On Prayer
July 27, 2025
Rev. Traceymay Kalvaitis
Psalm 85: 10-11: Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet; righteousness and peace will kiss each other. Faithfulness will spring up from the ground, and righteousness will look down from the sky.
Luke 11:1-13: Jesus was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.” So he said to them, “When you pray, say: Father, may your name be revered as holy. May your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us. And do not bring us to the time of trial.” And he said to them, “Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.’ And he answers from within,‘Do not bother me; the door has already been locked, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.’ I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything out of friendship, at least because of his persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs. “So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. Is there anyone among you who, if your child asked for a fish, would give a snake instead of a fish? Or if the child asked for an egg, would give a scorpion? If you, then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”
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Today’s sermon is titled On Prayer. I have a question for you. What is your earliest memory of prayer? My earliest memory was praying around my grandparent’s dining room table. My grandmother and great-grandmother always did the cooking and my grandfather always did the praying. “Dear heavenly Father, bless this food to the nourishment of our bodies. This we pray in Christ’s name. Amen.”
I believe in the power of prayer with the same conviction that I believe water is wet. I believe in the power of prayer because I know that the act of praying changes me. Prayer is calming, prayer focuses the racing mind, prayer is satisfying. When I pray, I form a connection with the person or the situation I am praying for and I strengthen the connection with the force working in us and through us, the force guiding us continually towards love and light and truth; I call that force God.
The power of prayer is often dismissed because when we don’t receive what we pray for, we become leery about the effectiveness of the practice of praying. Perhaps we are missing something. Our scripture reading from the eleventh chapter of Luke presents us with an example of how to pray. It is an example offered by our teacher, Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus says, “When you pray, say, ‘Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us. And do not bring us to the time of trial.’”
This sounds different from the Lord’s Prayer that we are accustomed to. The version that most of us know is found in the book of Matthew, chapter 6. Even though the words differ, let’s remember that Jesus was demonstrating how to pray. He was giving his followers a pattern to follow and what a beautiful pattern it is. The pattern is to first acknowledge God, then to invite God’s influence (your kingdom come), then to ask for what we need, right now, today (give us our daily bread), then ask for forgiveness and remind ourselves in the very same breath that we are in the (neverending) process of forgiving others. Finally, there is the petition that we not be faced with more than we can handle. This is a pattern for prayer, if we choose to use it.
After Jesus offers the pattern for prayer, he offers a story about a man so desperate to obtain bread to share with his unexpected guest that he wakes his neighbor and relentlessly begs for bread until the neighbor rises from his sleep and shares his bread. In offering this story, Jesus reminds us that we must be persistent, determined, tenacious, even, in our asking.
Here’s the catch: of all the things we could and should ask for in prayer, there is one request that should rise above all others. In the last sentence of our passage today from Luke, Jesus says, “If you know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” The awkward wording in this statement is an impediment, so allow me license to just reverse the order of the phrases, without changing any of the words, the essence of Jesus’s message becomes so much clearer. “The heavenly Father will give the Holy Spirit to those who ask.”
How might our lives unfold if we begin by praying to be filled with the Holy Spirit of God?
That is a new way of praying, is it not? How differently would we move through our days if our morning prayer was “Dear God, fill me with your Holy Spirit, I pray. Amen.” How might our lives be experienced if we prayed first and foremost for fullness…fullness of God, fullness of love? How might our choices be influenced if we were praying to be filled, and therefore guided, by the Holy Spirit of God? Can you imagine with me the sense of security with which
we could face all manner of hardship, were we filled with the spirit of God? Can we imagine the peace and hope that such a perspective affords, to be able to look ahead into the future from a place of fullness within? I can imagine that such a perspective would change everything.
I imagine that from a perspective of fullness, we can more easily shift our priorities, more accurately determining what we need and what we do not. I imagine that from a perspective of fullness we are healthier in relationships because we are not dependent on others to fill our emptiness. I imagine that from a perspective of fullness fear loses its power over us. From a perspective of fullness we can see that of God in all people and justice for all becomes the standard we commit ourselves to as followers of Christ, full of the Holy Spirit.
In closing, I invite you to join me in changing the way we pray by doing just exactly what Jesus suggests: asking first, asking foremost to be filled with the Holy Spirit of God. I will close with the last line from one of my favorite prayers in the Second Testament, found in the book of Ephesians, where Paul is praying for the community at Ephesus: “May you be filled to the measure with all the fullness of God.” So be it. Amen.
Pastoral Prayer God of earth and sky, we are blessed with so many gifts; open our hearts with gratitude for the areas of our lives that are full and healthy and functioning. Inspire us to give thanks to the people who have been most instrumental in our lives, the people who have believed in us, the people who have loved us just because of who we are. Bring them to our minds, Lord, in prayer. When we are faced with challenges, lack of necessities, sorrow or loss, illuminate the presence of goodness in our lives, past and present, so that we may be guided homeward by your holy light. In the ways we need healing, I pray we are open to receive. For all of our brothers and sisters that are struggling, may they be noticed, may they receive the care and comfort they need. I pray in Jesus’s name. Amen.
I leave you now with a translation of the Lord’s Prayer directly from Aramaic, the language that Jesus spoke. Scholar of Aramaic, Neil Douglas-Klotz provides us with the following translation: Lord’s Prayer — Aramaic to English Translation, by Neil Douglas-Klotz:
Bible: KJV: (Our Father which art in heaven)
Aramaic: Abwoon* d’bwashmaya
Translation: O Thou! The Breathing Life of all, Creator of the Shimmering Sound that touches us.
Bible: KJV: (Hallowed be thy name.)
Aramaic: Nethqadash shmakh
Translation: Help us breathe one holy breath feeling only you-this creates a shrine inside, in wholeness.
Bible: KJV: (Thy kingdom come)
Aramaic: Teytey malkuthakh
Translation: Desire with and through us universal fruitfulness onto the earth.
Bible: KJV: (Thy will be done in earth; as it is in heaven.)
Aramaic: Nehwey tzevyananch aykanna d’bwahmaya aph b’arha
Translation: Create in me a divine cooperation-from many selves, one voice, one action.
Bible: KJV: (Give us this day our daily bread.)
Aramaic: Hawvlan lachma d’sunqanan yaomana
Translation: Grant what we need each day in bread and insight; substance for the call of growing life.
Bible: KJV: (And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.)
Aramaic: Wahboqlan khaubayn (wakhtahayn) aykanna daph khnan shbwoqan I’khayyabayn. Translation: Erase the inner marks our failures make, just as we clean our hearts of others’ faults.
Bible: KJV: (And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.)
Aramaic: Wela tahlan l’nesyuna Ela patzan min bisha
Translation: Deceived neither by the outer nor the inner-free us to walk your path with joy.
Bible: KJV: (For Thine is the kingdom, & the power, & the glory, forever. Amen)
Aramaic: Metol dilakhie malkutha wahayla wateshbukhta l’ahlam almin. Ameyn
Translation: From you is born all ruling will, the power and life to do, the song that beautifies all-from age to age it renews.