Prayer changes us. Prayer also changes what is possible with God. And Jesus knew this in answering his disciple's simple request, "Teach us how to pray"....Jesus taught this disciple, is teaching us, a prayer that can carry us through life - a prayer that reveals a portrait of God, as Jesus understood God to be. It has been called The Lord's Prayer, for a very long time.  

In some preacher's circles, the story of The Good Samaritan is known as the wet noodle of all parables with which Christians flagellate themselves into acts of mercy. Jesus takes the Deuteronomic love-law, confirms its goodness, and adds an unexpected twist. We must not only love God and our neighbors as ourselves- we must also love our enemies.

We've been hotfooting it across the Gospel of Luke these last few weeks - and chapter-by-chapter the voice of the storyteller has become increasingly urgent. The stories we've heard are so familiar that there is a tendency to be complacent about complex details. For those of us who draw pictures in our heads while listening, the images are just as confusing!

Following Christ really isn't about being religious. At least not if we think of religion as something we do, hoping that it will encourage God to put something in the plus column of our cosmic checking account! In Jesus' day, this was difficult for some people to understand, much less agree with - especially the Pharisees, who were among the most religiously zealous and observant forms of Judaism.