Reverend Raymond Osborne, Pastor

Please Note That Most Messages Follow
The Revised Common Lectionary

“Flying Upside Down”
Luke 11:1-13

A father, son and daughter were having dinner at home. The mother was away visiting a sick relative. Little Annie, age eleven, was allowed to sit in her mother's place. Annie's slightly older brother resented the arrangement. "So you're the mother tonight," he taunted. "All right, how much is nine times fourteen?" Without a moment's hesitation, Annie replied, "Ask your father!"

And we’ve all heard the story about the little fellow who told his Mother that he knew God’s name. “And just what is it?” asked his Mother. “It’s Howard!” “Howard? Just how did you come to THAT conclusion?” “Well it’s simple. Every Sunday we pray, ‘Our Father who art in Heaven, Howard be thy name!’”

I could continue with many more cute stories, but that would take time, and I haven't forgotten what happened to another preacher who didn't know when to stop. A man came up to him and said, "Your sermon this morning sounded to me like the peace and mercy of God." Being pleased to hear this, the preacher made the mistake of asking the man what he meant exactly. "Well," the man said, "it was like the peace of God because it was 'beyond all understanding' (Phil 4:7), and it was like the mercy of God because I thought it would 'endure forever'" (Ps.136:2).

When Jesus wants to talk about the God who creates, the God who is the Source of all of life, the God of mercy and forgiveness, the God of compassion and love, the God He loves and who loves Him, the God in whose life He joyfully shared, His one best word is "Father" and it is a word of personal endearment offered by a Son who has a relationship with Him.

I will never forget an astute observation one of my seminary professors made as we were in a discussion on what we know as “The Lord’s Prayer.” She commented how we must be careful when we pray and address God as “Father.” Unfortunately, not everyone has a loving and caring father. Some have father’s who have been very abusive to them. Some have fathers who for one reason or another have abandoned them. Some have fathers who neglected them.

We need to understand, no, we MUST understand that when we address God as our Heavenly Father, God is not abusive, God is not neglectful of our needs, and God will never, ever abandon us. God is loving and caring and everything good.

When we pray the Lord's Prayer, we start by trying to recognize God as Jesus did. When we say "Our Father" we acknowledge God as the Source of Life who calls us into being out of love; we acknowledge God as Provider and Protector and Tower of Strength who nourishes and sustains us, and defends us against evil. He is our Father, the whole human family's Father.

The various petitions that follow in the Lord's Prayer might seem to take us off in different directions and our minds may wonder at times when we are reciting them, but actually when we pray the Lord’s Prayer, we are praying throughout for just one thing. We are praying for that one thing, that one "Pearl of Great Price" for which, if we find it, we would give our house, our cars, and everything else. And that one thing is the Presence of the Living God in our lives, and ruling in every area of our lives.

Just to let the good Lord God Almighty, the Loving Father of us all, and rule in your lives - that's what you're praying for.

What is really behind every sincere prayer you utter is the realization that when God rules in your life you have life! It's the only way you can have life. It's the only way to be a whole person. It's the only way! And when you pray seriously, you realize that this basic theme of Jesus' life and teaching is the basic theme of your prayer.

If you take a long, loving look at Jesus and His Gospel Message, you will discover that the key to His ministry is His absolute dependence on the Father every moment of His life.

That was the very Source of the power He needed to do the Will of God in all things. It’s the very source of power we need in our lives as well.

I’ve brought something with me this morning that we all have lying around in our homes, a flashlight. As a child my Grandfather always kept a flashlight beside his bed. When I asked my Mother why she shared with me how the phone rang in his bedroom one night. He picked up what he thought was the receiver of the phone and the phone continued to ring. “Hello? HellO? HELLO!!!” When he turned the light on he discovered he had picked up a ceramic cat, uttered various explicatives, and smashed the thing against the floor.

A flashlight is used to bring light into darkness. If I turn this flashlight on notice how no light exists. It would probably work better if it had some batteries in it. Let’s see. Golly bum! What’s wrong with this thing! I promise you I thought it would work! Oops! I got the batteries in upside down!!! Let’s see. Ah, yes. That’s much better!

Our lives are a lot like this flashlight. First without the batteries it wouldn’t work. It was hollow and empty. Without God in our lives we are hollow and empty. We run around from this place to the next looking for something to empower us. We never find it, and what’s more we are never satisfied. We cannot and will not have our hunger fed or our thirst sated without the presence of God in our lives.

Others of us are a lot like the flashlight with the batteries in upside down. We do have a relationship with God. He is in our life. The problem is our lives are upside down! I read once of a pilot who was practicing high speed maneuvers in a jet fighter. She turned the controls for what she thought was a steep ascent - and flew straight into the ground. She was unaware that she had been flying upside down. While this is a parable of human existence in our times - not exactly that everyone is crashing, though there is enough of that - but most of us as individuals, and world society as a whole, live at high speed, and often with no clue to whether we are flying upside down or right-side up. Indeed, we are haunted by a strong suspicion that there may be no difference.

When we allow other things in our lives to become more important to us than our relationship with God we got the priorities upside down in our life. But there is GOOD NEWS!!!

The more we acknowledge our dependence on God, the stronger we will be, spiritually. The "original" sin of every person, from the very beginning of humanity, has been to turn away from God and to try to live independently.

The great sin to which all of us can plead "guilty" is believing that we, as individuals, have capacities that we somehow develop on our own to live independently of God. We really are children of God in the sense that we can do only what God gives us the capacity to do. It is His Power, not ours, that determines our destiny. That is the heart of the Biblical teaching about our human situation.

In today's Gospel Lesson, Jesus teaches His disciples to pray, "Give us this day our daily bread." We are dependent upon you, Almighty God, for bread and for all the necessities of life, even for life itself.

In today's Gospel Lesson, Jesus is telling us how to make contact with the Mystery of who we are and what we ought to do. Jesus is telling us how to get in touch with the Mystery that can change our terrible feelings of frustration and insignificance into a life-enriching sense of individual purpose and fullness and importance. In short, Jesus is telling us to pray to the Father.

Would you join me?

Our Father who art in Heaven . . .

Amen.

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