Pentecost +9 Sunday – C4

Pentecost +9 Sunday – C4

Years C
Luke 11:1-13

Prayer is intimately connected with service. The model of prayer Jesus offers in response to a request to be taught to pray like John taught his disciples can be seen as prelude to Jesus' usual bait and switch methodology. His message - pray but prayer is never enough; I go apart to pray but I always come back to put the Amen to my prayer with healing/teaching ministry.

The prayer is very our (read in-group) oriented. Yes, hallowed be G*D's name, typical honorific, and yes, bottom-line is give me my bread and keep things "fair" rather than just (forgiveness as an eye-for-an-eye model rather than preemptively forgiving whether we get anything in return or not).

So the prayer needs immediate application grounded in experience. Keep asking (living as though what you needed was already present) and, lo, and, behold, it is.

Here is one attempt to apply the prayer to the story. How might you apply it to your so-called daily life?

Friend (Father), I need three loaves (for hospitality purposes - daily bread for more than me). We presume generosity on the part of others as we would be generous to them. Don't bring us to disappointment.

= = = = = = =

what demon of muteness
has captured our culture
keeping extraneous secrets
for the sake of keeping them
keeping us from
not searching them out
to reveal their banality

what demon of muteness
has captured our "news"
kept us separated
from one another
locked in our own world
and desiring no other
judging others muter than I

what demon of muteness
needs recognition
needs exorcism
needs healing
as we run across
a long bridge
screaming but not heard

what demon of muteness
has so destroyed our speech
than when we finally speak
there is nothing in what we speak
for we remember the words
but not their power
and so linger in whisper

what demon of muteness
has captured church and state
in a dance of complicity
finding their destruction
not in division
but a desert creating
unanimity

what demon of muteness
will finally give way
when we pray
and yell and shout
in an imperative mood
Hallowed Come Give
Forgive

what demon of muteness
needs an amen and amen
of prayer in action
speaking up
speaking out
speaking with
a voice of new creation

mine of course
yours of course
ours of course
yes
now ours now
now yours now
now mine now