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Billy Graham was once a guest on the comedy show Laugh-In. One of the comics quipped he was surprised to meet this preacher on such a program as Laugh-In. Billy graham said, “Well, I’m here because someone told me Laugh-In didn’t have a prayer.”

If Jesus’ first disciples need to learn better how to pray, maybe we need some help too. If you’re like me, prayer seems to be like such a huge, complicated subject. We strain to pray correctly, we search for the right words, and we sometimes use flowery language or overblown ideas and images. Jesus says, “Do not make a big spectacle when you pray, showing off in public, spouting empty phrases; better to pray in private, with simple words from your heart, and here’s the kicker; “God our Father knows what you need before you even speak to God.” (Matt. 6:5-8)

Jesus teaches his disciples two times how to pray, once in today’s lesson and once in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew. Both times he gives us a short version of what has become known as The Lord’s Prayer. We memorize this prayer and it’s good for us to pray this prayer regularly, so we use Jesus’ own words, and so we avoid too much drifting or wandering into our favorite words and ideas.

Prayer to God should be easy and normal for us, because we are created in the very image and likeness of God. We are created to communicate with our creator. Like a negative electrical charge and a positive charge naturally attract one another. This is why, as we seek to fulfill the vows we take when we baptize, it is good for us to pray with and for and show our little children how to do this basic act of discipleship.

Jesus says it’s good to address God as “Our Father in heaven.” This was shocking to Jesus’ Jewish disciples, who were taught to avoid any familiarity or intimacy with God. Luke has Jesus use the Greek word “Pater,” but Jesus spoke Aramaic and he used the word “Abba,“ a very familiar, intimate word like “Daddy” or “Papa.” Jesus expresses this intimate child to parent relationship, not only for himself, but for us all as well. And this was a new, radical, shocking intimacy with God his disciples were not used to. No wonder he was accused of blasphemy.

It’s good to remember history. Across the ancient world most people believed in several or many gods. And any god worth his or her salt was virtually unreachable, far out of sight, and only elaborate prayers, burning incense, and precious sacrifices could arouse any response from the sleeping deity, much less persuade him or her to help you. And this ritual must be performed correctly by official priests; ordinary folks like you and me did not qualify to do prayers.

But the God of Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps. The God of Israel is not your normal, culturally expected and approved god. Better to hear Jesus remind us of how different this God of Israel was and is. According to Jesus, like the father in the parable of the prodigal son, our God is waiting eagerly for his offspring to communicate and yearning for his lost children to return home where we belong. To address our God as our Father in heaven is to say yes to one who is already calling us, whatever your cell phone troubles, our god who is dialing us, reaching out to us, expecting us to answer, hoping to speak with us. Do we keep our heavenly Father waiting? Do we put God on hold? Does God have to leave a voice mail message?

When we answer God’s call, we seek to hallow his name, honor and praise and welcome our Lord and welcome his kingdom to arrive here with us as it has arrived in Jesus who is Emmanuel, God here with us. But we get and make so many calls, allow ourselves to be distracted by our many appointments and competing commitments. How can we keep from making prayer so complicated and let God show us how simple it should be?

Billy Graham says this: prayer is not when we use God; prayer puts us in the position where God can use us. Someone once asked Mother Teresa how she prays. “What do you say to God?” Mother Teresa said, “I listen.” “Well what does God say to you?” “He listens.”

It’s good to ask for our daily bread, and for God to forgive our sins, but is it simple for me to share bread with the hungry or to make sure I forgive sins when I’d rather hold grudges and seek revenge? To keep it complicated, to continue my bad habits, to pray as it suits me, to pray for what I want, misses God’s prior promise to work through us to witness to God’s kingdom arriving in our world and to God’s will being done all around us as in heaven.

We make prayer complicated, like I do, when I fall into the habit of thinking it all begins with me and depends upon me. God calls us to pray, anytime and anywhere, and we should find it to be easy, simple, normal and natural to communicate with our God as individuals. In our Protestant or Presbyterian tradition, we do not recognize priests who have a special authority to pray for us or instead of us. We believe in the priesthood of all believers and this means our God is reaching out to all of us, to each one of us, equally and God’s great love is for each of us, however slow we may be to wake up and answer God’s call.

But notice, we pray “Our Father,” not “My Father.” And Jesus says, “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in your midst.” God gives us each other and sends God’s Holy Spirit to dwell within us and among us and to enable and strengthen us to share with each other and to bear one another’s burdens.

Jesus teaches us how we belong together as God’s covenant people when he tells the story of need for bread in the middle of the night. In a small village in Galilee everyone sticks together. You have a stone oven out in the square and every family shares keeping the fires going and you know how much bread each family bakes every day. You normally bake only enough bread for each day. “Give us this day, our daily bread.” As Israel learned to receive manna in the wilderness. Suddenly you have unexpected visitors and you have no bread ready to serve them. Night comes early and your neighbor family is sound asleep. You hate to bang on their door. But you do this and ask for bread knowing everyone in this village hangs together to help in time of need.

Scholar Kenneth Bailey says you will open your door, sleepy as your are, and you will search every nook and cranny in your kitchen to find any leftover bread because you would be ashamed of yourself if you turned a cold shoulder on your neighbor in his time of need.

This story is Jesus’ model for God’s covenant with us. God is like a father in this village and God promises to be our good Father in heaven and on earth. God has bread aplenty and God’s very nature is to give us our daily bread. And so we may trust God has invested so much in us, in this village, God will never, ever bring shame on himself by refusing to listen to his neighbors’ needs.

Jesus says, “Ask and you shall receive,” for how could our God who has given his all for us not give us the bread we need. But as Harry Emerson Fosdick warns us, “Let us remember, God is not a cosmic bell-boy for whom we can press a button to get things done.”

Jesus says, “Everyone who searches finds,” but when we search, what shall we find? We shall find the treasure God has in store for us; we may never receive the trinkets we short-sightedly covet for today.

Jesus says, “Knock, and the door will be opened for you,” But do you remember the familiar painting where Jesus is the one knocking on the door, a door where you and I stand on the other side, a door with no handle for Jesus to do the opening, and thus a door where you and I are the ones who need to open the door, need to hear Jesus knocking, hear Jesus ringing our number, and welcome him into our safe area.

Jesus teaches his disciples and us this way. “You have evil among you and yet you know how to give good gifts to your children. If your child asks for a fish, you will never give your child a snake. If your child asks for an egg, you will never give your child a scorpion. If you do this, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to whomever asks him!”

Ah, being the human being I am, I usually pray for my daily bread, I pray for knowledge and discernment, I pray for healing when my neighbors suffer. Hard as it is for me, I try to pray for our enemies, and most of all I pray for peace. But Jesus promises God will send a far greater blessing than any of these. Jesus promises our heavenly Father will give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him. The Holy Spirit! This means God will give us himself. God will come to live here with us and among us, to inspire us, to enable us to witness, to teach us how to pray. This is God’s promise. Do we trust our Lord to do this?

Ask and you shall receive, Jesus promises. We should trust Jesus when he promises this blessing upon us, because God has already once and for all time and eternity given us all the love we shall ever need. And therefore it is appropriate to reverse the words of my sermon title. Because we have already received, let us ask for and welcome the blessing already given and still promised to us, promised to us now and always. This sermon title should be “Having already received so much, ask for still more.”