Sermon for July 27, 2025
Pentecost 7 C
Luke 11:1-13; Colossians 2:6-15
Rev. Karl-John N. Stone
I was in Minneapolis last weekend for a birthday celebration. My college buddies and I are all turning 50 this year, so we figured this would be a good way to enter the half-century club. We invited our wives to join us, stayed in an Airbnb—a big old house in the heart of the city—and all eight of us spent three days enjoying each other’s company. The neighborhood we stayed in is famous for an area known as “Eat Street”. But this is more than a simple street. It is a half-mile long stretch of city blocks along a major avenue and its side streets—17 blocks in all—and almost every shop for this half-mile stretch is a different kind of restaurant representing a different part of the world. If you’re feeling like Mexican pastry for breakfast, a Vietnamese Bahn mi sandwich for lunch, and German Weiner schnitzel for dinner, you can have it. The next day, if you woke up wanted to have a cappuccino and a fancy donut, then eat Greek souvlaki in the afternoon, and end your day with a Hawaiian-Philipino fusion dish, you could make that happen, too.
Wandering the sidewalks up and down “Eat Street” each day for three days, I had the thought that the Lord’s Prayer was being fulfilled right before my very eyes: “Give us each day our daily bread”. More than daily bread, however, it was more like the great feast of heaven! And it was, in it’s way, a picture of the kingdom of heaven itself, where a “great multitude of people from every race and tribe and nation” (as the vision of Revelation describes it) could live together in peace, and share with each other the gifts God had provided them, and would offer welcoming hospitality to each new person who had just arrived.
It was a street full of gifts given to our gathering of friends; one gift given right after the other for 17 blocks. And as wonderful as it was, these gifts weren’t even the best part! The best part was the connections we renewed, the friendships and relationships which continued to grow among us.
It’s the same way with prayer. Jesus himself taught the disciples what we now call “the Lord’s Prayer”. These beloved words were a gift he gave them—and us; words which are so familiar to so many people. Words which are often so deeply wedged in people’s memories that even when, if they get to a point in their elderly years when they’re hardly able to communicate, they can still pray along with the Lord’s Prayer. The version in Matthew’s gospel is a little more fleshed out than the one we hear this morning from Luke’s gospel, but it’s not the version or the specific words that matter, as much as the framework for prayer that Jesus gives us. With the structure of the Lord’s Prayer, the topics it covers, Jesus teaches us how to pray “in his name”, instead of simply by our own wish list of stuff. It’s a prayer structure that nudges us to align ourselves with God’s desires for the world.
“Father, may your name be revered as holy”. And with these opening words, Jesus shows us how God’s relationship with us is as close as a parent to a child, a presence that has always been there without us having to do anything, whether we realize it or not. And this God, whom Jesus invites us to address as he himself does (as a loving Father), is also “holy”—greater, stranger, and more mysterious than we can possibly imagine.
“May your kingdom come”. This is the next thing Jesus teaches us to ask of God—that God’s influence would be felt and acted upon in such a way that the broken ways of the world would be corrected and healed, so that the ways of earth look more like the ways of heaven.
“Give us each day our daily bread”—we ask God to provide our basic needs day by day. And this petition of the Lord’s Prayer encourages those of us who have more than our basic needs being met, when we see so many in this world who don’t, to ask ourselves how we can advocate for a better distribution of resources so that no one needs to suffer.
“Forgive us our sins as we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us”. Jesus knows that it can eat you up inside, when we get hurt by others or when we hurt others ourselves. And he knows how difficult it can be to forgive or accept forgiveness. Even when we can’t change the regrets of our past, with God’s help we can let go of them and hand them over to Jesus, so that those sins no longer control our thoughts and actions. We can’t change the past, but God can lead us into a new future; and in this part of the Lord’s Prayer, we’re asking God to show us the next best step on the path toward new life.
The prayer continues: “And do not bring us to the time of trial”. Each of us, at different times of life, will go through seasons of hardship, brokenness, despair, injustice. When we do, then it’s time to hang on and pray for salvation to come, as we cling to God’s promises that nothing in this world, not even death itself, will have the last word about us—but life will; that is, new and abundant life given by the risen Jesus who has death behind him. Life in Christ will have the last word.
The Lord’s Prayer contains a summary of all the essential gifts we need from God to lead a life well-lived. And yet as wonderful as these gifts are, they’re not even the best part! The best part of praying the Lord’s Prayer, and praying in ways that are inspired by the structure of the Lord’s prayer, is the connections woven between us and the Holy Spirit, and the friendship that we build with Christ, and the relationship we grow in with his heavenly Father.
It’s the same way with Baptism, as well. Today is a great day! We got to celebrate not just one but two baptisms! Nolan and Amelia did not have an easy start to life. Little Amelia with the many heart surgeries and months in the hospital. Little Nolan and his parents juggling home, hospital, and work day after day after day. Yet even with such a difficult start—or perhaps because of it—they have already been growing in their connection, and friendship, and relationship with God from the moment they were born. These two little ones and their family have been surrounded by the gift of prayer the whole time. And now by their baptism, God promises to send the Holy Spirit upon them, and to connect them to Christ forever. As Colossians 2:12 puts it, “when you were buried with Christ in baptism, you were also raised with him through faith in the power of God.” Christ’s death and resurrection is Nolan and Amelia’s life and salvation—and ours, too.
And when you were baptized, God promised all of you special gifts that can never be taken away: you’ve been claimed by Christ as God’s beloved children forever; you are forgiven by the love Jesus poured out for us from the cross; you are held in prayer and care by the community of faith that we call the church; and you are equipped by the Holy Spirit with your own gifts. In thanksgiving for all God has given us, we put our gifts to use by the way we live our lives and the way we serve others.
With all of these gifts, God sends us into the world to build connections, and form friendships, and grow in relationships—trusting that God will help us see Christ’s presence and love every step along the way. Amen.