she said words alone could never save us

& then last night she cried and told us about Jesus

The Holy Gospel according to St. Luke the 11th Chapter!

Unfortunately every church seems to have at least one…

You know, those places where the carpet has seen better days. 

Those marks where the carpet began pulling apart. The spot where the carpet is nearly threadbare.

Good taste suggests replacement, or at least repair. Lutherans, though, we tend to be negligent in that area. So those marks, stay. Thinning even more after yet another year…

And no, I’m not talking about the path to the coffee pot.  

What I am talking about is that place we used to call “the crossing.” These days, we’ve lost our distinct vocabulary. So we have no name for that place in the sanctuary.

You know, that place where the healthy walk up to receive communion without a second though. That place where the rambunctious youngsters, distract the congregation as the pastor tries to give a youth sermon. That place where those crowned with graying hair, shuffle up to receive a shot glass of cheap wine and a hunk of bread. 

That place in the sanctuary where week after week, we come to receive the very grace of God. That place where really ought to replace the carpet. 

Truthfully, though, no one seems to notice, or perhaps even mind. Somehow, it seems almost fitting to us. That place where all the traffic over the years has crushed the threads down to little more than off-colored, pilling threads, barely holding together. 

Importunant people that we are…

People such as us, we don’t have the greatest history of listening to Jesus. 

And yet. For some reason, we’ve been unusually obedient when it’s come that place. 

Or, when it’s come to this prayer. For some reason, this prayer has stuck…

After a long council meeting, when everyone’s patience has been tested. Instead of stomping off to lick our wounds, everyone takes someone’s hand, and prays this prayer. 

Or in a hospital room. After the couple has been through the ringer. If the pastor doesn’t say anything else, they will ask him to pray this prayer. 

The nursing home, with the man who was on the council well before the rest of us can remember. Constantly mumbling to himself. When the pastor, at loss for what else to say, starts in on this prayer, though. Then, all of a sudden, the man becomes coherent, he joins-in like he’s back in confirmation all over again.

Those youngsters, always squirming and giggling. The Sunday School teacher tries not to lose her patience while she says this prayer. It’s the first time one boy who will hear this prayer. From that day on, he will wind up repeating this prayer too many times to number. 

That student who, after a month of classes in a new school, with new people and new ideas, suddenly finds her whole world turned upside down. This prayer comes to her one night. In that new room, with a new roommate, this is the only thing that’s familiar.

…We’re a fickle people, this much is true. We tend to pick and choose when and where we’ll listen to Jesus. 

For some reason, though, importunanat though we may be, we’ve been unusually faithful when it comes to this prayer. 

(That is, when we’re not bickering about which version to use…)

…Probably the most humbling things about being a pastor is the powerlessness of it. Not in council meetings or making decisions, although a pastor can be made to be pretty powerless there. 

But rather, powerless where it actually matters. Making disciples. 

I am amazed by the way The Church can make us into her disciples. Often, even in spite of ourselves!

I can be heavy-handed. Telling you what I, and the cadre of other religious professionals, assume is the next big thing. But the Church will simply gather us up together to say strange things. Like confessing the faith or that in Christ we’re all kin. And by making us stick to those thing, somehow we become the people The Church needs us to be. The people we need to be. The people we need each other to be. The people the world needs us to be…

I’ve left many a council meeting, stunned. Thinking to myself, “Woah. God’s going to make a church out of us yet.” 

I’ve prayed with the broken-hearted. Sitting in my office afterward, wondering to myself, over the miracle. If I’m not careful, God will use you all to make a pastor out of someone like me yet. 

Even better, watching as that brokenhearted woman shows up a couple weeks later. Singing the hymns, confessing the creed. It’s easy to get lost then, to forget it’s time lead the prayers of intercession. Marveled by the way God has been busy making her into a disciple, one way or another… 

…And that’s what Jesus is saying in the Gospel today, you know. 

Jesus isn’t giving you a mere technique to prayer. Some formula to bend God’s will to your’s.

No, Jesus is telling you what it means to pray to the kind of God you have. The kind of God who brought Israel out of slavery. The kind of God who raised Jesus from the dead. 

That when we’re the most faithful, too.
Not when we’re trying to manipulate God, obviously. And certainly not when we’re charging out on some mission. Presuming to tell God where we’re going to go.
Instead, when we’re relying on God. 

When we’re coming to God asking for deliverance. When we’re looking back over a couple months we’d never want to relive, and wondering at the miracle that God did deliver us. As Joseph says, God used it for good. 

In ways we’d never have imagined, and certainly couldn’t see. But nonetheless, busy at work. Making us into the kind of people who have been delivered, who dare to pray as our savior taught us…

Because, and here’s the thing, that’s the kind of God you have. The kind of God who has claimed you. The kind of God Jesus tells you pray to. The kind of God who will take a negligent, fickle and importunant people; and make us into disciples yet. 

This is the kind of God who can be counted on. This is the kind of God who can be trusted. This is the kind of God who keeps promises. Keeps them in surprising, and even shocking ways, even! 

The kind of God who, even on mornings when our mind wandered during that old prayer, hung on every word. The kind of God who listened to us, even when we weren’t. 

That’s the kind of God you have. The kind of God Jesus tells you to pray to. 

The kind of God who will put Grace to work and grab you, suddenly. Take something like your will, and flip it. Make us to want, not our will to be done. But God’s will. Thy will.
When only moments before you were thinking about your lunch plans. Unexpectedly you wanted what you were praying for; God’s will. You wanted it even more than that the brunch buffet. More than anything else. 

Think over your moments in this sanctuary. That’s happened to you, hasn’t it?

That’s because that’s the kind of God you have. The kind of God Jesus tells you to pray to. 

The kind of God who will take folks who are importunant at best, and make disciples. The kind of God who will take a negligent people, and out of the clear blue, take this prayer they repeated ad nauseam and make them to hang on every word. The kind of God who will take something as fickle as a will, and turn it to match Thy will. 

Because in the end, that old prayer, that patch of carpet. They will remain. They are our marks of glory. The places we point to, to show God’s fidelity. 

Those marks, that prayer; they are the places in our lives where God has been relentless. Refusing to take our infidelity as the final word. Refusing to renege on the promises made to us in our baptism. 

That’s the kind of God you have. The kind of God who can take a people like us, and make us dare to pray —not for our will— but God’s. The kind of God who, in answering this prayer, can make your will, Thy will. This is God’s will. That you would be God’s people. That you would come to God, confident that this God is your God. 

That’s just the kind of God you have. 

So pray. Pray to that God.