“We Should Learn Something New Every Day” Luke 11:1-13 July 27, 2025 Rev. Annie Watson, Holy Family Catholic Church

 

I was a public school special education teacher in Kentucky for many years, so nothing makes me happier than people who want to learn. Someone once said, “We should learn something new every day.” That’s not just an empty slogan. Learning something new every day is good for our minds, well-being, and quality of life. 

Jesus’ disciples wanted to learn something new. One day, after watching Jesus pray, one of them said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray just as John taught his disciples.” Apparently, John was a teacher as well as a baptizer. 

Jesus loved teaching opportunities, so he taught them a verybrief prayer, one they could remember. This prayer is what Catholics call the “Our Father.” The version we read a moment ago from the Gospel of Luke is shorter and worded a little differently than what we recite during Mass, which is based on Matthew 6. But each version says pretty much the same thing.

So, let’s take a closer look at this prayer that Jesus taught his disciples. Afterwards, I hope we will all be able to say, “I learned something new today.” If not, there’s always tomorrow J.

Here’s what Jesus taught them (and us):

1. Jesus says, “When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be your name.”

Prayer is first and foremost an act of reverence for God. This is important because it lays a foundation for the proper relationship between the one who prays and the One we pray to. It is an act of humility and reverence for God, which is always a good place to start. Prayer is a conversation with our Creator, so to get off on the right foot, we need to honor God.

2. Jesus prays, “Your kingdom come.”

This means that prayer is an act of welcoming the realm of God into our space and into our souls. This opens us to the presence of God in our lives, and increases an expectation that God will act on our behalf. It is a way of expressing the hope that the kingdom of God in heaven will now come near to us in the kingdom of God on earth. 

3. Jesus prays, “Give us each day our daily bread.”

Here, Jesus teaches us that there is room in our prayers for an expression of hope for our basic needs, such as our daily bread or sustenance. Notice that Jesus is not teaching us to pray thatGod will solve all our trivial problems, such as finding a parking space in front of Walmart. 

Instead, he is teaching us to pray for real problems, such as hunger. To put this in its proper context, Jesus is teaching poor people how to pray, because most of the people he ministered to were poor and hungry. So, as we pray, let us always remember those who are hungry and thirsty and hurting and suffering. 

4. Jesus prays, “And forgive us our sins.” 

Prayer should also include an expression of sincere guilt and our need for forgiveness. This moves us past our basic physical needs to our basic spiritual needs. It get to the heart of our deepest problem, which is our reluctance to recognize sin in our lives. We need to confront our sin so that we can free ourselves from the guilt that often overwhelms us. 

5. Jesus prays, “For we ourselves forgive everyone in debt to us.”

Just as we should pray to be forgiven, we should also pray that God will give us strength to forgive others. This is super-important because it moves our prayers from focusing on ourselves to focusing on others. Forgiving other people turns a potentially selfish prayer life into an unselfish prayer life.

6. Jesus concludes his lesson by praying that God does not “subject us to the final test.”

Prayer is a way to express our hopes about the future, even if we have to pass a “final test.” We’re not exactly sure what this testis, but as a retired teacher, that doesn’t sound like a fun test to me. Whatever the future holds for us, either in this life or the next, we pray that it doesn’t involve a difficult test, but if it does, we pray that Jesus has our back.

I hope we learned something new about prayer today. If not, there’s always tomorrow J. Amen.