The Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ According to Luke 

 He 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.” ² So he said to them, “When you pray, say:

Father,^[a] may your name be revered as holy.
    May your kingdom come.^[b]
3     Give us each day our daily bread.^[c]
4     And forgive us our sins,
        for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.
    And do not bring us to the time of trial.”^[d]

⁵ 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, ⁶ for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.’ ⁷ 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.’ ⁸ 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.

⁹ “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. ¹⁰ For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. ¹¹ Is there anyone among you who, if your child asked for^[e] a fish, would give a snake instead of a fish? ¹² Or if the child asked for an egg, would give a scorpion? ¹³ 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^[f] to those who ask him!” (Luke 11:1-13)

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I was curious about prayer wheels, Tibetan prayer wheels, that is, so I did a little research – looked on the web – and found out much more than I really needed to know.

There are prayer wheels made out of wood or metal – a  drum really – inside of which is a roll of paper containing a mantra, or prayer. The drum has a weight attached on a cord, which swings in response to the user’s hand movement and acts as a governor, reducing the effort required to spin the drum.

There are metal prayer wheels massive in size, some in monasteries,  set in rows, where the monks or the faithful can rotate them.

There are prayer wheels which are made to rotate in the wind, or by the movement of water, or suspended over a candle where the rising heat will turn them. And there are prayer wheels which are powered by electricity, although some think the credit for such prayers should go to the electricity company, rather than to the operator. 

I must admit I found all this very enlightening, and puzzling. How does rotating a wheel  embossed with a prayer, or carrying a prayer with it, make a connection between a supplicant and the supreme being to which the prayer is submitted?

I must admit I was skeptical.

Then on second thoughts, prayer wheels may have come about so that illiterate people could pray. They didn’t have to remember a prayer.  And they didn’t have a prayer book like the Book of Common prayer which has prayer for all sorts of exigencies.

A real handbook for Anglican clergy.

I remember a story about the BCP . It concerned  a young curate called out to a farm where a man had been severely injured. Unfortunately the poor man died without a prayer because the young curate couldn’t find a prayer for a man who had been gored by a bull.

So, do written prayers, prayers on prayer wheels, prayers recited repetitively, prayers done in rote fashion, read out of a book, and so on have meaning?

In Buddhist thought, as I understand it there is merit in using a prayer wheel. Also traditional belief is that the spinning of a prayer wheel results in more merit than an oral prayer.

There are instructions on the use of prayer wheels, on when and how to use one, and the state of mind one should be in, when using a prayer wheel. Using one is said to focus the mind, and lift the spirit.

What about our own Lord’s Prayer?  If a person is told by his or her confessor, after confessing one’s sins, to recite the Lord’s Prayer ,(commonly called the Our Father) ten times, is there merit in that?   Does God still hear and heed the repeated prayer?

Did Jesus give the Lord’s Prayer to his disciples to repeat verbatim, or as a template for them to use in their prayers, or as an example of how we should pray?

And if we just rush it off, saying it without thinking about the words in it, does it still reach to God, and please him, or help him find ways to bless us?

And what if we alter the words, as has been done over the years. Is the meaning  the same? Does the change affect the effectiveness of the prayer?

The answer has to be in the intention, don’t you think?

Rabbis would give their disciples a simple prayer to use daily.  John the Baptist likewise gave his disciples a prayer, presumably for daily use.

Now Jesus, asked by his disciples for a prayer, on how to pray gives them a prayer.

The prayer has two sections. First of all it looks at the Father’s purpose, that his name be set apart – be holy – and it asks that He will rule the earth, as He does Heaven.

Then, our needs, and the needs of others . We pray for food, that our sins be forgiven, and that we can forgive others, as he forgives us.

And we ask for the strength to resist temptation.

The prayer is so simple, isn’t it?

Even a child can pray using that prayer.

I can remember the day my father taught me to say it.  I was probably six years old.

So it is powerful. It has meaning. It acknowledges His Lordship, and our need for His being in our life, daily. 

If those two thoughts are on our mind as we pray the prayer, then I feel sure the Lord will hear and respond.

Sincerity and the belief in prayer, and our need to talk to Our Lord, give power to what we say, and to what we acknowledge, and to what we ask.

After giving his disciples the prayer, Jesus goes on to assure them, and us, that God does indeed answer prayer, and he gives the example of the un-neighborly neighbour who, not out of love, but out of frustration at being pestered so much, t he eventually gives in and gets out of bed to provide a loan of bread to his neighbour.

You have to realise that in those days in Palestine, a man would go to bed  – he and his family, on one raised area of the one room house, with the children around them, and in some cases, the man would bring the goat and hens and so on in the house, overnight.

Getting up from the middle of all that wouldn’t be easy.

And although the door would be open, and  welcomes everyone during the day, once it was locked at night, it would hardly ever be opened.  As you might expect.

The point that Jesus is making is to be persistent in prayer, and the example he uses, tells us that if someone as pesky and stingy as the householder in that story, can be persuaded to come to his neighbour’s aid, then God who loves us will be much more willing to heed our prayers.

And when we pray we are going to One who knows our needs better than we know them ourselves. And whose heart is full of generous love.

Here is an example of prayer answered: 

While crossing the Atlantic on an ocean liner, F.B. Meyer was asked to address the first class passengers. At the captain’s request he spoke on “Answered Prayer.” An agnostic who was present at the service was asked by his friends, “What did you think of Dr. Meyer’s sermon?” He answered, “I didn’t believe a word of it.”

That afternoon Meyer went to speak to the steerage passengers. Many of the listeners at his morning address also went along, including the agnostic, who claimed he just wanted to hear “what the babbler had to say.” 

Before starting for the service, the agnostic put two oranges in his pocket. On his way he passed an elderly woman sitting in her deck chair fast asleep. Her hands were open. In the spirit of fun, the agnostic put the two oranges in her outstretched palms.

After the meeting, he saw the old lady happily eating one of the pieces of fruit. “You seem to be enjoying that orange,” he remarked with a smile. “Yes, sir,” she replied, “My Father is very good to me.” “Your father? Surely your father can’t be still alive!” “Praise God,” she replied, “He is very much alive.” “What do you mean?” asked  the agnostic. She explained, “I’ll tell you, sir. I have been seasick for days. I was asking God somehow to send me an orange. I suppose I fell asleep while I was praying. When I awoke, I found He had not only sent me one orange but two!” The agnostic was speechless. Later he was converted to Christ.

Yes, praying in God’s will, brings an answer. Our Daily Bread.

God can use the most unlikely person to bring about an answer to prayer. And in such an ordinary way, and using such unsuspecting helpers.

But what about prayer that is unanswered?

In his book Why Prayers are Unanswered, John Lavender retells a story about Norman Vincent Peale.

When Peale was a boy, he found a big, black cigar, slipped into an alley, and lit up. It didn’t taste good, but it made him feel very grown up. . . until he saw his father coming. Quickly he put the cigar behind his back and tried to be casual.

Desperate to divert his father’s attention, Norman pointed to a billboard advertising the circus.

“Can I go, Dad? Please, let’s go when it comes to town.”

 His father’s reply taught Norman a lesson he never forgot. “Son, he answered quietly but firmly, “never make a petition while at the same time trying to hide a smoldering disobedience.” 

Think about it!

How many times have we asked God for something, out of his love, when we ourselves have been harboring hateful thoughts?

How many times have we asked for signs of God’s generosity when we have at the same time been ungenerous ourselves?

How many times have we petitioned God for something and turned our back on someone petitioning us?

To go back to the prayer wheel, if a Tibetan supplicant spins the wheel, and has love in his or her heart for someone, then the prayer may be heard, and acted upon, don’t you agree?

God does his work in ways, and using means that we can never understand. 

A  prayer answered may not give us the thing we desire, but what we need.

And don’t forget, the answer to a prayer might be a refusal to do what we ask  but  that refusal, is still an answer, given out of God’s love and wisdom .

Give prayer a chance.

Give love a chance.

Surely both together cannot fail.

Amen