I’m talking about Jesus, prayer, and Transformers today. It’s a good day. I just need to make sure I don’t say things like “You idiot, Starscream,” “Soundwave superior; autobots inferior,” “One shall stand; one shall fall,” and other such gems.
Luke 11:1-13; Colossians 2:6-19; Psalm 138; Genesis 18:20-32
I love old cartoons. I especially love the ones I grew up with: GI Joe, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Winnie the Pooh, and more. But the cartoon I loved more than all the others was Transformers, and I’m not ashamed to admit it. The 80s cartoon lasted 3 seasons and produced a movie; I own all of them. I can probably quote you the entirety of the movie if I really set my mind to it; I watched it that much. Actually come to think of it, I have 3 different versions of the movie.
Now Transformers, as do all good 80s cartoons, had a vaguely future rock sounding theme. The lyrics went something like this: “The Transformers! More than meets the eye! Autobots wage their battle to destroy the evil forces of the Decepticons! The Transformers! Robots in disguise! The Transformers! More than meets the eye! The Transformers!” Yes I realize how silly it sounds to read the jingle of a long-ended 80s cartoon, but I when I was thinking about prayer this week, I realized that it, too, is “more than meets the eye.”
With the Transformers, they have a very practical reason for being “more than meets the eye.” They were basically giant robot aliens and needed a way to hide out on Earth, at least until people figured out that half of them were friendly. I mean, it was made in 1985; the last time giant robot aliens showed up in fiction you either had to say “Klaatu Barada Nikto” to make them stop or Orson Welles telling people Martians were invading and there was no way to stop them. By the by, one of Orson Welles’ last performances was as the bad guy in the Transformers Movie.
But what about prayer is “more than meets the eye”? It’s pretty straightforward, right? Prayer is talking to God. As I alluded to last week, though, we have a way that we think about prayer that is fairly ingrained in us. I still remember when I was quite little, during a children’s sermon on prayer, the pastor wanted to teach us to pray, so he gave us the “procedure”. First bow your head, close your eyes, and fold your hands. Then, and I’m summarizing quite a bit, you thank God for stuff, then you ask God for stuff.
For years, that’s how I thought prayer worked – well that or the Lord’s Prayer but we’ll get to that in a minute. And it’s not wrong, it’s just very simple. Even now that idea colors the way I pray – first you thank God, then you ask God for stuff.
But Jesus talks about prayer differently. In our gospel for today, his disciples go to Jesus after he finishes praying and ask him to teach them to pray. Jesus answers their question and then some. First he teaches them what we now call the Lord’s Prayer, then he tells them about what prayer can do. And let me tell you, prayer can do some kind of amazing things.
Before we talk about what Jesus says, I want to remind you of another thing prayer can do. In our reading from Genesis, Abraham had just been told by some travelers that Sarah was going to have a son, but before they left, Abraham and God had a chat about Sodom and Gomorrah. Because they were people who, according to Ezekiel 16, were “arrogant, overfed, and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before [God]”, God was going to punish them.
But Abraham, having some family who lived in the city (Lot, his nephew), pleaded for God to spare the city for a certain number of righteous people. He actually bartered God down to 10 righteous people, which is pretty impressive, but wasn’t enough. The only people spared Sodom’s destruction were Lot and his two daughters.
But the amazing thing is that, through prayer, Abraham was able to change God’s mind (or would have if there had been more than 3 righteous people in Sodom). This has actually happened other times in Scripture, where, through prayer, God did something different from his original plan. Now, one can get into a whole bunch of debate over just how that worked, and it’s actually incredibly ugly, not unlike the free will discussion. Just know that prayer is effective.
Now back to Jesus’ teaching to his disciples, because he’s going to explain a bit of how this works out. He likens God to both an annoyed neighbor and a loving father. The first example is of persistence, where God answers prayers when we ask and keep asking. The second example is of a God who will give us what is best for us.
Sometimes people run into trouble with this though, because prayers aren’t always answered the way we want them to be. So all kinds of excuses are made – sometimes it’s that the prayer doesn’t have faith or committed some awful sin or whatever else. We should not ever go in that direction. We can’t know why God responds to some prayers in a, at least to our eyes, favorable or unfavorable way, so the last thing we want to do is assume we do know.
But Jesus is very clear that God both wants to hear from us and will lovingly respond to our prayers. Prayer is more than the stereotype we have of it, because prayer is just a conversation with God – like one you’d have with a friend or family member. It’s more than thanking God for stuff and asking for stuff: it is telling God about our days, sharing our cares and worries, and sometimes it’s just sitting and being comforted when you have no words for how you feel. That’s prayer. Talk about “more than meets the eye”, right?