The story so far… I am preparing a sermon on the theme of “A people of prayer” to be preached on February 9th 2020 at St Mark’s Staplefield Common. The readings are:
Matthew 6:5-8
and 1 Thessalonians 5:16-28
On Day 1 I recorded my initial impressions of the theme and the two set readings. On Day 2 I read around the Bible passages a bit more thoroughly to gauge the context. Day 3 saw me looking at commentaries, starting with Tom Wright. Today I move on to William Barclay’s Daily Study Bible.
A note about William Barclay: I find his writing often very perceptive and thought-provoking. He is occasionally quite unorthodox however, so look up his Wikipedia entry before accepting his ideas as gospel! It is always a good idea to know where the writer of a commentary is coming from, and to avoid accepting all they say as being authoritative.
Here are my notes:
The reward motive is mentioned 3 times by Jesus in this chapter, and elsewhere – Mt 5:12 , Mt 10:42 , Mt 25:14-30
Jesus didn’t hesitate to talk in terms of reward and punishment.
Barclay says that action which achieves nothing is futile and meaningless, and that to banish reward and punishment from religion is to accept that injustice has the last word, that love and justice have no place in it.
Jesus was not thinking of material reward. And it appears that seeking reward is not the way to gain it. Life is not a balance-sheet. The rewards are spiritual, and Christian rewards only have value for a Christian.
The first reward is satisfaction.
The second reward is more work to do! When you win the Championship in association football, your reward is to compete in the premiership – a great deal harder. When we achieve spiritually, we move onto the next thing, and it will be harder. Gaining promotion doesn’t give you an easier life!
Finally there is the reward of the vision of God, the presence of God.
In each of the sections of Matthew 6, Jesus tells us how NOT to do it first.
The great Jewish prayers, the Shema and the Shemonah ‘esreh were to be prayed thrice daily. But there were those for whom this was a performance, and others for whom it was a gabbled necessity. [Clare College grace springs to mind, where the scholars vied to see who could deliver the Latin grace in the shortest time]. Because devout Jews were expected to pray at 9am noon and 3pm a man might stop to pray wherever he happened to be, so public prayer was not unusual. Others chose to go to the Temple at the hour of prayer.
Any system is just a system. There is a danger we give the system the significance we should give to God. The Jewish system made ostentation very easy.
Jesus laid down 2 rules for prayer:
- All true prayer is offered to God (and not to other men)
- The God to whom we pray is a God of love, more ready to answer than we are to pray. We do not need to coax, pester, or batter God to answer our prayers. His desire is to give.
And yet we pray “Thy will be done”, because we God knows best. [BCP matins – “as may be most expedient for them”]
The Lord’s Prayer is a disciple’s prayer; not a child’s prayer, not a family prayer. Unless you grasp its spiritual significance it is meaningless.
In the Lord’s Prayer, the first 3 petitions have to do with God and his glory. The next 3 are to do with our needs. We have three essential needs, each in one the 3 spheres of time through which we move. Bread, for the maintenance of life today. Forgiveness to deal with the mistakes of yesterday, and protection to deal with the temptations of tomorrow. Bread for today is the domain of God the Father; forgiveness is Christ’s business; protection in the spiritual battle is the Holy Spirit’s domain.
Our Father: I, me and mine have no place in this prayer. We recognise God as the Father of all. If we can call the creator of the universe “Father” then it must be a friendly place. If he is “Our” father then we all know him and each other. This prayer is not about self, even when prayed in solitude.
There follows a very lengthy discourse about each phrase and line of the Lord’s Prayer. I’m going to skim through this, because I suspect most of it will not be relevant to this sermon, although it might make a series all on its own.
More tomorrow – Bless you!
