Our sculpture today brought to mind something I have been doing here for a number of years. Our Bea a reader program. We have been giving away books for several years and I always like to have a collection for all types and all ages. I finally started giving my own books away instead of collecting for the first time in my life and I always watched where those went.
Some of the best books I had came from a book drive my sister did in her yoga class for a local women's prison. Now why did I have them? The books were mostly about philosophy as these women seemed all to reach the same conclusion about what women in prison needed. The administrator of the prison rejected them without much comment. So I had those great books.
There is a children's book bank in our area that gave me some very good books and people would donate books to me all the time. First we set up in the food pantry here then we took it out on the road at farmer's Markets. We did Coit Rd the most, but were also were in South Euclid a few times and down at the westside market. Mostly me and Marko. This last year we had bags thanks to our anniversary and that was a very nice addition.
We told people mainly we were looking for good homes for books. My favorite was when someone would take a book for a neighbor. Originally we said there was a 1 book limit which we later changed to a 1 book minimum. Marko figured that one out. Sara did the original sign it is hard to remember how many years we have been doing it. It has been some time.
People approached the table of books in many different ways. I think everyone thought people all approached it the same. Some people you would have to convince to take a book others were happy too. A significant percentage offered to pay. I did take one donation because it was a friend of a friend at Nottingham. Throughout the community there are connections out from here. At the westside market spoke a long time with two men who used to do the floors in the educational wing. They didn't really want anything they just wanted to talk to somebody who knew about Nottingham.
One guy I remember stopped in his tracks and just looked at a Artimas Fowl book. Clearly it was something he had read less than ten years ago cause he wasn't very old maybe late twenties. There was a rush of things that came back to him that he had lost or repressed. It was something and he took a rest for quite a bit at the table. I told him several times he needed to take the book if just to pass it on. He didn't. It was one of the most visceral responses I saw, but every single person had their own relationship with books.
I liked to tell people we were working to make the world a more tangible place. I don't know if books will always have a place in our world, but they do now. It was really as if every single person responded differently and had this expectation that most people were like them. I have often preached how similar we are this is a story of how different we are; that is the way it was with prayer.
Island of the Blue Dolphin was one I always accumulated to my delight. I liked the classics and diversity of voices the most. All the places these books would go. Each a world. The last one I gave out to a kid at the summer lunch on Friday. His Grandma was yelling at him because he didn't open the juice the right way. I showed him the arrow and where it said open I pointed to. I ask him you can read to which he shook his head. I asked which grade he was going to and he said Kindergarten.
I got a book for him and showed him asking him to read the title. His grandma added he was repeating the grade. I said that's alright it has been a tough couple years. I read it to him, "Splash into Kindergarten." It was kind of hard to read as it was done in coral and sea horses and sea stars. He took that book in two hands and had a mission.
His grandma said mom would read it to him and he smiled. Had all the things you need to know for kindergarten and he had already been around once. Things were looking up for the little man. He was little too. They had left before I realized he had left his extra chips and salsa behind. I just though thanks little man and knew why he left them behind. Well he has some more in front of him, but it was a hopeful moment and a look of determination I will not soon forget with two hand on the book.
We all don't get moments to leave things behind. We approach everything differently. The followers of Jesus would approach one thing the same prayer. To be a prayer meant many things.
Our scripture today is Instruction about Prayer from Luke 11:1-13 Which I read from the Amplified Bible:
11 It happened that while Jesus was praying in a certain place, after He finished, one of His disciples said to Him, “Lord, teach us to pray just as John also taught his disciples.” 2 He said to them,
“When you pray, say:
‘Father, hallowed be Your name.
Your kingdom come.
3 ‘Give us each day our daily bread.
4 ‘And forgive us our sins,
For we ourselves also forgive everyone who is indebted to us [who has offended or wronged us].
And lead us not into temptation [but rescue us from evil].’”
Prayer is religion in action.
Prayer is as old as civilization itself. Man has always found much which perplexed him, natural phenomena he could not explain. To help release himself from the fear of the unknown, primitive man often placed his faith in ONE who could help. In the beginning he prayed to fire, wind, the moon and the sun; thunder lightning streams, lakes, mountains, and trees. He attained communion with "another" who could bring about something that man alone could not achieve.
Man today is still beset by problems, anxieties and fears fears as binding as those man has faced through the ages. Although science has given him many answers, he is still surrounded by much that bewilders him.
This was the condition of the disciples in out scripture reading.
The disciples seeing and realizing that Christ spent much time in prayer, and witnessing the fact that Christ received great spiritual strength from his communion with the heavenly Father, desired also to pray after this manner. On various occasions they desired that Christ should teach them to pray. It is natural that they should have this desire, for all men should pray. God made man to be in communion with Himself, He did this first of all because He cherishes that communion. But the importance of prayer lies in the further fact that man is dependent upon God.
Jesus first of all set the pattern for prayer. We are not to stand and pray to be seen of men. Rather we are to pray to our father in secret. He tells us our prayers should be communion with God not just a recital. And he tells us our Father knows our needs and will honor the fervent prayer of a righteous man. Prayer is not to inform God or persuade him. He knows and loves us, but he has set prayer as a mysterious law of approach to him. It has something that prepares the way for the answer. The important distinction in this connection is that, although we should pray, we must put our trust in God rather than trusting in prayer. The question may follow, why should we have to ask him or tell him if he knows?
The simple answer is that God has made it a law, in a sense as truly a law as the law of gravity. It is a prescribed method of approach to our Maker, and we may assume that there is something in the very effect of prayer that prepares us to receive the blessing we seek. Two of the universal requirements for victorious prayer are clean hands and a humble heart. In I John 3:22 we read that we have a standing access to answered prayer, if we keep his commandments and do those things that are pleasing in his sight.
The prayer begins by declaring God as our heavenly Father. This was Christ' usual address to God when he prayed. he establishes God as the divine Ruler and Maker and enthrones his name with the words "hallowed be Thy name". Our Father is the highest and dearest name we know, embracing both father and mother and embodying both justice and mercy. Our first petition then is-- Hallowed be Thy name. The second and third petitions-- Thy kingdom com, Thy will be done.
God's kingdom cannot come to man until man does God's will. Thus we petition that God's will be accomplished in our lives that His kingdom may come. This should be a joyous petition, for the kingdom of God is righteousness, joy, and peace.
The fourth petition-- Give us this day our daily bread.-- This prayer is concerned with our day by day needs both temporal and spiritual. The bread that we seek is bread for the body and bread for the soul. This is supplied to us in direct proportion to our submission to God's will.
The fifth petition-- And forgive us our debts, as we forgive or debtors.-- We seek in this prayer forgiveness of sin, both sin against God and sin against our fellow-man. Forgive us our debts-- but along with this is the prayer, as we forgive or debtors. The two forgivenesses go together, we cannot hope to obtain forgiveness if we refuse to forgive. An unforgiving spirit closes God out of our lives. He is ready to forgive but often we are not ready to be forgiven. Eph. 4:32 tells us: "Be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted forgiving one another, even as God for Christ' sake hath forgiven you."
The sixth petition-- And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. This prayer is probably best explained as the plea of conscious weakness. We do need testing. It is no sin to be tempted, it is sin only when we fall prey to temptation. This prayer admits our weakness and asks God's help for deliverance.
5 Then He said to them, “Suppose one of you has a friend, and goes to him at midnight and says, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves [of bread]; 6 for a friend of mine who is on a journey has just come to visit me, and I have nothing to serve him’; 7 and from inside he answers, ‘Do not bother me; the door has already been shut and my children and I are in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.’ 8 I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything just because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence and boldness he will get up and give him whatever he needs.
9 “So I say to you, ask and keep on asking, and it will be given to you; seek and keep on seeking, and you will find; knock and keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who keeps on asking [persistently], receives; and he who keeps on seeking [persistently], finds; and to him who keeps on knocking [persistently], the door will be opened. 11 What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead of a fish? 12 Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 13 If you, then, being evil [that is, sinful by nature], know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask and continue to ask Him!”
The beauty of the passage reminds us that Luke borrows. An oasis. Keep on asking, and it will be given to you; seek and keep on seeking, and you will find; knock and keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you. What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead of a fish? There are many hard things in life. These here are things we can all do. Keep on asking, keep on seeking, keep on knocking, these are things I can do well. Jesus doesn't say find, he says, "you will find."
So I thought we might expand that program to something we can all approach in one way together. Bea a prayer.
Let us join in prayer--
Dear Lord, who makest all the commandments of the law to consist in love toward God and toward man, grant to us so to love Thee with all our heart, with all our mind, and all our soul, and our neighbor as ourselves, that the grace of charity and brotherly love may dwell in us, and all envy, harshness, and ill will may die in us. And we beseech Thee, so to fill our hearts with true affections that by constantly rejoicing in the happiness and good success of others, by sympathizing with them in their sorrows, and by putting away all harsh judgments and envious thoughts we may follow Thee, who art the Way the Truth and the Life. In Jesus name--
Amen.
Now may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit and go with you.
Amen.
Nottingham UMC 7/24/2022
with some help:
http://wfmsermons.blogspot.com/2010/10/teach-us-to-pray.html
Nottingham Methodist Church 7/14/1963