The Lord’s Prayer may be familiar to some of us. Maybe we learnt it at school, or at home. But not today. For many this will be unfamiliar. But why does Jesus set out these key phrases as a pattern for prayer, no matter which form of words are used – traditional or modern or The message version as used tonight. The story that Jesus tells around the setting out the prayer is helpful to see the context he is trying to give.
Let’s take a look at the passage
Bible Reading;
One day he was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said, “Master, teach us to pray just as John taught his disciples.”
So he said, “When you pray, say,
Father,
Reveal who you are.
Set the world right.
Keep us alive with three square meals.
Keep us forgiven with you and forgiving others.
Keep us safe from ourselves and the Devil.”
Then he said, “Imagine what would happen if you went to a friend in the middle of the night and said, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread. An old friend traveling through just showed up, and I don’t have a thing on hand.’
“The friend answers from his bed, ‘Don’t bother me. The door’s locked; my children are all down for the night; I can’t get up to give you anything.’
“But let me tell you, even if he won’t get up because he’s a friend, if you stand your ground, knocking and waking all the neighbors, he’ll finally get up and get you whatever you need.”
Luke 11: 1-13 (The Message)
The phone rang and it was my old friend from college. She was at Birmingham airport waiting to get on a plane to fly 
out to Australia to visit her family. Usually she would fly out from London but her plane had been diverted. If I was quick I could catch her at the airport and we could have coffee. There are times when I wonder where friendship ends and madness begins! But it was worth it to have that unexpected hour to catch up, it was worth the rearranging of my diary and the quick drive down the motorway.
Friendship can teach us some key things about God and prayer and the learning can be two way. We can look at the love and care we receive from our friends and begin to learn that God is like that too. And we can also look at God’s friendship with us and learn how to be better friends to others.
And it’s just that picture that Jesus gives us of a friend who is asleep in bed. In the sort of house we would have here in the reading all of the people would have been asleep on the floor side by side. So there was every chance that if the man got up to help his friend then the whole household would have been woken. Yet the friend outside has a real problem, not one that is easy for us to identify with in the world of the 24/7 supermarket. The laws of hospitality in the Middle East were strict and if a traveler arrived needing food and shelter you were under an obligation to provide it. The friend in the street knows that the friend in the bed will understand. He would be doing the same if the roles were reversed.
We can talk glibly about God being our friend but do we really get the reality of that. Our lifestyles and culture do not 
provide a great setting for friendship a lot of the time. We are encouraged to be self-sufficient and independence. How do you feel if you have to ask someone to do a favour for you or if you need to borrow something? Is it just me or would you change what you were doing or manage without rather than ask. Maybe friends are people for the good times, for parties and lunches and coffee, for sailing trips, games of golf or football.
But that’s not the picture that Jesus is using here. Friendship is about being put out, about being inconvenienced, friendship is about being persistent in asking, knowing that the other person will understand.
And it’s in the context of that kind of friendship that Jesus offers us the outline of how to pray. We are to be persistent, cheeky almost in our expectation that God our friend is happy to be inconvenienced by us. What a great freedom of friendship we are being offered.
Let’s listen to this song by the group by Nina Simone called I wish I knew how it would feel to be free
Thinking about the reality of friendship then helps to put the Lord’s prayer into context. Its not a legal framework that we have to confirm to. But it is guidance on what to pray about. The context it is set in helps us to enjoy this prayer as part of our friendship with God. Not as a tick box exercise . if I pray with these words then God will be my friend. Christian thinkers continue to debate whether this was asset form of words that Jesus was trying to get us to use or whether it is a framework to apply to all of our praying. For me I have used it as both, and it’s the friendship with God that’s crucial. If all you can pray are these words because life is hard, or the pain is deep, then God knows that. At other times you may need to pray just out of the situation you are in and the words will flow as you talk to God about what is bothering you.
Let’s just take a look at the actual words of the prayer (Modern version on the screen). I think the words from the Message version that we saw earlier are also helpful.
Abba – Our Father in heaven,
Reveal who you are – hallowed be your name.
Set the world right – Your Kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as in heaven
Keep us alive with three square meals – Give us today our daily bread.
Keep us forgiven with you and forgiving others – Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.
Keep us safe from ourselves and the Devil. -
Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.