’t.  Huck ends up wondering why God doesn’t supply a whole bunch of things that he knew folks were praying for, and so he decided that, when it came to prayer, “there ain’t nothing in it”.  Now the thing is, whether it’s a need for fish hooks or a need for a recalcitrant car to start, or the need to address any of the myriad of things, little or big, that draw us to God in prayer, it’s not hard to see that sometimes, some of these prayers might be a little self-serving. 

            And, as I said, prayer is NOT about us bidding God to do our will.  It’s not that God isn’t concerned about our day to day lives; He is… profoundly.  And it’s perfectly OK for us to ask God to please let my car start.  But the persistent prayer about which Jesus is teaching today is prayer that brings us closer to God, prayer that helps us to grow in our faith, prayer that helps us to trust in God’s goodness, prayer that is geared towards growing our hearts to become more like God’s heart.

            It was my little spat with God that led me to ask questions that I had never asked before.  It was those questions that I had never asked before that led me to open my Bible and actually begin to read it and to study it.  And it was the reading and studying of my Bible that led me to make the choice to become a follower of Jesus; something that, in spite of my years of church attendance and even my desire to become a pastor, I had never done.

            And so, the question that I would like to ask you all today is, do you think that God answered my prayer?  Well, my car didn’t start, I missed work that day, and I spent the day finding a junk yard part, putting it in, and getting my car running again.  But in the process of praying for my car to start, God gave me something infinitely more valuable, something of eternal significance.  God forgave my misplaced anger at Him and restored my relationship with Him to the place where He had always intended for it to be.  He called me to His side, He led me into discipleship, and He saved me.  So, you be the judge.  Do you think that God answered my prayer?

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[1] William Barclay, The Gospel of Luke, Pg. 222

[2] Thabiti Anyabwile, Exalting Jesus in Luke, Pg. 265

[3] Warren Wiersbe, Be Courageous, Pg. 63

Ask, Seek, Knock

July 27, 2025

Luke 11:1-13

            Way back when I was a member of the Methodist church in Eatontown, I was on the Administrative Council (That’s Session to Presbyterians).  We had a new pastor, and this new pastor decided to replace the traditional language of the Lord’s Prayer with a new ecumenical translation.  The reaction to this was seismic, and not in a good way.  Much of the congregation was up in arms over the change, and the matter ended up before the Administrative Council.  I had a dear friend in that church and he was on the Administrative Council also, and during the meeting, as the pastor was explaining his choice to use the modern translation, this gentleman stood up and said, “If the words were good enough for Jesus, they are good enough for me”.  I was sitting next to him and as he sat down, I whispered to him, “You know, Jesus spoke Aramaic”.  He just looked at me as if I had two heads.  I don’t know if the thought didn’t occur to him that Jesus never spoke English, or if he thought that somehow the traditional version was a word for word perfect translation, but clearly, he, and quite a few others, were under the impression that the traditional translation was somehow sacred.

            I loved this man, I sat next to him in choir for several years and he was a wonderful and faithful man.  But I still love to tell this story, not to disrespect him, but simply because I’ve always found the story to be funny.  But there is a truth in his outburst that needs to be understood.  As a general rule, humans like to keep things simple.  And this is something that we see over and over again in the actions of the Pharisees and truthfully, something that we see over and over again in the actions of the church, namely, that following a routine often seems to be much easier than forging a new path. 

As complicated as the first century Jewish religion seems with its myriad of rules and regulations, the first century Jews really did have a pretty complete roadmap for their faith: if such and such happens, always do this.  These rules that they followed were the exact reason that they ran into so much trouble with Jesus.  They had taken a faith with infinite shades of grey and tried to make every single bit of it black and white.  No, you can’t heal someone on the sabbath, it’s against the rules.  No, you can’t have dinner with a gentile, it’s against the rules.  No, you can’t pick grain on the sabbath, it’s against the rules.

            And we, in the 21^st century read these stories, and we think to ourselves, “Well, that’s a little silly, isn’t it? We know better than that”.  But do we?  When all is said and done, we are more like our first century counterparts than we are different from them, and we still tend to like to keep things simple.  And so, my friend’s tenacious grip on the specific wording of the Lord’s Prayer is indicative of this desire to have a roadmap, to have things planned out for us so that we don’t have to be forging a new path every time we do something… or every time we pray.

            In today’s reading, the disciples ask Jesus to teach them to pray, and He obliges, giving us the words of the Lord’s prayer, but wait just a minute…  The story of the giving of the Lord’s prayer isn’t unique to the book of Luke because Matthew tells the same story, but guess what?  In Luke, the wording of the Lord’s Prayer is different from the wording of the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew.  Why do we think that is?  There are some theologians who postulate that Luke and Matthew are reporting on different times that Jesus taught on the subject.  Or perhaps Luke and Matthew reconstructed their notes from the event and remembered things differently.  OR, perhaps Jesus never intended for the Lord’s Prayer to be memorized and repeated verbatim but instead intended it to be an outline for how we are to approach God in prayer.

            When we look closely at this prayer we find that it contains a remarkable opening and then five petitions.  Let’s take a look at these things one by one.

First, the opening.  Jewish prayer pretty much always begins with “Blessed are you Lord God, King of the universe”, but Jesus began His prayer by saying, “Daddy”.  James Laurence tells us that, “Jesus teaches us that when we pray, we can turn to God as any child would to a loving parent. God wants to hear from us, wants to be in a relationship with us, wants to help us live our lives. But God also does not want to interfere without our wanting Him to. He loves us too much to help us against our will. So, he waits for us to ask. And the way that we ask is through prayer.”  [1]  So, our remarkable opening is the revealing of the fact that God is every bit as approachable as a loving parent, probably even more. 

The first two petitions are directed towards God.  The first one being, “Hallowed be Thy name”.  In ancient times, names had an impact that was different from what they have now.  To know someone’s name then was to know a person completely, to know not just the person but to know their character; to know who they were on a deeply personal level.  To be “Hallowed” is to be made holy or to be reverenced.  And so, our first petition is, therefore, a request that we can be led to comprehend the majesty and the glory of God and to interact with Him accordingly.

The second petition says, “Thy Kingdom come”.  Which of us doesn’t deeply long for the day when evil is overthrown on earth and God’s kingdom of peace and love and compassion becomes our present and eternal reality?  Two weeks ago, I said, “When we abandon our prejudices and choose to be a neighbor to others, then the Kingdom of God is in our midst.”  Our desire, our request to God is not only that His kingdom will become a reality on earth, just as it is a reality in heaven, but that we will realize that His kingdom needs to become a reality in our hearts before it can become a reality on earth. 

The next three petitions are requests for us.  The first of these is to be given our daily bread.  Actually, in the original Greek, the word ἐπιούσιον (Epi-you-see-oon) means not daily bread but essential bread.  The request being such that God will provide for our essential needs.  Warren Wiersbe, in his own inimitable style, says, “We ask [God] to provide our needs, not our greeds, for today”.  [2]  While God certainly desires our happiness, and loves to fill us with good things, it’s also critical to realize that the real purpose of prayer is not to amass pleasures for ourselves, but rather to live to seek God’s glory.  My Army Chaplain friend Greg Monroe used to say, “Prayer is not us asking God to do our will, prayer is us asking God to incorporate us into His will”. 

The second personal petition is to be forgiven our sins, or debts, as we forgive the sins, or debts, of others.  Garland tells us that, “The Lord’s Prayer is to affect the distinctive way that disciples live and not just the distinctive way they pray.  It has an ethical thrust; we ought not to expect to receive from God what we are not prepared to bestow on others”. [3]  Forgiveness of our sins is essential, but here, Jesus tells us that for us to forgive others is essential also.  It’s not that God will refuse to forgive us, it’s just that an unforgiving heart will be equally unable to receive forgiveness.  In short, it’s not possible for us to be loving when our heart is burdened with animosity towards others.

The final petition is to be delivered from temptation…  Human free will is a cornerstone of God’s plan.  C. S. Lewis said, “If a thing is free to be good it’s also free to be bad. And free will is what has made evil possible.  Why, then, did God give them free will?  Because free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having.”  [4]  God, even with all of His power cannot create love.  Love must be given of one’s free will, and so, God gave humans the freedom to choose Him or to reject Him in order that those who do choose Him do so out of love and not out of fear or out of obligation.  Unfortunately, this has created a situation where, even those who have given their hearts to God are still capable of making wrong choices and indeed do so all the time.  Our prayer then, is that God steers us away from those temptations that may cause us to make those wrong choices or may cause us to harm our relationships with God, or with others.  We ask to be protected from the temptation of the evil one in order that we may enjoy uninterrupted fellowship with our God.

Luke follows this part of his story with Jesus telling two parables encouraging the disciples to pray.  The first parable Jesus tells depicts a person knocking on a friend’s door at midnight asking for some bread to feed an unexpected guest who had just arrived.  This parable is difficult for us to understand because our culture doesn’t share the first century deep obligation for hospitality, so please allow me to modernize this parable.  Your wife goes into labor and your car won’t start.  You knock on your neighbor’s door, desperately asking if you can borrow their car.  The point of this parable isn’t the audacity of the man waking his neighbor at midnight, the point is that the man doesn’t hesitate to ask his friend for help.  And so, neither should we hesitate to ask God for our needs.  We don’t need to convince God to help us, that is His desire right from the start, but God does ask us to make our needs known to Him. 

The parable about the father not giving his children bad things when they ask for good things is in the same vein.  If even a sinful human will give their child good things when they ask their father, then how much more will God joyfully give to His beloved children when they ask Him?

Luke concludes today’s story by telling us to ask, to seek, and to knock.  Leon Morris tells us that, “Jesus does not say, and does not mean that, if we pray, we will always get exactly what we ask for.  After all, “no” is just as definite an answer as “yes”.  He is saying that true prayer is neither unheard nor unheeded.  It is always answered in the way God sees is best”.  [5]  Luke teaches us that Jesus calls us to be faithful and persistent in prayer, with the ultimate result of our faithful prayers being that we are given the Holy Spirit, who leads us in our journey towards Christ-Likeness.

Michael K. Marsh said, “Here’s what strikes me about how Jesus teaches us to pray. It’s not about asking God to do or give particular things in specific circumstances. It’s bigger than that. It is about the future and our responsibility for bringing about that future.”  [6]  And so, I encourage us all to look beyond the familiar words of the Lord’s Prayer and instead, always, always pray what is in our hearts, because that is what God desires to hear.

At the risk of upsetting any for whom the words to the Lord’s Prayer are thought to be sacred, I’d like to give us all a little food for thought in reading Pastor Marsh’s translation of the Lord’s Prayer.

Our Father in heaven, regardless of what has and has not happened, through our words and actions we bless, hallow, and make holy your name before others.

We claim your ways, concerns, and desires as our own.

Each day give us bread for the day to nourish and strengthen us in body and soul for whatever lies ahead.

Free us from the past and forgive us our sins in the same way and to the same extent as we forgive others.

Save us from the temptation of turning away from ourselves, one another, and you.

To all these things we say yes, yes, amen.

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[1] James Laurence, WorkingPreacher.org, Commentary on Luke -111-13-5

[2] Warren Wiersbe, Be Compassionate, Pg. 147

[3] David E. Garland, Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament: Luke, Pg. 464

[4] C. S. Lewis, The Case for Christianity

[5] Leon Morris, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries: Luke, Pg. 214

[6] Michael K. Marsh, InterruptingTheSilence.com, “Can I Get an Amen?” Sermon on Luke 11:1-13

That All of Them May Be One

June 1, 2025

            There’s a great book that I would often read to my son Joe when he was little.  If you are a parent, you may be familiar with this book.  It’s called “The Monster at the End of This Book”.  The book features the Muppet character, Grover and at the beginning of the book Grover just skips right by the title page, saying this page isn’t very interesting.  Then, after turning the page, Grover says WAIT!  WHAT DID THAT SAY?  Did that say that there is a monster at the end of this book?  I am so afraid of monsters.

            It’s not an uncommon thing, you know.  Very often people will read things without paying full attention to what they are reading, but then shortly thereafter, what they just skipped over suddenly comes into focus and they have to go back to see if what they read actually said what they think it did.  Pop culture even has an expression for this experience.  It’s “wait… what?”  Grover (I love Grover) just had one of those moments, stopping in his tracks to rethink what he just read, and then he spends the entire rest of the book trying to keep the reader from turning another page in order to keep them from getting to the end of the book, where a monster is ominously waiting.  And I won’t give away the ending; but if you have children in your life, make sure that you read this book to them.  It is an absolute delight, especially if you can read it in a Grover voice.

            Today’s lesson has two of those “wait… what?” moments and the first one is the very first verse.  Did you happen to catch it?  My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message”.  After telling the story about Jesus washing the disciple’s feet back in chapter 13, John spends the next four chapters telling us about Jesus’ final discourse; His final instructions to the disciples that He leaves with them because He knows that He is going to His crucifixion and death.  And yet, mixed in with the exhortations to His beloved disciples, mixed in with His instructions about continuing His work and promises to be with them through the Holy Spirit, Jesus concludes His instructions with a prayer to the Father.  At first, Jesus prays for those present; His disciples; those who have followed Him for the last three years.  But then, in the opening verse of today’s lesson, those for whom Jesus is praying changes.  Starting in verse 20 Jesus is praying for “those who will believe in me through [the disciples] message”.  In other words, Jesus is praying for us!  Have you ever noticed that before?  Or am I the only one here who had that “Wait… what?” moment with this passage?

            When we read this passage… this prayer, we need to give it special attention, because this is Jesus praying for us.  Through this prayer Jesus is telling US what our role in God’s plan is supposed to be.  This is Jesus, speaking through the millennia, helping us to understand who it is that we are called to be. 

And what is the very first thing that Jesus asks of us?  It is that we would be one; united with the same mind and the same mission.  I think that often this passage is interpreted as an exhortation to ecumenism; a command that believers in the church should all be unified.  And while there is value in that thought, I think that it misses the mark of what is being taught here.  Jesus says that we should be one just as Jesus is in the Father and the Father is in Jesus.  And so, I think that this oneness to which we are called is not so much an individual calling to unity with others as it is a calling for the church universal to be unified with the Father and Son, through the Spirit.  Next, Jesus tells us that there is a reason why we are called to this oneness.  Jesus prays to the Father that we may be one so that “the world may believe that [the Father has sent the Son.]”

            God’s ultimate purpose is the reconciliation of His beloved children to Himself.  And the avenue through which God will reconcile His children will be love.  Let’s take a closer look at verses 22 and 23. “I have given them (that would be all believers, including us) the glory that you gave me (that would be the glory that the Father has given to the Son), that they (that’s us again) may be one as we (Father and Son) are one.”  And then Jesus illuminates this thought saying, “I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity.”  And then Jesus reveals the goal, “then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”

            And it’s here where we have our second “Wait… what?” moment, What did that just say?  Let’s read it again, “then the world will know that you (The Father) sent me (Jesus) and have loved them (that’s us) even as you have loved me.”  This verse is telling us that the Father loves US in exactly the same way, with the same devotion and the same passion that He loves Jesus.  How can we even wrap our heads around that?  We, imperfect as we are, willful and stubborn, prone to turning away from God, not always listening to Him, seeking our own will instead of His own good and perfect will, occasionally refusing to love Him and often refusing to love others, are STILL loved by God as deeply and as completely as the Father loves the Son.  Wow.

            And it’s here that we get a peek into the internal relationship of the Godhead.  Tim Challies describes the Trinity this way, “Through all of eternity, God has been love; he has existed in a state of love of Father to Son, Son to Spirit, Spirit to Father. There has never been a time that God has not been expressing love; nor will there ever be.” [1]  Challies explains that if God is love, and if God has always and eternally BEEN love, then there has to have been someone FOR Him to love, and so this love of God has been eternally expressed in the love between Father, Son, and Spirit.  And it is into this eternal dance of love that we have been welcomed.  We are loved every bit as much as Father Son and Spirit have loved each other for eternity.

            And we who have found this incredible love of God, we who have been blessed by God’s magnanimous gift of welcome into the very center of the love of the Godhead, now are called to share that same exact love with the world, because God’s ultimate purpose is to reconcile as many of His beloved children to Himself as He possibly can.  1 Timothy 2:3-4 “This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.”  Warren Wiersbe tells us that, “The lost world cannot see God, but they can see Christians, and what they see in us is what they will believe about God.  If they see love and unity, they will believe that God is love.  If they see hatred and division, they will reject the message of the Gospel.” [2]

            My dear sisters and brothers, we have been given an extraordinarily important task.  And that task is to love one another so that when the world sees us, they see the glory of God eloquently expressed in that love; love for God, and love for one another.  Just a few weeks back we spoke about God’s glory and how glory results from doing something remarkable and doing it really well.  There is nothing more remarkable than God’s love.  And so, when Jesus said in today’s verse 22 that He is giving US the glory that the Father gave Him, what He means is that, through the Spirit, He is giving us the capacity to love, just exactly in the same way that He loves.  And again, all for the purpose of showing the world what God’s love looks like, so that the world can come to know and to love God also.

            Our calling as children of God is not about us individually, it is a calling about unity and oneness.  It is a calling first to join in the love that is shared within the Godhead, and then in so doing to become a part of a community that loves God and is loved by God, and then finally to be sent in mission, exactly in the same way that Jesus was sent, so that the message that Jesus gave his followers, becomes a message that His followers gave to others, that eventually becomes the message that was given to us, that ultimately becomes the message that we bring to the world.  And this message is that we are not only accepted by God, but that we are loved by God; deeply, thoroughly, and eternally.  The Presbyterian theologian and pastor R. C. Sproul tells us that “The greatest benefit of Christianity is not the forgiveness of sins; that is simply a means to an end.  The greatest benefit that we have is access to the presence of God and His Son.  That is where Jesus wants us to be.” [3] (In His presence).

            I said before that in this prayer, Jesus shows us what our role is to be in God’s plan.  The good news is, we simply have to love.  The bad news is, well, we have to love.  Loving others isn’t always easy.  As we all know, some folks can be really hard to love.  But the world REALLY needs for us to love the unlovable, because our witness is at its most effective when the love that we show is a love that is out of the ordinary.  Remember when I described US earlier?  Willful and stubborn, prone to turning away from God, well, you get the picture.  If God can love us so abundantly, even in our unlovable state, then we, bearing the love of God in our hearts, are called to learn to love even the unlovable, just as God loves us.  And the result of us loving in that manner, is that we exhibit the perfect and extravagant love that God has for us, as we share His love with others. 

            This unity to which God calls us means for us to have the same mind and the same mission as God; that of working towards the reconciliation of God’s beloved children to Himself.  It means living in the real world, loving real and imperfect people.  And how do we do this?  Carter and Wredberg tell us that, “The only way to draw closer to one another, the only way to grow in unity as Christians, is to become more like Jesus.  Our unity is based in, and empowered by, Jesus alone.” [4]

            It is our participation in that eternal dance of love of the Godhead that equips us to be the love that the world sees, and it is the Spirit, directed by Jesus that empowers us to love even when it is difficult to love.  Taylor comments, “This is the reason why our unity is so important to Jesus that he asks for it four times in two and a half verses. It isn’t just for our benefit. It isn’t just for Christ’s benefit. Christ’s prayer for unity has only one goal: that the world would know God has sent Jesus into the world.” [5]

            What a privilege it is to be a part of this mission; a mission that began with the apostles and will not end until that great feast takes place in heaven, where all believers from every time and place will together worship Jesus.  And what a privilege it is to bring the Good News to others; to show them the love of God by loving them in exactly the same way that Jesus loves us.  And what a privilege it is to be a part of the unity of the church; not just Hope Church in Tinton Falls, but the body of all believers of every time and place who glorify God and witness to the truth, which is Jesus Himself.  Let us not take these privileges lightly.  In fact, let us make these privileges our life’s work.

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[1] Tim Challies, Challies.com, God’s Gag Reflex

[2] Warren Wiersbe, Be Transformed, Pg. 99

[3] R. C. Sproul, John: An Expositional Commentary, Pg. 306

[4] Matt Carter & Josh Wredberg, Exalting Jesus in John, Pg. 345

[5] Jo Anne Taylor, PastorSings.com, Unanswered Prayer: Sermon on John 17:20-26