04/19/2026 - Matthew 6:7-13, Third Sunday of Easter

Scripture: Matthew 6:7-13

“When you pray, don’t pour out a flood of empty words, as the Gentiles do. They think that by saying many words they’ll be heard. Don’t be like them, because your Father knows what you need before you ask. Pray like this:

Our Father who is in heaven,

uphold the holiness of your name.

Bring in your kingdom

so that your will is done on earth as it’s done in heaven.

Give us the bread we need for today.

Forgive us for the ways we have wronged you,

just as we also forgive those who have wronged us.

And don’t lead us into temptation,

but rescue us from the evil one.”

~

One of the many things that I love about being the pastor at UCLB is that we all come from many different faith backgrounds and traditions, and we all bring them with us into this space. And something that is a great example of this is what we call the prayer we pray every week that comes from this passage. Some of us call it the “Our Father,” others of us call it the “Lord’s Prayer,” and some of us don’t have a name for it because we’re still learning it.

I actually grew up not really knowing this prayer - I don’t remember reciting it on a regular basis in church services. I did memorize it as the Scripture passage we read today when I was a child, but we didn’t normally recite it as a prayer. That’s because growing up, my church valued extemporaneous prayer, which is just a really fancy way of saying you’re coming up prayer as you’re praying it, you’re not reading or reciting a prayer that’s already written or memorized. How we do prayers of the people here is an example of extemporaneous prayer.

I remember being taught that if you weren’t praying “from your heart,” which is what we called it, it wasn’t actually praying. If you were repeating someone else’s words or reading them, then it wasn’t actually prayer, it was just reciting a prayer or poem.

Now I don’t believe that anymore, I think that reciting memorized prayers or reading them is a beautiful form of prayer in it of itself. Because there comes times in our lives when we just don’t have the words to pray, or even think, but we still feel compelled to try and pray. And sometimes it takes other’s words or guidance to help us find our own voices in our prayers.

The Lord’s Prayer or the Our Father is really meant to be both in a lot of ways; a prayer that we can pray ourselves, and a guideline that we can follow to craft our own prayers. Over the next few weeks we’ll talk about those different sections, what they tell us about God and about ourselves, and what some different prayer practices are that we can reach for and hold when we need them.

While in our passage today Jesus teaches the disciples how to pray as part of a longer sermon that he gives, in other Gospels this moment is prompted by the disciples asking him how they should pray. The assumption implicit in their question is that they already know what prayer is, and why it is important, which it would’ve already been to them as people raised Jewish in the first century.

Prayer remains important in faiths around the world - pretty much every single faith tradition that believes in a higher power teaches a way to commune with that power, and faith traditions that don’t believe that also tend to have some sort of practice meant to center ourselves.

All of these practices are beautifully unique, but they all are brought together under the umbrella identification of “prayer.”

So with all that I think it’s fair to ask, what even is prayer? Why do we pray? And why was it so important to Jesus that he took time to give us a prayer, a framework for us to use when we pray?

Over the centuries a variety of theologians, mystics, pastors, imams, rabbis, monks, priests, and so many more have attempted to answer this question.

And I think the answer that we often come up with is one similar to how St. John of Damascus described it: “Prayer is the raising of one's mind and heart to God or the requesting of good things from God.” It’s a simple definition, and I think it is also one of the most instinctive ways that we pray if we’re not thinking about it.

Throughout our day we say quick prayers for a meeting to go well, for somebody who’s sick or in the hospital, or for us to find a spot in a packed parking lot. And those are perfectly fine prayers! But if we’re honest with ourselves, those kinds of prayers can be a lot of, if not most of our interactions with God. So let’s see how some people of faith who’ve dedicated a lot of time and thought to prayer can help us go beyond that.

St. John Vianney describes it as “the inner bath of love into which the soul plunges itself.”

St. Teresa of Avila says that “prayer is nothing else than being on terms of friendship with God,” which became one of the basis of the definition found in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which calls prayer “a vital and personal relationship with the living and true God.”

And while that’s a beautiful thought on its surface, it can quickly become a heavy pressure to keep up a certain kind of relationship that looks a certain way where you believe the right things, say the right prayers, and follow the right rules.

But that was never meant to be the case. Teresa of Avila herself followed her own relationship with God, her own beliefs, and her own way of prayer to become one of the most prolific mystics and founder of her own order. One of the beautiful things that should result from our prayer lives is a unique relationship with God that enriches our lives, and enriches the lives of those we come into contact with. Either because we see something in their faith life that we want to share with, or because we recognize that their way of being is not for us, and it helps us discover the ways we feel called to interact with God during this stage in our lives. Because God is bigger than any one person’s interpretation of God, or relationship with God. All of our prayers, no matter what language they’re in, what words we use, or even what theology fuels them, have a place in God’s ears and God’s heart.

This is why Lebanese writer and poet Khalil Gibran has one of my favorite definitions of prayer that touches on this when he says, “Prayer is the song of the heart. It reaches the ear of God even if it is mingled with the cry and tumult of a thousand men.”

It’s reminiscent of Romans 8:26-27 where Paul says that “the Spirit comes to help our weakness. We don’t know what we should pray, but the Spirit itself pleads our case with unexpressed groans. The one who searches hearts knows how the Spirit thinks, because he pleads for the saints, consistent with God’s will.” We don’t even need to know the words to say in order to pray. God already knows what we’re trying to say or think, because our hearts and souls already sing our prayers before our minds can even form them.

But then why do we pray, especially if we find ourselves not having the words to say?

Julian of Norwich was a 14th century theologian and mystic, who lived most of her life as an anchoress in a church. Anchoresses were women who chose to live in seclusion from the secular world and instead dedicate their lives to prayer, writing, and counseling those who came to them for spiritual advice. They lived in small cells attached to churches where they ministered, and were a form of monastic life. She’s also the author of one of my favorite Christian mystic writings, “Revelations of Divine Love.” And having devoted her life to prayer and writing, Julian of Norwich said that, “The whole reason we pray is to be reunited to the vision and contemplation of God to whom we pray.”

Essentially, instead of praying with the intention of asking God to do something in a certain way, we focus on praying that our wants and will align with what God wants, becoming ultimately what we want as well.

And let me be clear, with what God wants. Not with what someone who says they’re speaking for God wants.

It’s praying ultimately for discernment and wisdom, praying that we will be able to know what path we’re supposed to be walking, rather than asking for a path to walk.

Does this mean that we should never ask God for things? Absolutely not. Charles Spurgeon, an early British Baptist preacher, said that “True prayer is neither a mere mental exercise nor a vocal performance. It is far deeper than that. It is a spiritual transaction with the creator of Heaven and Earth.” But more than just his definition, we see people throughout Scripture ask for things. Not the least of which is Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane asking if that there’s another way besides his crucifixion, that God let that other way happen. But ultimately he does pray for his will to be in alignment with God’s. Or in other words, he prays for God’s kingdom to come and God’s will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

So what is prayer and why do we pray? I think it depends on who you ask.

All of us are going to have different answers to that, depending on who we are and what place of life we’re in. John Cassian, an early Christian monk and theologian, said that “There are as many forms of prayer as there are states of soul. A person prays in a certain manner when cheerful and in another when weighed down by sadness or a sense of hopelessness. When one is flourishing spiritually, prayer is different from when one is oppressed by the extent of one's struggles.” In contrast, Anne Lammot is much simpler in her definition, saying that there are only three prayers we pray throughout our life: "Thanks. Help. And Wow."

But no matter what you pray or how you pray it, all of those prayers in all of those different times in our lives are loved and held by God. Whether they are long poems and songs sung at the top of your lungs, or one or two words whispered hurriedly as we’re running from one thing to the next.Every single one of our prayers is heard and held.

So this week, I invite you to pay more attention to where, when, and what you pray. Do you find comfort in setting aside time to craft long prayers that help you order your thoughts as well as talk to God? Or do you find more peace letting silence pray for you? Or do you find your days sprinkled with quick prayers, ones just of “Thanks, Help, and Wow?”

And if you find yourself searching for words to pray, I invite you to turn back to the prayer that Jesus gave us here in Matthew 6, the one we pray each week in this sanctuary. Or if there are no words that can accurately express what you are trying to pray for, then let your heart sing and know that God does understand, God cares, and God holds it all in their hands.