Seventh Sunday after Pentecost

Prayer connects us with the Divine within
​Rev. Jennifer Masada - St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church - Kapa’au, Hawai'i
July 27, 2025 - Seventh  Sunday after Pentecost, Year C
Hosea 1:2-10, Psalm 85, Colossians 2:6-15, (16-19), Luke 11:1-13
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Opening Prayer: O Holy One, breath of our breath, flow through us.
We are vessels ready to receive your Spirit. Teach us again how to pray—not with perfect words, but with open hearts, listening souls, and living trust.

You’ve been traveling with Jesus for a while now, watching the way his presence shifts a room, how his prayers seem to ripple through the air. You have seen blind eyes open, hungry crowds fed, and broken hearts restored. Now you are sitting with him in the quiet, and you can ask him anything. What do you ask?

In today’s gospel story, a disciple asks, “Teach us to pray.” Sometimes the simplest questions carry the deepest longing! Notice that the disciple doesn't ask how to perform miracles, how to preach, or how to heal. They ask how to connect.

Prayer comes in many forms: meditation, dreams, walks in nature, breath work, wordless moments of quiet. Whatever shape it takes, prayer draws us back to the pulse of the Divine moving in us, between us, and through creation. 

“Teach us how to pray.” Jesus answers with simple yet profound words that call us back to the Divine within. He teaches us to pray as a way to connect, to become one with God. I am reminded of the passage from Paul's letter to the Colossians we heard this morning. He writes, "For in Christ the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have come to fullness in him." Paul urges us to hold fast to Christ consciousness, "from whom the whole body, nourished and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows with a growth that is from God." We are called to become one body, to embody the divine. Prayer, as Jesus shows us, brings us closer to God. 

Sadly, centuries of Christian teaching nearly succeeded in crushing Jesus’ instruction about prayer. Human greed prevailed as churches sought ways to make money by convincing people that God is “up there,” separate from us, and accessible only through prayers delivered by a priest.  

During the Reformation of the 16th century, voices rose against the corruption of selling access to God. The Anglican Church and the writers of the first Book of Common Prayer insisted on something radical: prayer belongs to the people. As Episcopalians, we believe the Divine meets us in the language of our hearts and the rhythm of our lives.

Prayer belongs to the people. There are as many ways to pray as there are people because our relationship with God is personal. Jesus teaches us to have real conversations with God about the things that matter most. The prayer Jesus taught, which we call The Lord's Prayer, is expressed beautifully in the New Zealand Prayer Book:
Eternal Spirit, Earth-maker, Pain-bearer, Life-giver,
Source of all that is and that shall be,
Father and Mother of us all,
Jesus prays as a child to a parent. I often wonder whether the disciples noted this very personal approach to prayer, prompting them to ask Jesus to teach them how to have such intimate conversations with God. 
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Loving God, in whom is heaven 
The words for heaven or heavens in both Hebrew (shamayim) and Greek (ouranos) can also be translated as sky. It is not something that exists eternally but rather part of creation. 

The hallowing of your name echo through the universe! 
Hallowed means holy. Holy is God’s Name, meaning that God is sacred. Life and creation are sacred, the earth and universe are sacred. God is holy as the divine force of ONENESS that surpasses human understanding.

The way of your justice be followed by the peoples of the world!
Your heavenly will be done by all created beings!
Your commonwealth of peace and freedom sustain our hope and come on earth.
The oneness of all creation will be revealed and lived as a reality. “Oneness” is interpreted as “your justice” “your heavenly will” “your commonwealth of peace and freedom” – every instance of these things sustains our hope.

With the bread we need for today, feed us.
We ask for what will truly feed us and help us live divine oneness.

In the hurts we absorb from one another, forgive us.
To help us live as one, we ask to let go of our mistakes and any blame or shame that we might cling to.

In times of temptation and test, strengthen us.
From trials too great to endure, spare us.
From the grip of all that is evil, free us.
Evil = anything that binds us to the illusion of division or prevents us from living in oneness. We ask God to strengthen our abilities to stay in the oneness of love when we are tempted to see division.

For you reign in the glory of the power that is love, now and for ever.
God’s oneness gathers us in divine love, showing us the way to live. This is true since before time, through all time, and beyond time. 
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This prayer is a pathway toward surrender, trust, and participation. The words invite us into daily co-creation with the Divine: to receive, to release, and to return again and again to the Source of love.

We are not passive recipients in this relationship. Luke’s gospel urges us to ask, seek, knock. This is not a formula for wish fulfillment. It’s a practice of alignment:

• To ask is to open our inner selves to Divine presence.
• To seek is to move our feet with intention, even when the way is unclear.
• To knock is to trust that there is a door—that Love hears, even in the silence.

What if prayer is not about getting answers, but about staying in the flow of Spirit long enough to connect with the Divine deep inside? Paul’s letter to the Colossians reminds us: “As you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him…established in the faith.”

This season of Pentecost invites us to grow deeper roots. In prayer, we can imagine those roots coming from the soles of our feet into the 'āina, this sacred land. We are connected as one with all creation! Can you feel it? Through this practice, we find the comfort and peace of Spirit.

The roots of prayer connect us with Spirit not just for comfort, but also for commitment. Prayer deepens not only our comfort, but also deepens our commitment to our relationship with Spirit.

Prayer is not meant as a way to escape life, but to deepen into it. To ask is to remember that we are not alone. To seek is to affirm that the journey matters. To knock is to choose hope.

So let us keep asking. Let us keep seeking. Let us keep knocking on the door of our own hearts—until we are opened. Because the Spirit is already flowing. Because Love is already here. Because the Divine is waiting to be met—in us. Amen.

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