27th July 2025

Sunday 27th July 2025 - David Matthews

Readings:  Exodus 3.7-15 &  Luke 11.1-13

We remember that when Jesus stayed in a certain house, the home of Martha and her sister Mary, he warned Martha about the dangers of being distracted by her many tasks and told her it would be better if she followed her sister’s example. Mary, we know, “sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying”.

We shall never know what it was that Jesus was saying, which had Mary so spell-bound. Luke does not tell us. But he follows his account of this episode with the reading we heard earlier, providing his readers with a model for prayer. I do not think it is chance that these two passages are placed next to each other.

The relationship that Mary had with Jesus, sitting reverently at his feet, can surely be taken as a physical demonstration of the first words of what we now know as The Lord’s Prayer: ‘Father, hallowed be thy name’. What she understands is the importance of establishing – from the outset – a relationship with God: Father. It is a relationship. God is to be addressed as a family intimate; but he is also to be revered. More precisely, it is his name that is to be kept holy.

There is a tension here which would have struck Jesus’s followers immediately. For the Jews, God’s name was always so holy it was never to be spoken aloud and only written without vowels, using the equivalent letters YHWH. The name for God that Moses was given best translates as ‘I am who I am’ or ‘I am who I will be’. This is developed in the Book of Samuel to mean, ‘He who brings into existence whatever exists’. It is the name of the ultimate creator not that of one god among many. And yet – here is the tension – Jesus is inviting us away from that remote never-to-be-named deity to a father figure. Extraordinarily, we are encouraged to form a personal relationship with he creator of the universe.

The next lines in this formula for prayer follow a similar trajectory: form the remote to the accessible. Something ‘other’ – the spiritual dimension we call heaven – is to become a terrestrial reality. With God’s will being done, here in earth, we, his creatures, will receive due sustenance; we shall be protected from the snares of temptation, the lures that pull us off course; and we shall be saved from malevolent forces. Our relationships with each other will flourish because our egos – which prompt us to take advantage of others or bear grudges against those who seek to exploit their advantage – are subservient to the active will of God. Forgiveness, and the shift in perspective which that always brings, becomes the driving energy.

Let’s add all this up. We have the intimate relationship, the reverence for the creator, the sustenance, guidance and protection, and the suppression of ego. Surely this equals the establishment of the context where love can flourish. Love can be fostered. And what is Love but God. Hold onto that.

In the Old Testament, we are shown an interventionist God, definitely partisan, making things happen on behalf of his Chosen People, the Children of Israel. He establishes them in the Land of Canaan with apparently little thought for the displaced Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. He can seem tyrannous and terrifyingly resolute. Unsurprisingly, the Jews’ relationship with God revolved around placating him, offering sacrifices like all the other pagan peoples and adhering to a complex set of daily rituals and practices, following the Law and keeping themselves separate from other races. The Children of Israel were an exclusive tribe.

But the incarnation, thousands of years after Moses, when God is embodied in Jesus, marks a seismic shift. Now there is no more need for sacrifice – Jesus has taken that on himself, once and for all. There is no more need for the rules and rituals which keep the Jewish people uncontaminated by pagans – the Gospel is open to all humankind and the ideal Christian is personified by a Samaritan of all people! There is no more need for the priestly caste to bridge the gulf between creator and creature – we are all to address God directly as ‘Father’.

How on earth can this seismic shift be managed? What agency enables this transformative approach to living to take root?

The answer comes at the end of the passage from Luke. Having given us the model for prayer, we are told that, if we learn how to ask, the Father will give each of us the Holy Spirit. John’s Gospel refers to the Holy Spirit as ‘paraclete’, as the advocate or intercessor. The Holy Spirit is that of God within each one of us: the means by which our mortal natures can respond to, be inspired by and energised by God.

Our curate in Ipswich, a chap called Gregor Purdie, recently delivered a sermon where he suggested this way of understanding the trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It takes three straight lines, he said, to enclose a space. One straight line is just that: a divider, however far into the distance it stretches. Add another line to that, joined at one end or the other, and we still have a one-dimensional model, perhaps jointed at some point, varying its trajectory but still one-dimensional. Add a third straight line and we suddenly have the means to construct a triangle, the simplest of all enclosures can be created. The Holy Spirit, Gregor suggested, is that critical third line because, without it, there would be no space to embrace us. The Trinity Triangle gives us the security to pray to God and establish our relationship with him.

On a separate occasion, when I met with him, Gregor went on to extend this triangular concept into a strategy for prayer. Prayer, he believed, is best understood as a time when we listen – like Mary – seeking to align ourselves with God so that his will may be done on earth as in heaven. To help block out the distractions, the daily preoccupations that prevented Martha from following her sister’s example, Gregor suggested focusing on three statements. He did not say so explicitly, but I think each one links with each of the three persons of the Trinity. First, we focus on God with the words, “This is yours”. We acknowledge that everything on earth is God’s. Behind every aspect of the natural world – is God. Behind everything that reflects the ingenuity and creativity of humankind – is God. Yes, even behind all the mess and destruction we have caused – there is God. How can it be otherwise when he is the ultimate creator?  The second statement that we pray evokes Jesus, God with us, when we say the words, “You are here”. And finally, taking strength from the Holy Spirit within us, we say, “I am yours”. Three, three-word statements for Creator, Son and Spirit.

This conversation with Gregor arose because, for several months, I have been struggling with effective prayer. The practices I have followed for years have become stale, routine rituals. Perhaps like the New Testament Pharisees, I have followed ‘the law’ and the Sunday observance but missed the point. I have been very busy doing what might be called ‘good works’ but, at heart, I have known that filling my days with frenzied activity is a hollow substitute for effective, refreshing prayer. When sitting down to pray, I have tended to tell God what I am up to and why it’s all very worthwhile. Then, within minutes, when I suddenly think of how a problem could be solved or have an idea that needs implementing, I turn away from any prayerful mindset and address the issue, justifying myself to God by making it quite clear to him that what I am about is all for the good…it’s classic ‘Martha’ behaviour.

So I was absolutely in the right place to try Gregor’s strategy: to strive deliberately to break through my distractions. I looked for a space where I could be comfortable, where I would not be disturbed. I concentrated on breathing slowly, settling my body so I could concentrate not just on saying the three statements but whole-heartedly meaning them: ‘This is yours’, ‘You are here’, ‘I am yours’.

The last, I am finding, is the hardest of all. It means giving my entire ‘I am’ to God – consciously, absolutely meaning it – accepting that my true identity, the ‘I’ that I really am can only have real definition, real meaning, within the God who is ‘I am who brings into existence all that exists’. It means trusting completely in the triangular safe embrace of Father, Son and Spirit…and letting go.

I am not there yet. But I am finding the model of the Lord’s Prayer helpful. Knowing it is God’s purpose to foster a relationship with me, promising sustenance, guidance and protection, helps me articulate my preoccupations. Instead of saying, “This is what I want or need” or “This is how I want things to turn out”, I can pray, “These are the things which are on my mind which I want to tell you about; these are my distractions”.

I do ‘Martha’ and then I do ‘Mary’.

I try to listen. Using “I am yours” as the way in, I try to align myself with, surrender to, acquiesce with God’s purpose as far as the limit of my horizon and the boundaries of my personal sphere allow me to apprehend it. However God’s purpose is to be worked out in this imperfect, messy world, I seek to understand whatever part it is given me to play in it. For there is surely no higher ambition, no greater calling than aligning oneself to God’s plan: helping establish an environment, as in heaven, where the world is infused with love.

This is Yours… You are here… I am yours…

Amen