Readings (click here for full text of the readings):
   Genesis 18:20-33; Psalm 138; Colossians 2:6-15; Luke 11:1-13

Many people wonder, “How should I pray?”  Actually, there are all kinds of ways to pray. Some people are very conversational. They chat with God as if He was an old friend, and they pray many times during the day.  Whenever something good happens they thank Him for it, and whenever a challenge arises they ask Him for help. 

Other people are more structured and formal. They might read Morning or Evening Prayer from the Prayer Book.  Or they might use an acronym to help them remember what to do next, like the letters A-C-T-S – “Acts” – which stand for Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication.  A method helps them remember everything they should be praying about.

So with all those options out there, it’s no wonder that the disciples, in today’s gospel reading, say to Jesus, “Lord, teach us to pray.”  He then recites what we now call the Lord’s Prayer, which is a wonderful outline for how we’re supposed to pray.  We start off by honoring God, and then asking Him for what we need: like bread, and forgiveness, and deliverance from evil.  But obviously Jesus doesn’t intend for us to only use that prayer – it’s just a place to start.

But for all the different methods and styles of prayer that are out there, the most important decision we have to make about prayer is what attitude we bring to it. Are we meek and vague, trusting that God will do the right thing, whatever it is?  Or are we assertive and specific, asking God for exactly what we want? And is there a golden mean between those two extremes, where God wants us to be?

Let’s take a closer look at those two ways of approaching prayer.  First, some people don’t feel like they have the right to ask God to do what they want Him to do.  And even if they did have the right, they’re not even sure that what they want would be good for them.  So they tend toward open-ended prayers, with lots of praise and thanksgiving, and not many concrete requests.  When it comes to asking God for things, they tend to say, “God, you know what’s good for me, so I’m leaving it up to you.”  And when something happens to them – even if it seems pretty awful – they thank God for it, because if God is all powerful, then He must have wanted that to happen, or else He would have stopped it. 

There are problems, though, with that way of praying. One is that you end up thanking God when something terrible happens to you.  When somebody you love gets cancer, or you lose your job, or wars ravage the Earth – those are all good reasons to ask God for help, but those don’t seem like reasons to thank God.  The other problem is the Jesus told us to be specific when we pray.  He told the disciples that if they had enough faith when they prayed for a mountain to be thrown into the sea, then it would happen. “Knock and the door shall be opened, ask and it shall be given to you.”  That’s what Jesus said.

On the other hand, some people take that too far. Instead of leaving it all up to God, they tell God exactly what they want and when they want it by.  They believe in the power of prayer, but they also expect God to ask how high when they tell Him to jump.  And I have to confess, I’m one of those people. 

A perfect example of that was a couple of years ago when Pam and I were trying to move to Vermont.  We were hoping to be called to Saint Paul’s, but I also needed work as a pediatrician.  There seemed to be only one job opening, and I prayed so hard for that position to work out, even though there were tons of problems with it.  When it looked like it was going to fall through, I just prayed harder, convinced that it was the right thing for us.  But it didn’t pan out in the end, and thank goodness it didn’t, because I would have been miserable.  Like the old saying goes: “God always answers prayer.  It’s just that sometimes the answer is ‘no.’”

Thankfully, there’s a middle ground.  A place between people like me who like to tell God what I want Him to do, and people who thank God for whatever happens, no matter how awful. And Abraham is the perfect example of that middle ground.

In this morning’s Old Testament reading, Abraham not only gives us an invaluable lesson in prayer, he also teaches us something about debate, mediation, and even courtroom tactics.  For it almost seems as if Abraham is a defense attorney pleading a case before God, the judge.  And instead of just throwing his clients on the mercy of the court, Abraham argues and cajoles and compliments and does everything he can to change the heart of God.

The story might be familiar to you.  The Lord has heard that Sodom and Gomorrah have sinned greatly, so He says He’s going to check things out for Himself. And if the accusations are true, He’s going to destroy the entire city.  Pretty much all the people who hear Him say that just start walking toward Sodom andGomorrah, because God has every right to destroy the cities. He is God, after all.

But Abraham stands his ground, and he says to God, “Would you really kill all the good people, too?”  He asks God to imagine that there are fifty righteous people in the city – which isn’t many, given the size of Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham can’t believe that God would do that, and twice he says to God, “Far be it from you to do such a thing!” Abraham doesn’t play God against the law, or morality, or Abraham’s own desires.  Abraham plays God against God, basically saying that God would never do such a thing.

And God not only agrees to spare the fifty righteous people (if there turn out to be that many), He’s willing to spare the whole city.  Abraham was trying to save fifty innocent lives, and instead God’s going to spare hundreds of thousands of mostly sinful lives.  There’s a good lesson there: if you ask for the right things, God will give you more than you dared ask for in the first place.

But Abraham isn’t done yet.  He says, “Let me take it upon myself to speak to the Lord, I who am but dust and ashes.”  Do five righteous people make that much difference?  If God would spare the cities for 50 good folks, wouldn’t He spare them if there’re only 45?  Notice what Abraham does: he knows his place – just ashes and dust – and he bases his next request on what God’s already said.  Abraham doesn’t start thinking that he can ask for anything he wants and God’s going to give it to him.  Instead, he remains humble, and he only asks God to keep the promises He’d already made, which Abraham has stretched a little bit.

After God agrees, Abraham throws in another request, this time short and sweet.  “How about 40?”  And God says yes.

Abraham knows he’s pushing things a bit now, so he makes it clear that God’s in control and he’s just a lowly human being asking for a favor.  “Oh do not let the Lord be angry if I speak,” he says, although he just keeps on going without waiting to see if the Lord really is angry.  “Suppose thirty are found there.”

The Lord agrees.  Abraham does it again with twenty, and the Lord says yes.  And then Abraham makes one final request: “Oh do not let the Lord be angry if I speak just once more.  Suppose ten are found there.”  And the Lord says, “For the sake of ten I will not destroy it.”

Then Abraham quits, and the Lord goes on His way. That might seem a little strange, since Abraham was on a roll.  If He’d gotten the Lord down to ten, maybe he could have bargained Him down to zero, and thereby saved Sodom and Gomorrah no matter how sinful they were.

But Abraham doesn’t try that, because he knows who he’s dealing with.  He knows that God is just, which is why God listens to Abraham’s pleas to save the righteous.  But precisely because God is just, He can’t let the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah go. If everyone in the city is sinful, God’s justice calls out for punishment.

And that’s the central point that we need to take home with us today: Abraham doesn’t try to tell God what he wants him to do; he simply reminds God about what God should do. All of Abraham’s arguments are based on his intimate knowledge of God: of God’s holiness and justice and righteousness.  In essence, Abraham is telling God, “You can’t do that.  God would never do that.”

Before any of us go trying that approach, though, we’d best remember two things.  First, we really have to know who God is.  We can’t approach God with some false notion of who God is, which is really just who we want God to be. We need to have intimate knowledge of God before we try to change God’s mind, and that only comes from prayer, and study, and meditation.

Second, we’d better realize that we’re playing with fire.  Abraham had good reason to begin a lot of his arguments with statements like “I am but dust and ashes” and “do not let the Lord be angry if I speak.”  Challenging the one holy and living God is dangerous business, and the cause we’re fighting for had better be worth it.

But if there’s a worthy cause – like famine, or war, or a friend with cancer – then not only can we approach God, we must approach Him.  The message of Abraham’s bargaining with God is that we have a holy responsibility to try to change God’s mind.  We must come before God with reverence and humility, for this isn’t about getting God to do our will; this is about calling upon God to do His will.  So that innocent lives might be saved, and guilty souls forgiven, and wars avoided and famines stopped.  So that this world might begin to look a little more like God intended it, from the very beginning.

Which is exactly what Jesus meant when He told us to start our prayers this way: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth, as in heaven.”

Amen. 

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