Last week at the Eucharist, we spent some time together thinking about the story which immediately preceded the one in today's first reading.  The hospitality of Abraham - and we thought about Rublev's icon, sometimes described as an icon of the Trinity.  As we thought about that, we saw how it is that ideas about God, vitally important as they are, can only take us so far.  Rublev's icon shows us that when we think about God, when we contemplate God, when we pray and worship God we are invited to join the inner dance between the three persons of the Trinity - Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  At the very least, we cannot be content to, as it were, just look on.  Rather we are drawn into the movement of God - we get involved.

Today we think some more about how we relate to this God, and how God relates to us.

And again, we start with Abraham.  And it is again a curious story - of how God supposedly shares his inmost thoughts about Sodom and Gomorrah's wickedness with Abraham.  And then there is the strange bargaining that goes on between Abraham and God - suppose that there are 50, no 45, no 30, no 20, no just 10...

It’s a curious story for a number of reasons.  We don’t know too much about the sinfulness of Sodom and Gomorrah, though there has been plenty of unwise speculation over the years, but what we do know is that they were profoundly guilty of being very inhospitable.  Unlike that hospitality which Abraham had shewn.  It emphasises to us the perfect justice of God.  And Abraham as he supposedly argues with God is in fact progressively discovering for himself that the God with whom he has to do, with whom he has thrown in his lot, is a supremely trustworthy God who always acts with justice and mercy.  

In the Gospel reading today, Jesus is asked a question about prayer which again leads us into the mystery of God's being.  When you pray say Father.  And then there is a little illustration about how parents behave towards their children - how even human parents can be relied upon to provide what's necessary for their children, so how much more our Father in heaven.  To the idea of God as showing absolute justice is added something about his providence.  God is to be trusted just like we would trust a loving parent, whose commitment to us is inexhaustible and whose purposes for us are unfailingly generous as well as predictable.  That's what Abraham learned through his dialogue of bargain with God.  It's the approach that Jesus teaches us to make towards God in prayer.  

And maybe, like the prayer of Abraham, the Our Father is a prayer that we need to persevere with in order not so much to change God's mind (for that would be to worship a capricious and unpredictable kind of god) but rather to open our own minds to the truth and reality of God and God’s purposes of love for all that is – or in traditional language – the coming of God’s Kingdom.

For when we come to God in prayer, particularly intercessory prayer, we frequently come with false images of God - the kind of supernatural sugar daddy-figure who will grant all our wishes if we pray hard enough. Rather we need to allow our praying to change our vision of the way God is - to open our hearts to his utter trustworthiness, his justice, his mercy, his love for all that is, his infinite store of generous possibilities for creation, and above all, his ability to bring new life out of disaster and death.  

Is this to say that God doesn't answer our prayers?  

It most certainly is not to say that - but it is to say that our praying immediately brings us into the very life of God himself.  And that changes us rather than God, but it does allow for change to happen as a result of our prayer.  Change in ourselves, and then change in the people and situations around us in life, the infinite possibilities of change that closer union with the creative dance of God brings.  People who share a closeness to God always make a difference to our world.  Though mostly they themselves know nothing about it.

Through prayer, then, as Jesus shows us in the Our Father, we participate in God’s commitment to bring about God’s reign, God’s kingdom.  This is very much to the fore in the first part of the prayer.  Then we ask for Bread.  But not just any bread.  In the Greek,  epiousioV.  This word has not appeared in Greek literature prior to it use in the Gospels.  And it could mean, daily as we normally use the word.  Or it could mean tomorrow’s.  Or it could mean necessary.  In the overriding context of the prayer, which is one looking for God’s Kingdom which has already come in Christ but has yet to be fulfilled in the Universe, we can also see an eschatological dimension to this petition – praying that we may share in the great Messianic Banquet.  Something which is anticipated in the Eucharist, where we are fed with the Bread of Life, Christ himself.

So we pray for food.  Then for forgiveness – something of which we continue to need through our lives and as we shall continue to extend towards others equally.  This is again a sharing in that creative dance of God as God brings about God’s reign.

And the final, and troubling petition.  We are used to praying not to be led into temptation.  Again the Greek here helps us understand.  The word we translate as temptation is peirasmoV which doesn’t mean temptation in terms of some enticement to do evil.  Why would our trustworthy God want to lead us to do evil?  It’s a crazy thought. No, the understanding here and in the context of Luke’s writing is that we ask preservation from circumstances that test or impair faith.  And Luke probably had in mind in choosing his Greek word the persecutions that his sisters and brothers were undergoing at the time.  

To underpin his teaching on prayer, Jesus adds a parable for us to ponder.  The translation into English leaves a little to be desired – at the beginning it would be better to have Jesus saying Surely none of you has a friend to whom you go at midnight for desperate help who tells you to go away?   Well, if not you may be sure that God will surely answer!  And then we are encouraged in this passage last of all to keep at it.  Perhaps one of the most important lessons in prayer if we are truly to deepen our relationship with God.  Persevere in prayer – but prayer for coming of God’s reign, God’s kingdom, not for anything that happens to tickle our fancy.  Though even that kind of prayer gets an answer, even if it one that we neither want nor expect!