Lord, teach us to pray.

Probably at least some of the people who said that (Luke 11:1) were no fools on the topic of prayer. That is, they already knew how to pray, not from Jesus but by coming from a praying people. But they expected something distinctive from Jesus, so they asked.
     They said, “Teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.” They probably knew not only that John (the Baptist) taught about prayer but also something of what John taught about prayer. But, again, they expected something distinctive from Jesus, so they asked him. And what they received was what we call The Lord’s Prayer (Luke 11:2–4 and Matthew 6:9–13).
     Prayer is speaking. Okay, it might be that some of the “groaning”—that is, complaining—we do in prayer (Romans 8:23; 2 Corinthians 5:2, 4) will, in agreement with the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:26), refuse to take shape in words. But for the most part we pray by speaking words, whether out loud or in our minds.
     The person praying in Psalm 51, whether we think of King David confronted by Nathan the prophet or of anyone confronted with his or her sins, says “Lord, open my lips,” so apparently getting the lips open in the normal way (mind to muscle) is considered impossible at the time, at least figuratively. The lips are sealed, so the person who wants to pray asks for outside help from someone who has something like a crowbar to put that tool to use, at least figuratively.
     Without that help, the lips remain sealed. That is how beginning to pray can feel—lips with which to pray sealed because of lack of use, because of shame or guilt, because of a fundamental lack of belief behind apparent religiosity, because of crippling depression, because of embarrassment, because God seems like an opponent or a devil: for whatever reason. When lips with which to pray are sealed, just having them opened by that outside helper has to come before the disciple can say “Lord, teach me to pray.”

• That crowbar would have to be applied to my lips, like it says, not to my teeth, to prevent further visits to the dentist to repair the caps he so skillfully shaped on my up front uppers. (“So how’d you do that, John?” I demonstrate the crowbar motion of my right thumbnail. “Yeah, that’d do it, alright.”)