Tenth Sunday after Trinity

Let your merciful ears, O Lord,
be open to the prayers of your humble servants;
and that they may obtain their petitions
make them to ask such things as shall please you;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for every.

'Whatever you ask in my name, I will do it, that the Father may be glorified in the Son; if you ask anything in my name, I will do it.' (John 14.13,14)
'If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you will, and it shall be done for you.' (John 15.7)
'You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide; so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.' (John 15.16)
'Truly, truly, I say to you, if you ask anything of the Father, he will give it to you in my name. Hitherto you have asked nothing in my name; ask and you will receive, that your joy may be full.' (John 16.23,24)

These are some quotations from St. John's gospel which underline time and again what we read in the Sermon on the Mount in St. Matthew's gospel - 'Ask, and it shall be given you'. These are words of Jesus, and so words of God, that are unequivocal. There is no doubt in Jesus' words here, no ifs, buts or maybes - ask and it shall be given you.

All of us at some time will have wondered whether or not God does answer our prayers. And all of us could probably give evidence that our prayers have been answered. Usually though we have to add a rider somewhere that what I've just quoted from St. Matthew's gospel and St. John's gospel doesn't seem to be so simple. It seems that we don't always get what we ask for. Although there'll be thousands more Wiganers this morning who should be joining us in church today thanking God for answered prayer yesterday afternoon!

It seems that we don't always get our prayers answered and sometimes when we do the answer isn't always as we'd expected. So this whole business of answers to prayer doesn't seem to be as straightforward as Jesus seems to suggest.

I think we need to come to all of our prayers in the way that our collect today suggests; because it says, in a different way what Jesus says about the conditions, if you like, in which we should make our prayers. Jesus outlines the context, if you like, of our prayer and our asking.

The collect, in the way it puts the requests admits that there's a shortcoming in our relationship with God and in the way we live our life. It acknowledges that we fall short of God's ideal for us. That to me is the unwritten part of the collect; because it's saying 'show us how to ask and what to ask for so that we'll ask rightly and get our prayers answered rightly'. I think that's where the collect is coming from. And so it's acknowledging that in order to get our prayers answered as we would wish, we need to pray with heart and mind set on God and His will for us.

And I think the collect also acknowledges that God's way isn't always necessarily our way. And that isn't a 'get out' clause for God. I'm sure God doesn't want us to let Him off so easily. God loves us and wants the best for us. Jesus wouldn't have promised anything and everything to us in the way He does in those quotations from St. John's gospel if God didn't love us.

But what we have to acknowledge again, is the context for our prayers and Jesus makes it quite plain, I think. To get our prayers answered rightly and as we would wish, we have to 'abide' in Jesus Christ as He abides in the Father. Heart, mind, body and soul have to be fully given to Him and His way. Only then will we understand what it's right to pray for and understand the answer we get when we get it. And that answer will either be a granting or refusing of our desire, our want or need. Our prayer will be answered on God's terms; but that's all right because when we abide in Him we understand the answer and can accept the answer. Because God's wisdom is far above human wisdom. And we can only grasp the meaning of that if we abide in Him.

Then secondly our answers to prayer have a particular rationale. The answers we receive are for one reason above all others. We have answers to our prayers not simply for our own good but that God will be glorified by us and by all who witness the answer. Miracles that seem to be answers to prayer might be few and far between but what they are for is that God might be glorified. And God doesn't do miracles simply for the sake of it. He doesn't do them to show that He's superhuman. He does them in times and places that people might turn to Him in humility and love.

So all along, what our prayer is meant to do, no matter what we ask for, is to put God right at the centre of all of our life. And our collect shows us that our prayer, in a sense, issues from God and returns to God. St. Paul says that when we come to God in prayer and we don't know what to ask for, the Holy Spirit will pray in us. God Himself is the initiator of our prayers and the one who answers them, for our good and for His glory.

So, our praying is very much a two way thing, or should I say a three way thing, because all our prayer is Trinitarian. We make our pray by the Holy Spirit to the Father through Jesus Christ. And so in our prayer we ourselves are caught up in that relationship of love that is the Holy Trinity. And it's in that love and through that love that our prayers are answered. And it's when we are firmly established in that relationship with God that we know what to ask for and how to ask; and we recognise and accept the answers to our prayers.