Sermon 8-28-2016; ‘Labor and Delivery’

Matthew 6:6-13 KJV [Lord’s Prayer]; danced by Amy Perry, recorded by Kate Smith

Matthew 6:6-13 paraphrase; written by Bethanne Kashette, Baltimore Yearly Meeting: http://patapsco.bym-rsf.net/files/2012/05/heron200404.pdf

I Chronicles 29:11

Paul Buckley, Owning the Lord’s Prayer, Friends Journal Vol. 51, No. 2, February 2005, Friends Publishing Corporation, p 11.

Mary Sue Rosenberger, The Lord’s Prayer, Covenant Bible Studies, Brethren Press, 1989.

 

Have you ever found yourself in a very dark place, with no sense of direction, and absolutely no control over yourself, or your surroundings?  It can be very frightening. 

We’ve all been there, at one time or another.  We’ve all been there at least once - in our mothers’ wombs…  natural motion brings us into light, through the surging energy and power of muscle and sinew, forcing us into life in completely new surroundings. The work we’ve done so naturally to grow and develop from one cell to so many more, from egg and sperm to fingers and toes, heart and lungs, brain and being, is just the start of our work yet to do.  New challenges await. 

 

Job wished he had never been born.  “Let the day perish on which I was born and the night that said, ‘A man is conceived.’ Let that day be darkness… That night – let thick darkness seize it!”  Job cursed the day he was born, but he never cursed God.  He moved through each day, listening to Bildad, to Eliphaz, to Zophar... (“miserable comforters are you all!”)  Job’s challenges, his trials, his testing was too much for him…  he wanted deliverance, rescue, release.

 

“Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.”  These are the things Christ asked us to pray for in the Lord’s Prayer.  The way we learned it as children, the way Kate Smith sang it in the recording we heard today, the way it will be repeated time and again in churches this morning, is based on ‘the King’s English’… King James I.  A lovely benediction was added, ‘for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever, Amen.’, taken from a prayer of David in I Chronicles.  Later scholars, using source manuscripts not available to King James’ translators, realized that Christ was not speaking of God tempting us, with a desire to do something wrong or unwise, but rather bringing us to times of testing or trial.  In more modern translations of the same scripture, we find this verse written as, “Do not put us to the test, but save us from the evil one.” [New Jerusalem Bible]  “Do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one.” [NRSV]    “Do not bring us to the test, but save us from the evil one.’  [New English Bible]

 

Christ knew we would want and need this prayer.  Didn’t he pray this prayer himself? In the garden?  ‘Lord, let this cup pass from me’…  ‘Do not put me to the test.  Do not bring me to the time of trial.’  There are many struggles we do not want to move through.  There are many tests we don’t want to take.  Like Job, there are many experiences we do not think we can endure.  Elton Trueblood writes: “The request is that hard-pressed [people] may be saved from tests which are too difficult for them, just as they may be saved from debilitating hunger.  What Christ emphasizes is that hard tests will come.  The gospel inevitably involves suffering and all must learn to bear the cross daily.”  This is why Christ gives us this prayer.  We need this prayer.

 

But we need testing, too.  If we’re never tested, how do we measure our capacity?  How do we know what we know?  Paul Buckley writes, “I am the father of three adult children.  All their lives, I have wanted nothing but the best for them.  In a lot of ways, my ultimate goal has always been that they grow into strong, honorable, independent adults.  Long ago I realized that if whenever something went wrong I had stepped in to spare them unhappiness, or if I had taken on any burdens they might have to bear, or if I had protected them from the consequences of their own choices, they would have remained children – no matter how old they grew to be.  Each time they faced up to a new test, they grew up a little bit – whether they passed it or not, and whether or not I could have done things better.  Often, to be a good parent, I had to let them do things all by themselves… there were times when I could see trouble coming and had to let it happen.

 

God is our good parent.  For us to grow spiritually, God must let us face our times of trial.  Sometimes, we will fail, but we can come to know ourselves better in that failure.  For each of us, there are times when we overestimate our spiritual maturity.  For our own good, God may need to guide us into a time of trial.  When those times come, we can ask God if it is possible to postpone the test or to escape it entirely.  But when we are faithful, like Jesus at Gethsemane, we will end our plea with, “Not what I will, but what you will.””  

 

The prayer Christ teaches allows us four requests:

Bread for each day.

Forgiveness, for ourselves and for others.

Help in tests and trials.

Rescue from evil; from the evil one.

 

Sometimes our tests and trials are against evil itself.  Pogo once said, looking out over his polluted ‘forest primevil’, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”  It’s one thing to be born into this world… it’s another thing to live in it.  We get ourselves into a lot of trouble, following our own self-destructive ways.  In our choice to know good and evil, we made the decision to bite off much more than we could chew.  Why would anyone want to know evil?  Now, we find it everywhere.  And we often need to be rescued.  But God reminds us that good, that God, is everywhere too, and we often hear stories of just that – of God’s goodness rescuing us from evil.  Mary Sue Rosenberger tells this story:

 

“After the German occupation of Denmark, one of the first edicts passed by the Nazi-controlled government was that all persons of Jewish ancestry must wear a yellow star of David at all times.  Such a technique carried out in other occupied countries had marked Jews for discrimination and later persecution.  In Denmark, however, the morning the edict went into effect, every Danish citizen, from the king to the humblest peasant, appeared on the streets wearing a yellow Star of David!  Deliverance from evil does not always mean removal from evil.  Sometimes it means faithfulness in its midst.”  

 

 

Benediction:

 

Listen to what Job said, having endured his suffering:

 

23 Oh that my words were written!  Oh that they were inscribed in a book!
24 Oh that with an iron pen and lead they were engraved in the rock forever!
25 For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth.
26 And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God.”                                                                                                                                             [Job 19:19-26]

 

Giver of Life, who is in and beyond the universe, we would speak your name with thoughtfulness. May we follow the laws of peace and understanding here on earth as the stars obey the laws of heaven. May there be food for all so that none may go hungry. When we have been unfair, unkind or thoughtless, give us the courage to say we are sorry and help us to be forgiving when others hurt us. Give us the strength to do what we feel is right and to turn away from whatever hurts ourselves or others. For the wonder, the beauty, and the goodness all around us, we give grace and thanks. Amen.                                

Paraphrase of the Lord’s Prayer; Bethanne Kashkette

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