It’s the end of July and some of us have been or are going on roadtrips we find ourselves getting ready for a sort of a roadtrip with Luke. Two weeks ago we were sent out into our communities to take care of our neighbors. Last Sunday Jesus reminded us that when we’re out there doing the work God sends us to do, that to make sure we go with God because God goes with us. So this week the community of St Andrew’s/Dominion City/Green Ridge are out doing good work with God. We’re fixing meals, sharing the fruits of our gardens, sharing good news on the phone, sharing bad news and worries, encouraging each other, gathering up people for church meetings. And this week the message is, okay now what? God is with us in here. Our creed we say it, We are not alone. We live in God’s world.

I have to admit I don’t know what to think when I recite the beginning and the ending of our United Church creed. We are not alone. We live in God’s world. I don’t know whether to run towards this God who is right here right now or else to run away from this God. I know where God goes. Sure as anything, I just know God is going to want me to go and help some addicted homeless person. Or God’s going to point me towards the woman down the street who just lost her baby. I don’t know what to say? God goes with me. Well that’s very nice maybe, but Yikes! It’s God! What are we going to do with God who is here both comforting us and pushing us to the edge where the action is? Well Jesus tells us today that we can talk to this God whom we both yearn to hear and are afraid to hear.

In today’s text Jesus’ disciples ask Jesus to give them a prayer just like John the Baptist gave to his followers. We need a prayer from you that we can say as a community at the beginning and end of our meetings and in our worship services when we hear the church bell ringing. Lord teach us to pray. And so Jesus gives them two things, words and how to say them. First, lets start with how to say the words of what we know as the prayer Jesus taught us, The Lord’s Prayer. Chutzpah is the word that comes to mind. I asked my Hebrew professor who is Jewish what exactly chutzpah means. I thought it meant that someone was assertive and chutzpah was a good word. But she says it’s not anything that any good Jew would like to be described as. It means you’re a pain and nobody wants you around. Another good word for the man in Jesus’ parable is ‘nervy’. The guy’s got a lot of nerve. So chutzpah, nervy—this midnight caller has a lot of it. Jesus tells a parable about this nervy man who goes waking up the neighbourhood in the middle of the night carrying on at his friend’s doorstep expecting bread where it doesn’t look like any bread will be given to him. His friend wasn’t going to budge. Get lost! Go away! The bolt will make too much racquet and if I open it the children will wake up and well that not going to happen. It took us 2 hours to get all seven of them to sleep and Katie’s teething and David’s got the flu and little Ruthie was up with nightmares and we just got her settled down. Go away! But, against the odds, the bread appears. Jesus tells us that, that is how the church, Jesus’ disciples, can pray to God. Nervy. Expect to get what you ask for even when what you're asking for is next to impossible.

I would have loved to have heard Jesus say this prayer to his disciples. What does a nervy Jesus sound like?

Hello, God. Anybody home? It’s St Andrew’s United Church/Green Ridge United/Dominion City United Church at the door. You’re the one who puzzles us. Your ways confuse and bewilder us. And you keep us from getting too comfortable. But we’re out here on the steps standing with Jesus. Jesus tells us that you’re God and that you’re the one who is driving this church.

We hear you’re up to something here deep in the Manitoba prairies. We see you like to grow things all around us. You’ve gathered your people here to be well, your people.  You have given us a lot of hands on work around here with the farms you give us to work, the hospital patients your give us to care for, the borders you call us to check. You have moved us into a new time with new relationships with both newly graduated ministers and well-seasoned ministers among us.

So God, Jesus has just finished teaching us how to pray to you as a community and he said that when we pray you’ll give us everything we ask for to do your work over here at St Andrew’s United Church/Green Ridge United. You want us to be hospitable and welcoming. Well we’re short of a few things. We've brought over a list. Sometimes the hungry people you send to us come at the darndest times and we’re caught short on time and patience and generosity. You want us to welcome the children. Well patience, money for Sunday School curriculums, .  You want us to be a community then you have to give us what we need to do that. And we’ll take some of your wisdom and how about some courage, and take away some of our fear. And we need some good Sabbath time for our tired bodies? You called us as your church God. You gotta come through. You gotta bring us through it—every day.

You know that we humans get ourselves lost. And we're standing here on your doorstep with Jesus, and we need you to bring us back home every so often. We're counting on you to do that God. 

This is not an easy prayer. It’s hard to ask for things for ourselves. We don’t want to look needy and weak. Today we learn that we can be nervy before God when it doesn’t look like our needs will be filled.  Take God to account, claims Jesus. Perhaps we should pray for nerve when we pray.

This community, St Andrew’s United Church/Green Ridge United/Dominion City United Church has been called out by God to be God people. To be the people of God as God has called out.  We have come to know a God who will provide, 100%. It's what God does. God loves and God loves by providing what is needed for love to grow. Deep down we know it. This is the God we have come to know and trust.

How does this community pray the prayer that Jesus taught us? Perhaps nerve is something some of us need to carry Jesus' message of life. Ask for it. You'll get it. God wants also to create a more just world. God wants also to love creation. We should pray this prayer, knowing deep down that God prays it even more than we do. God's aches for fullness of life, healing, peace, shalom, for each and for all, for the whole creation.  God's spirit is already and always moving in creative ways.

When we pray the Lord's prayer Jesus tells us that it is as if God kneels down in the centre of us and prays it right along with us, even more...even more. Thanks be to God.