Learning to Pray

Gospel: Luke 11: 1-4

Today's Gospel portion provides us with two shocking discoveries.  The first is that John the Baptist taught his disciples to pray, and the second is that Jesus' disciples ask him to teach them how to pray.  It seems rather startling that people who have grown up in a religious tradition where prayer is ubiquitous would feel the need to find someone to teach them how to pray.  It reflects the fact that something was lacking in that culture that was failing to meet a need among the people.  

Very often in highly organized religious systems prayer becomes so formal and elaborate that it sails over the head of most people.  When multi-volume tomes on prayer and the spiritual life are published making the exercise even more complex and convoluted, it is evident that a religious tradition is far afield in in the matter of greatest intimacy and personal import for people.  If a tradition cannot meet the need, people will look elsewhere to have that need met.

So Jesus provides us with a prayer that is both intimate and simple.  We are to address God in intimate, personal terms.  We are to talk about our daily needs, relationships, and concerns, not grandiose ideas of abstraction.   We are to entrust ourselves to a loving God.  That's it.  We can use the words he gave us or use our own that reflect these ideas.  The prayer Jesus gave us reflects the fact that God is near us in our daily lives and so loving that terms of intimacy are encouraged.