Happy Mother’s Day!  When I was a boy we used to play a game called, “Mother, may I”.  Have you played it?  The object of the game is to get close enough to touch whoever “mother” is.  So the participants would ask if they could get closer to mother and mother would respond, “You may take one baby step forward”, or three giant steps forward, or something in between.  After each instruction the participant would add, “Mother, may I?”  Prayer seems to be one of those ways where we come closer to God who is described in Deuteronomy 32 as a mother eagle teaching her young to fly and yet catching them on her wings when they falter, and in Luke 13 as a mother hen who attempts to gather her chicks under her protective wings.  As we continue our series on prayer, I invite you to consider the maternal qualities of God today.

We have discovered that prayer is the most ancient, widely practiced therapy on earth and one that gets us closer to God.  I shared that one resource that has helped me through the years is
The 2959 Prayer Plan by Peter Lord.  This loose leaf notebook identifies five components to prayer that can be labeled on a drawing of a hand – awe (which is our response to the character of God), gratitude (which is our response to the goodness of God), confession (which is our response to the holiness of God), intercession (which is our response to the love of God for all people), and petition (which is my response to the power and wisdom of God for my life). Across the palm of the visual aid was written one word – listen – reminding us of the importance of pausing to hear God’s voice.  Today, we move into the fifth aspect of prayer – petition. 

Petition is one of the more difficult elements of prayer for two very different reasons.  Some people have a hard time bringing personal requests to God, because it seems a bit presumptuous.  How can I pray about my sore throat when people are losing family members and homes in the floods of Tennessee, the tornadoes of Mississippi, the oil spill in Louisiana, and the list goes on and on?  Petitions seem presumptuous for some people.  Other people place petitions so high in their purpose of prayer that prayer is nothing more than reading a list to their own personal shopper, “I need you, Lord, to help me pass this test and for that girl to say ‘yes’  when I ask her out.  Help me to find the right parking space, select the right car, find the right clothes on sale, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.”  Prayer, in that instance, is not about drawing closer to God.  It is a means of getting what we want.  Petitions can be placed too high on the priority list in prayer for some. 

That’s why the order of these elements of prayer makes sense.  We begin with praise and thanksgiving focusing on the majesty and goodness of God, we offer confession for our own shortcomings (which may include selfishness), we pray for the needs of others, and then we move into a prayer for personal needs.  After our hearts are turned toward God and hopefully focused on God’s kingdom, then we express some of our own desires.  Jesus did the same thing in the prayer that he taught the disciples to pray.  He began with Our Father focusing on the parental nature of God, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name acknowledging the holiness of God.  He next prayed, thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, aligning himself with the purposes of God.  Only after that does the pray-er move into a request for daily bread, forgiveness, protection, and deliverance.  Even so, petitions are an appropriate part of prayer.  I Peter 5:7 gives a wonderful invitation, “Cast all your cares on him, because he cares for you.”  Today I want us to look at two reasons why petitions are an appropriate part of prayer:  God cares and God calls.
 

God cares about you.

The first reason why petitions are an appropriate part of prayer is that God cares about you. This is the story of Hezekiah, the king of Judah around 700 B.C.  Hezekiah was a good king.  He was 25 years old when he became king and wound up leading Judah for 29 years.  The author of 2 Kings wrote this about him, “Hezekiah trusted in the Lord, the God of Israel. There was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, either before him or after him.”  He followed the law, resisted idolatry, and said “no” to the King of Assyria who sought a surrender in his clean sweep of the Middle East.  The night before King Sennacherib was to attack Jerusalem, Hezekiah and his people prayed.  A deadly plague swept through the camp, 185,000 Assyrian soldiers perished, and Sennacherib went home where his own sons assassinated him.  Trusting in God’s power proved to be more potent than yielding to a mighty emperor.  Hezekiah had developed a relationship with God in his years as the leader of his people.  So we should not be surprised to discover that the first thing he did when he received a prognosis of imminent death was to petition the Lord.  Isaiah the prophet, who had assured Hezekiah earlier of God’s protection against Assyria, told Hezekiah to put his house in order.  Hezekiah was only 39 years old at the time.  He had no son to perpetuate the monarchial lineage that stretched back hundreds of years to King David.  His country was still in a tenuous situation with the Egyptian and Assyrian empires seeking to control the tiny nation which sat in the middle of several prosperous trade routes.  Hezekiah was not ready to die.  So he petitioned God, “Remember now, O Lord, I implore you, how I have walked before you in faithfulness with a whole heart, and have done what is good in your sight.”  The verse ends without the slightest embarrassment, “And Hezekiah wept bitterly.” 

This passage reminds me of the scene toward the end of Margery Williams story,
The Velveteen Rabbit.  Some of you have read this story of a Velveteen Rabbit who shows up in a little boy’s stocking one Christmas.  The love of the little boy caused the bunny to become real, at least to the boy.  The Skin Horse had warned him that becoming real was not an easy journey.  He said one day by the nursery fender, ““It doesn't happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse.   “You become.  It takes a long time.   That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept.   Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby.   But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.” So the Rabbit became real and true to the Skin Horse’s description it was a painful yet rewarding journey.  Then the Rabbit was infected with the boy’s scarlet fever germs and as the boy recovered the contaminated objects were to be incinerated to prevent re-infection.  The Rabbit, wondered while on the trash heap, “Of what use was it to become real if it all ended like this?”  This is Hezekiah’s question, and it wasn’t to go unasked.

One commentator wrote, “It is evident that Hezekiah knew something of God’s character.” God cares about you.  Hezekiah sought God’s comforting presence because he knew something of God’s character.  Isaiah 66:13 declared, “As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you.”  This is the God that Hezekiah petitioned and God heard his prayer.  He was healed and the same prophet that told Hezekiah to put his house in order, returned to the king with words from God, “I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears; I will add fifteen years to your life.”  You petition God because God cares about you.  
 

God calls you to petition.

The second reason why petitions are an appropriate part of prayer is that God calls you to petition. Look again at the Hebrews passage that was read a little while ago.  It describes Jesus as our great high priest.  He is not merely the high priest who took the prayers of the people through the veil of the Temple and into the Holy of Holies.  Jesus is the great high priest (which outranks any high priest).  He has passed through the heavens (not just the veil of the Temple), and oh yes, he is the Son of God!  Not only is Jesus described in his exalted state, he is also described in his humbled state.  He is able to sympathize with us, feel our pain, because he has been there.  He is able to understand our tests of faith, because he too was tested.  Leon Morris wrote, “Jesus does not merely contemplate our weakness from a safe distance.  He came where we are and underwent temptations just as we do.”  Donald Guthrie said, “He passed through stresses and strains which no one has ever known…our high priest is highly experienced in the trials of life.”  Not only does he get God, he gets us.  He is well acquainted with both the divine and the human.  After establishing this rather succinctly the author of Hebrews offers a wonderful invitation, “Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”  We are called to bring our petitions to God with boldness, with confidence.  The word, boldness, is the Greek word, parresia, which has a wonderful definition, “unreservedness in speech, free and fearless confidence, cheerful courage.”

This is not Dorothy and her three friends in the Wizard of Oz, shaking before the pyrotechnic display from the man behind the curtain.  This is more like seeing a friend inside a great house waving you in to join him for dinner.  Except it is not roast beef and mashed potatoes that are being served, but rather mercy and grace to help in time of need.

When I was serving as a chaplain for hospice I was visiting with a man who terminally ill.  He and his wife were talking to me about the psalms.  We were sharing some of our favorites – Psalm 23 for comfort, Psalm 51 for confession, Psalm 139 for assurance.  The Sarah looked at me and said, “At this stage in my life Psalm 70 is one of my favorites.”  I did not remember Psalm 70 at the time, but have not forgotten it in the 23 years since then.  Psalm 70:1 reads, “Make haste O God to deliver me; make haste to help me, O Lord.”  She was seeking the presence of one who understood the mysteries of heaven and the miseries of earth.  She was boldly bringing her petition to God who called her to do so.

What is on your heart? What is it that you need from God? “Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”  God cares about you and what is going on in your life.  There is no need for you to minimize it in comparison to the needs of those around you or across the world.  God’s care for you does not detract from God’s care for others.  God calls you to petition, approach the throne, a throne of grace, with boldness, cheerful confidence.

I really have no idea why five boys and their two older sisters would spend the afternoon playing “Mother May I”, but I always liked it when I got to take three giant steps forward, reach out, and touch mother.  Prayer seems to be one of those ways where we come closer to God and petitions are an appropriate part of prayer, because God cares about you and God calls you to bring your petitions to the throne of grace.  Amen.