Going off script with God July 28, 2013 Proper 12

I remember, soon after I was ordained, my mother asking me to offer grace before a family dinner. I was in town because a very close family friend was seriously ill and none of us thought he would live through the night. So I commenced to offer a  standard food blessing, with a petition for Richard tacked onto the end. My mother, being a fairly rigid person said "Amen," as soon as I ended the familiar "grace" portion of the prayer... She was used to a specific formula for saying grace and darn it how dare I mess with it! My mom was astounded that I would " go off script" while praying.
The disciples ask Jesus: teach us how to pray. John the Baptist did for his followers, do it for us, give us the formula write us a script.
Everyone wants the inside track on the right way, the fool proof correct way to pray.
As if there is a wrong way to pray.
This is Jesus' point at the end of today's Gospel--- knock---Whatever you do knock! That is, PRAY, people. Whatever, however, wherever, whenever....God wants to engage us in a conversation. God wants to hear from us.
And this is what personal prayer is: a conversation with God. Whenever we speak to God, God listens.
God may not respond as we expect ( or wish or sometimes demand ) but God does listen and God does communicate back to us through the work of the Holy Spirit.
But what the disciples were asking, and what many people ask me is just what is the magic formula...the exact right way to pray?
I understand the question. People assume that God is like us. Like my mother--That God has a very distinct and proscribed way of doing things. That God is of the "my way or the highway" club.
God isn't.
However, because the disciples are an earnest bunch, Jesus offers them a formula for prayer. An outline of what a prayer could --NOT SHOULD-- look and sound like. Enter, The Lord's Prayer. Now it's  important to realize that although the prayer is known the world over- it's one of  the first prayers children learn, it's one most all of us have memorized -- it is not the be all and end all of prayers. It's simply an example, a prototype for a general kind of all encompassing prayer. It isn't magic, it's just handy.
I always tell people who are just beginning the ordination process tat when doing nursing home visitations to always always use the Lord's Prayer because when ministering to Alzheimer's patients it's amazing that, long after the faces of loved ones disappear into that unidentified line of strangers, they can still recite the Lord's Prayer. Word for word.
So while it is not the talisman of our faith, it is iconic.
But we needn't pray as the Lord's Prayer is structured, nor must we pray like others pray. We must pray as we feel compelled to pray.
However that looks and however that sounds.
Author and Christian seeker Anne Lamott says that all prayer falls into three categories:
Thanks
Help
Wow.
THANKS
 thanks for giving me life
Thanks for giving me love.
Thanks for healing my hurts , my illness, my loss, my sadness
Thanks for getting me through that sticky wicket.
THANKS. Thanks thanks


HELP
Help me I'm lost
Help me I'm scared
Help me I'm hurt
Help me I'm over whelmed
Help me
Help me
Help me
WOW
wow what An amazing sunset
Wow what an incredible baby
Wow that's some kind of Love
Wow this is some kind of life
Wow. You amaze me God--you totally and completely amaze me.
WOW WOW WOW.
I tend to agree with Annie. This is all God needs.
The basics.
Thanks….Help…..Wow
You know that verbal shorthand you can do with your best friend? Your spouse? Your sibling? How what you really mean, what you really need doesn't need to be spelled on in 12 pt font, double spaced with complete sentences and clearly defined paragraphs?
That's what God wants to have with us. A close and loving relationship that at times, needs few if any, words.
This is the point of that odd little parable in the middle of today's Gospel about the noisy neighbor and the grouchy homeowner. Many people mistakenly assume that God is the grouchy homeowner,  that we must whine and cajole to get God's attention. No what Jesus is telling us is that if one, out of a sense of cultural duty or just plain fatigue , responds to the pleas of another how much more will God respond to us, for God doesn't respond out of a sense of duty or expectation, God responds out of LOVE.
Embrace that Love
engage that Love.
Reciprocate with love of your own and enter into a conversation with God
Ask and receive
Search and you will find
Knock and the door will be opened
Go off script, blaze your own path and in your own words and through your own heart find a way to tell God thanks, to ask God for Help and to offer God Wow. Amen.