PRAYING IS LIKE BREATHING
Rev. Dr. Robert R. LaRochelle
October 5, 2008

A few minutes ago, many of you gathered here, Corie and Don’s beloved family and friends, rejoiced as you witnessed that moment in which Bryan, Allyssa and Emma were baptized! And I would suspect that those of us here in this congregation this morning who do not know your family rejoiced with you as well because there is something about the baptism of a child, in this case, children, which speaks to our human need for hope and our longing for a better future. There’s something about a Baptism that tells us that as crazy as this world gets and as preoccupied we all might become with everyday events, say with Wall Street tumbling and government scrambling and with the responsibilities and, yes, annoyances of everyday living...There’s something about a Baptism that tells us that, beneath the surface of what worries us day in and day out, something else is going on. You see, when all is said and done, when nations stumble and empires fade, when evil threatens us and even appears to win, something else is going on, dear friends, as the waters and the promises of Baptism so clearly shout out.......In gathering for this ceremony welcoming three beautiful children into the community of Christian faith, we say clearly and passionately, with our hearts and with our voices WE SAY ....   THAT THERE IS A GOD, a God who created us, for reasons we might not be able to completely fathom, a God who not only heard our ‘borning cry’ as that beautiful hymn declares, but a God who knows our every whimper and laugh and who is WITH US as we wind our way through the pitfalls and the joys of daily living!

That God is with these three children and will continue to be as they walk the path those of us of far more advanced years have already trod, as they will face challenges unique to the age and the culture in which they’ve been graced to live. That God, the foundation of all we do today, the very strength that brought us here to this time and place, that God will be with them on their school bus journeys in days ahead, as they establish friendships that enliven their days, as they try to figure out their talents and gifts and how specifically they might use them. That God will be with them on their trek from embryo to young adult, as they play in backyards and ball fields, on swings or in the water, a God who will hear them when they are sad and grieving someday, a God who will sustain them, that they might once again rejoice!

Now, for five weeks here in this church, I’ve been preaching sermons on the topic of prayer and, recognizing that most of you here today have not heard the other four, I will resist the temptation to summarize them for you, suggesting though, quite seriously, that you might want to take a look at them online or pick up copies on the table in the back before you leave this place today. But what I WILL tell you is that without ever using the WORD, I’ve already been talking about PRAYER here this morning. LET ME EXPLAIN!

One of the most important responsibilities Corie and Don will have as Christian parents is that of encouraging their children TO PRAY and of developing ways to do that within the confines of their family home. Now, of course, we, the entire church, assist parents in this responsibility by involving our children in worship and by providing Sunday School and Christmas pageants and other activities in which we help them develop this sense of what it means to pray. Now, when we do that, one of the things parents and churches tend to do is to teach what we would call ‘ FORMAL PRAYERS’, probably the most well known and classic of them all being that which we call ‘ The Lord’s Prayer’, known by some as the ‘Our Father.’  Now, and I’ll get back to this in a bit, it’s good to do that and we should. I’ll take it a step further and suggest that young people should be able to know and sing hymns that express our faith and to recite the words of specific Psalms, but, just for a moment, I want to veer away from this formal prayer arena and move this in another direction....and, as I do, I’m asking that you come along, adjust your GPS and change direction with me, OK?

Now...listen carefully.......Do you remember what I rambled about a little while back in this morning’s message........THIS AWARENESS THAT THERE IS A GOD AND THAT THIS GOD IS WITH YOU? My friends, it is that awareness that is the essence of prayer, this sense that wherever you go, God is there, this unfolding awareness that this God who loves you right now in this present moment, has organized this world in a way in which your life, so small, really, when you consider the vast expanse of the universe, YOUR LIFE , Alyssa’s life, Emma’s life, Bryan’s life, though they each be one among the billions of people who have inhabited God’s planet, each of their little lives, each of ours, has MEANING and VALUE and ETERNAL purpose, because we’ve all been created, redeemed and sustained ...BY GOD!

It is THIS AWARENESS OF GOD, day in and day out, that IS the essence of prayer and teaching children to know and sense that God is with them as they go through the ordinary tasks of their lives is one of the most important realities we can ever teach as parents and as a church. But, you know, the great writer Richard Bach once wrote, ‘ We teach best what we most need to know’ and that may very well be the case for many of us. I know it is for me! THIS AWARENESS OF GOD, this heartfelt belief that in spite of the heartbreaks, crises and dilemmas of each and every day and the difficult decisions we might face, God’s with us and, through Jesus, has already won the greatest battle, the battle of life over death, a victory in which WE SHARE...... This awareness of God, this RELATING TO GOD THAT COMES AS NATURALLY AS BREATHING......I know that’s what I need...and I suspect we all might need it as well!

We are going to end where I began this series five weeks ago and even though most of you weren’t here back then, I really hope this makes some sense today. If I were to say to you right now, let’s all pray THE LORD’S PRAYER, my sense is that most of you could rattle off most of the words, with slight variations on trespasses or debtors, depending upon the church of your youth. No big deal...means the same thing! We could speak together these well known words of what might be the most formal Christian prayer of them all. But what I’d like to suggest is that when Jesus gave these words to an inquiring disciple who just wanted to know, these words that have become so much a formula that unless we catch ourselves, we can recite them WITHOUT THINKING, Jesus wasn’t giving some empty ritual to  perform if you really wanted to pray. I’ll suggest that what Jesus was really doing was speaking to his friend about this relationship He had with that we call by the name of God, a relationship of awareness, a relationship as natural as taking in the air He would breathe......and may I suggest that in talking about prayer to our children and in thinking about it ourselves, it is that which we must emphasize...A GOD AWARENESS, a PRAYING THAT FLOWS NATURALLY FROM THE FACT THAT WE ARE BREATHING, prayer that sometimes we gladly share with others, but prayer, I think, that’s most often done when the doors of the churches are locked and no one is looking.....and so then, in closing, I’m going to ask us to try, to try to allow this to be part of this morning, part of this celebration of new life in this community, part of what we shall do in a short while in what we do around this table!

 I’d invite you to start by saying slowly those formal words we know. For the sake of common language, we’ll say debts and debtors, OK? But we’ll lay off the doxology, those words Jesus didn’t really say but some churches decided to add and we’ll follow ‘deliver us from evil’ with a simple AMEN. Then I’ll ask us all to be quiet and let those words sink in, allowing ourselves to experience the spirit of those words by praying the reality of our lives......and then I’ll ask you to keep your eyes closed and then I will finish...

OK, so let’s begin:  Let us pray together in the words Our Savior taught us...OUR FATHER...

IN SILENCE BEFORE GOD

Let us pray:

I call you God, but does the word GOD even describe who you are? Jesus called you Daddy.....for you are what a good dad or mom really ought to be.....FATHER is so formal a word and Jesus cut right through that, didn’t He.........GOD?

But let’s not get stuck on language this morning.....YOU ARE HERE! And you’re in Darfur...the South Side of  Old Chicago as well, in the baddest part of town, all the while embedded in fruited plains, in purple mountain majesties, deepest in the very depths of the ocean deep you made...

OUR FATHER......you are in heaven too!  No name can ever magnify fully the glory of your name...

I’M HERE......YOU’RE HERE...BUT YOU’RE  THERE TOO.......there to hear my borning cry, there when I’ll grow old, there the day I was baptized.....watching and uplifting me.... seeing my life unfold...You tell me I’m part of doing your Will....How? Help me do it. Give me what I need to do it, even while I’m always begging you for what I want.....Give me what I need...PLEASE!   It’d be really good if you could keep me from being tested from the evil around me, and all that evil within, but, if you can’t and I fail, please forgive me and please keep nudging me to be sure I do nothing less than the same to those others I know who do their share of failing too!

MY FATHER, OUR FATHER, YOU ARE IN EARTH AND YOU’RE IN HEAVEN.....You are my life and YOU ARE MY BREATH, HALLOWED BE YOUR GLORIOUS NAME. AMEN+