The Parish Church of St John-at-Hampstead

Genesis 18. 20-32, Colossians 2. 6-15, Luke 11. 1-13
One of the things I did in preparation for starting my curacy here was to go on holiday.  We spent some time in Heidelberg and Frankfurt.  While we were in Frankfurt we visited the icon museum where there was a special exhibition of Russian icons.  I don’t know much about icons, but after a while I began to be able to distinguish them one from another. Some were focussed on a single figure, while others showed a whole scene with many figures.  Icons are much more than just paintings.  As Thomas Merton said: “It is the task of the iconographer to open our eyes to the actual presence of the Kingdom in the world.”  
You could say that Luke’s Gospel is also a series of icons; pictures which give us glimpses of the Kingdom.  There are several such pictures in this morning’s Gospel passage.  The first of these, and perhaps the most central, is a picture of Jesus Himself praying. 
Here, as elsewhere, Luke encourages us to follow, not just Jesus’ words or His teaching, but His example.  We’re to learn to pray as Jesus Himself prays.
So what does our Gospel passage teach us about how we can follow Jesus’ example in prayer?  Here are three brief suggestions:
Firstly, prayer involves paying attention. 
It’s no accident that Luke’s teaching on prayer immediately follows the story of Martha and Mary where, as Jan pointed out last Sunday, both Mary and Martha are invited to step aside from the busyness of life and simply sit at Jesus’ feet and listen.  Paying attention is something our age and our culture finds very difficult.  We’re constantly switching channels, interrupting conversations to receive emails or texts, communicating in sound-bites.  We’re easily bored and often distracted.  Sticking to one thing may become very difficult, and that can even be the case here in church.  I’m told that this is a quiet time of year in St John’s, but it seems busy to me! 
But if we never stop, and pay attention, what happens?  An image that comes to mind is that of the compass.  If you keep moving around with a compass, the needle never settles.  It keeps swinging around trying to find the pole; it’s no use at all.  But if you stay still for long enough, the needle will still itself too, attracted by the magnetism of the pole.  Then the compass becomes useful!  For me, over these last few busy weeks here, I’ve found I’ve needed time to just sit still, absolutely quiet, in order to return to the magnetic pull of God.  To re-orientate myself to His love and to keep my sense of direction.   This is fundamental to prayer for all of us, even Jesus.
The second thing we learn from our Gospel passage is that prayer isn’t just private and personal; it also takes place in community.
Jesus teaches his disciples a prayer which they can say together.  Usually we begin with “Our father”, although Luke doesn’t here.  The prayer then continues, not “Give me” but “Give us” our daily bread, forgive “us” our sins, do not bring “us” to the time of trial. And it includes the injunction to forgive others so that community is restored.  It’s also a prayer rooted in Jesus’ own community.  I recently met a Jewish person who said that the Lord’s Prayer could be a Jewish prayer. Despite being so famously Christian, it’s very traditionally Jewish.  When He gave us this prayer Jesus drew on His own heritage. 
We meet every Sunday to pray here in accordance with our tradition.  And we gather daily for Morning and Evening Prayer to pray as a community and for the community at St John’s, as well as for the wider needs of the world.  We all need to work out the balance between our personal and our corporate prayer and find a pattern which fits with our lives.
My third point about prayer is around some of the problems.  Why does God sometimes seem to be silent?  Why does He sometimes seem to give us a snake or a scorpion?
Jesus gives us a wonderful little picture, you could perhaps say an icon, of someone banging on a friend’s door in the middle of the night asking for bread to feed an unexpected guest.  He keeps on making a racket until finally the friend gives in and gets up just so he can get some sleep.   God, who is, after all, our loving Father, can surely be relied upon to react more positively than that,  if we keep on asking?  But what about the times when we have prayed and prayed, and our loving Father seems indeed to have given us a scorpion when we asked for an egg?  Or when we cry out in terrible distress, and He just seems silent?
Here again, we have to turn to another icon. We have the picture of Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane.  He spent a long time there, probably several hours, praying that God might take away the terrible suffering which He knew was coming to Him.  And yet, because He was orientated to God, He trusted in God’s perfect will.  This was not easy for Jesus; it was anguish.  And sometimes it is for us too.
We have hope because, in the end, for Jesus, after the anguish, there came the new life of the resurrection.
I leave you with a little gallery of icons or images of prayer:
Jesus taking time to pray on His own.
The needle on the compass settling itself to the magnetic pull of the pole. 
Jesus’ disciples learning to pray together, with one another and for one another.
A person keeping on banging on a friend’s door in the middle of the night.
Jesus, praying in anguish and trust, at Gethsemane.
In all of these, Jesus is our example, but which one speaks to you now about your prayer?  Which one might you need to follow up?