Intercession – Luke 11:1-4

In the beginning, humanity was invited to be God’s co-laborers; intercessors called to freely and joyfully partner with him to cultivate our good world. As the story goes, humans have gotten into the habit of contributing to the chaos, rather than cultivating it. However, God’s invitation, to be His collaborator in pushing back the dark, is still open. The first move in accepting that invitation is to clasp our hands in prayer; for in prayer we collaborate with God to set his world back to rights.

In his Gospel, Luke gives special attention is to Jesus’ prayer habits– here are a few examples.

“great crowds gathered to hear him and to be healed of their infirmities. But he would withdraw to desolate places and pray.” –Luke 5:16

“In these days he went out to the mountain to pray, and all night he continued in prayer to God. 13 And when day came, he called his disciples and chose from them twelve, whom he named apostles” –Luke 6:12–13.

“28 Now about eight days after these sayings he took with him Peter and John and James and went up on the mountain to pray. 29 And as he was praying, the appearance of his face was altered, and his clothing became dazzling white.” –Luke 9:28–29.

When you pray, say:
“Father, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
Give us each day our daily bread,
and forgive us our sins,
or we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us.
And lead us not into temptation.”
– Luke 11:2–4.

“Your Kingdom come” is a practice known as intercessory prayer.

Intercession is to pray for someone else.

"If we truly love people, we will desire for them far more than it is within our power to give them, and this will lead us to prayer: Intercession is a way of loving others. Intercessory prayer is a selfless prayer, even self-giving prayer. In the ongoing work of the Kingdom of God, nothing is more important than intercessory prayer” – Richard Foster

In praying “your kingdom come” we pray not just for ourselves, but for our whole world.

God’s original intention was that we would be his collaborators, free and intelligent beings, partnered with Him in ruling the world.

“… God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”–Genesis 1:26(ESV).

“The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.” – Genesis 2:15–17 (NIV)

From the beginning, we’ve been intercessors, the in-betweeners, the mediators between heaven and earth. Given the freedom and authority to care for creation on God’s behalf.

Where freedom exists, evil is always a decision away.

“So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.” –Genesis 3:6 (ESV)

But despite it all, God never gave up on his vision of free collaborators; and so in the most surprising of decisions He comes to Earth in the form of a Jewish Rabbi named Jesus.

In Jesus, that identity that was corrupted in our rebellion is restored.

We are not pawns in a cosmic story, destined to play a part, we are invited to help God direct the world.

“We are not merely passive set pieces in a prearranged cosmic drama but we are active participants with God in the writing, directing, design, and action that unfolds. Prayer therefore is much more than asking God for this or that outcome. It is drawing into communion with him and there taking up our privileged role as his people. In prayer, we are invited to join him in directing the course of the world.” – Skye Jethani

Prayer is not a charade, where God does what he is planning, and pretends we were of some help.

“God’s response to our prayers is not a charade. He does not pretend that he is answering our prayer when he is only doing what he was going to do anyway. Our requests really do make a difference in what God does or does not do. The idea that everything would happen exactly as it does regardless of whether we pray or not is a specter that haunts the minds of many who sincerely profess belief in God. It makes prayer psychologically impossible, replacing it with dead ritual at best…of course this is not the biblical idea of prayer, nor is it the idea of people for whom prayer is a vital part of life.” – Dallas Willard

When we pray things that were not going to happen, happen.

“When we pray we are not sending a letter to a celestial White House, where it is sorted among piles of others. We are engaged, rather, in an act of co-creation, in which one little sector of the universe rises up and becomes translucent, incandescent, a vibratory centre of power that radiates the power of the universe. History belongs to the intercessors, who believe the future into being.” – Walter Wink

We have been given a profound invitation to help set the world to rights through our prayerful intercession.

“To clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world.”― Karl Barth

“The only way to learn how to pray is to pray.” – Teresa of Avila