Being a parent or grandparent can be really strange.
And one of the strangest things about it
is when the kids start to imitate you.
At first its kind of funny and cute,
the way you make faces at them
and they try to make faces back.
They dress up as mommy or daddy,
pretending to do grown up things.
But it’s not so funny when they start imitating your bad habits
or repeating certain words.
As they get older they begin to admire other people
and try to imitate them.
And it continues even into adulthood.
We read biographies from business and political leaders
trying to discover the habits and practices that make them so successful,
and we try to imitate them.
Well that’s what’s happening in today’s gospel reading.
Jesus has gathered around him a group of disciples.
We recall that the word disciple means “learner.”
These are all learners.
These people who are following Jesus
are trying to learn what he has to teach,
trying to learn how to live life the way he does.
They must have been watching him all the time,
the way a child watches a parent:
watching him heal people,
watching him speak to the crowds,
watching him spending time with outcasts,
and, today, watching him pray.
And of all the things they see Jesus do,
the one thing they ask about is prayer.
We don’t hear the disciples say,
“Lord, teach us to heal,”
or “Lord, teach us to speak to the crowds.”
Now, maybe they did ask Jesus those things,
but Luke only records this one key request:
“Lord, teach us to pray.”
Jesus was praying in a certain place,
and when he had finished, one of his disciples said to him,
“Lord, teach us to pray…”
Luke records more instances of Jesus praying
than any other gospel writer.
Jesus prays before his baptism,
he prays before the Transfiguration,
he prays after the seventy disciples return from their mission;
Jesus prays all the time.
And the disciples see this.
They notice that prayer is an essential part of Jesus’ life,
and that if they want to follow Jesus,
if they want to be like Jesus,
if they want to imitate Jesus,
then they must pray.
Prayer is essential
to being a disciple of Christ.
It’s non-negotiable.
To be a Christian means to be one who prays,
because that’s what Jesus did.
The first disciples recognize this,
and so do we.
We understand that prayer is non-negotiable
in living the Christian life.
And so in today’s gospel,
the disciples see Jesus at prayer
and they ask him to teach them to pray.
Because prayer isn’t something you can learn by observing.
You can watch the way a person looks at prayer,
the way they hold their hands,
or the way they stand, sit or kneel,
but you can’t really know what’s going on inside a person’s mind or soul
when they’re at prayer.
That’s why they ask Jesus.
They know how to pray as Jews,
they know how John the Baptist taught his disciples,
but they want to know from Jesus.
So Jesus tells the parable of the man who needs three loaves,
and ends by saying,
“I tell you, if he does not get up to give the visitor the loaves
because of their friendship,
he will get up to give him whatever he needs
because of his persistence.”
Jesus is clear that we have to persistent with our prayer,
and keep asking until our prayer is answered.
It’s a little like Ralphie in the movie A Christmas Story.
All Ralphie wants for Christmas is an “official Red Ryder,
carbine action, 200-shot, range model air rifle,
with a compass in the stock and this thing that tells time.”
In other words,