Teach us to Pray.

The biblical narrative offers us a brief depiction of a malevolent being hellbent on our suffering; It suggests that chaos has been planned, disease sown, and violence cultivated. Our response to this darkness is not to cower or shrink back but to become people of prayer and action, injecting love into the darkness.

In the Lord’s prayer, Jesus instructs us to pray, “forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us”,a prayer of confession. But contrary to popular belief, confession is not simply a reminder of our fallenness, but an assertion of our forgiveness. We confess not because God needs a verbal record of our wrongdoings, but because we need to cultivate brutal honesty about what we have done wrong in order to enjoy God’s abundant forgiveness.

Jesus teaches us to pray; “Give us each day our daily bread”. This instruction to petition our needs reminds us that our natural longings for financial security, for a child, for healing, for bread are not written off as evil, selfish, embarrassing, or shameful. Rather, these desires are welcomed by God. And as we bring them to God, we trust him to order them, to open the eyes of our heart that we might see him.

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 Luke 11, the disciples say, “Lord, teach us to pray.” Jesus’ response is both a pattern and a script for prayer, a guideline for prayer and a prayer we regularly recite. It is the place we go to when we ourselves wonder, “Jesus, how do we pray?” However, the starting place of prayer is not "how", but "who"?