Darla Blatnik
Second Presbyterian Church
Sermons: July 29, 2007

"Knock and You Shall Receive"

Last week we began a three part series looking at a few of Jesus’ stories from the gospel according to Luke. We started with the story of Mary and Martha. That story is about Jesus visiting two sisters in their home. Martha is very distracted, we could say even extremely agitated, by many the tasks, presumably of extending to Jesus the required hospitality of the day. So Martha boldly asks Jesus to get Mary, who has chosen to sit at his feet, to help her. Jesus’ responds to Martha with advice that has provoked much discussion over the years, perhaps because so many of us identify with the busy, responsible Martha. Jesus tells Martha that there is need of only one thing and that Mary has chosen the better part.

What did we conclude about this one thing, this better part? I’m afraid some of you were disappointed last week because we really didn’t answer the question with a definitive "one thing" for all times, for all places. Perhaps, we were able to eliminate some answers. The answer isn’t that the one thing is a life devoted solely to contemplation at Jesus’ feet. In the story of the "Good Samaritan," which Jesus told immediately before Mary and Martha, Jesus finds the self-less actions of the Samaritan helping an injured man to exemplify the commandment to love neighbor. Yet, we also eliminated the answer that "the one thing" means, therefore, that there are two standards – loving God through contemplation and loving neighbor through actions. The gospels are clear about living out our love of God in what we do.

Ultimately, as unsatisfying as it may have been for some of you, we concluded that Jesus’ lessons to us don’t come with clear cut answers. There is no one, two, three procedure to being his follower. Jesus does, however, clearly say to us in Mary and Martha that Jesus himself is the one thing that brings focus to our lives of discipleship. This isn’t, however, really an "answer." It’s an invitation to a relationship through which we will find answers to some things and through which we will also learn to accept that there are simply no answers to other things (at least not in this life).

And, so we leave the story of Mary and Martha at the end of Luke, chapter 10 from last week and come to our passage for today at the beginning of chapter 11. We come today to understand what Jesus teaches us about prayer, a lesson that I suggest is also very much about relationship.

Before I ask you listen to any more of my words about Jesus’ lesson on prayer, however, I’d like to turn to some really wise words about prayer, about talking to God, from a little book entitled Children’s Letters to God.^[1]

First, from Donny: "Dear God, Is Reverend Coe a friend of yours, or do you just know him through business?"

Then, Joyce, " Dear God, Thank you for the baby brother but what I prayed for was a puppy [sic]"

And, Elliott, "Dear God, I think about you sometimes even when I’m not praying [sic]"

And, finally, Lois, "Dear God I like the Lord’s prayer best of all. Did you have to write it a lot or did you get it right the first time? I have to write everything I ever write over again."

Simple, direct - out of the mouths of babes; and, I would suggest a lesson that, in many ways, prayer isn’t any more complicated than these innocent, open children’s conversations with God.

Remembering this, let’s return to today’s passage about prayer from Luke. Jesus has been praying as he often does. After he finishes, one disciple asks Jesus to teach them to pray. Well, at this point, we may already be alerted that this isn’t just an ordinary "how to" request to be followed with an ordinary "how to" response. The disciples knew how to pray. After all, their Jewish practice would have included a lifetime of morning, noonday and evening prayers. So there was something more in the request than wanting a one, two, three – this all you have to do - response. What is it that the disciples want to know? Or more appropriately, what is it that Jesus wants to teach them?

Jesus, in fact, teaches them, teaches us, many lessons in the verses that follow. He first teaches us a sort of protocol for Christian prayer. Now, this doesn’t mean that every prayer must follow this pattern. We pray in many ways and for many, different things. Jesus isn’t saying those are wrong and that we are to pray only using the outline he gives us. The prayer Jesus teaches us, the prayer that has been known as the Lord’s Prayer throughout the ages, however, offers some important direction for prayer. Jesus teaches us that in prayer:

• we adore and praise God – "hallowed be your name;"
• we rely on God’s sovereignty and recognize God’s wise plan for creation – "Your kingdom come;"
• we believe that God can meet our needs – "Give us each day our daily bread;"
• we admit our need for God’s mercy – "Forgive us our sins;"
• and, we ask for God’s protection – "do not bring us to the time of trial."

The critical lesson Jesus teaches us, however, is that prayer is first and foremost about relationship – our relationship with each other and our relationship with God. Jesus’ first words begin this lesson. The prayer of the Christian faith is a prayer of and for the community, a "we" prayer, not an "I" prayer. Jesus says, "’When you [plural] pray, say, our Father’" (in Matthew’s version),’" "’our daily bread, our sins.’" The lesson isn’t that we are never to pray for ourselves. Jesus prayed often alone and even for his own needs. He prayed before his arrest, "’Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me; yet, not my will but yours be done.’" (Luke 22:42). Jesus is telling us, however, that the prayer of the Christian faith is a community prayer that has a strength and power in the community that is the body of Christ.

And, then the real key follows. Jesus invites us to pray, but not to some unknown or remote deity. Jesus says, "’When you pray say: Father.’" Jesus is inviting us to approach God in a very intimate, personal way. Jesus lets us know, as he did Mary Magdalene at his empty tomb, my Father is your Father, my God is your God (see John 20:17). Jesus, the only and eternal Son, is inviting us to come to God as the most perfect parent, as our intimate Father, not just as the Father, creator of heaven and earth or the Father, patriarch of the chosen people Israel.

By inviting us to say, "’Father,’" Jesus teaches us that prayer is first and foremost about relationship, a relationship that God very much wants to have with us. And, in understanding that prayer is about such a relationship, we are then able to understand the lesson of the rather strange story that immediately follows the prayer itself.

This story, as we heard earlier, is about a persistent man, we might even say a man who behaving quite obnoxiously or rudely, at best. The man wakes his friend at midnight and pleads and begs until the friend eventually gives the man "whatever he needs" (Luke 11:8), in the exact words from Luke.

There is no commentary, no explanation of the story before Jesus addresses the disciples,

"’So I say to you. Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened’" (Luke 11:9-10).

What’s this all about – a lesson that we need to keep on and on until God gives in? After all, that seems to be what the faithful Abraham did in our first passage from Genesis. He kept going back to God bargaining to save Sodom and Gomorrah, first, if just 50 righteous were found and, ending finally, if just 10 were found. In Luke, is Jesus merely reinforcing that, if our prayers are persistent enough, faithful enough, that God will answer them?

We know it’s not that simple. We know that some prayers are seemingly answered and some not, and it has nothing to do with the persistence or faith of the person praying. You may know, as do I, what it feels like to beg God, to plead with God, even to bargain with God and still fail to get what you’ve asked for - the job is still lost, the relationship ends, a loved one dies. Yet, some of you may also know, as I do, what it’s like to have prayer answered in the most amazing and extraordinary ways knowing, beyond a doubt that God’s hand is directly on your life – despite the odds, despite the science, despite the logic.

What, then, does Jesus mean by the story of the persistent man? We need to read on to discover the answer. Right after Jesus tells the disciples to ask for "it," search for it and to knock at the door, he brings the disciples back to the issue of relationship through several rhetorical questions about father and child, about parent and child. Jesus asks the disciples,

"Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish? Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion?" (Luke 11:11-12).

And, then Jesus gives us the answer:

"If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!" (Luke 11:13).

The "it" that God will always give us if we ask and search, if we study and worship, if we pray and pray, the "it" is the Holy Spirit. The good gift, the one thing, that God, our Father, our perfect parent, will always give us is a relationship with God’s very self through the Holy Spirit. It’s through the Holy Spirit that even now, 2,000 years after Mary sat at his feet, that we too are able to return again and again to sit at Jesus feet.

It’s hard to put into words what finding this relationship means not only to our understanding of prayer, but to our understanding of the whole of life. It’s a knowing that despite what our head is saying, our heart, the heart of that relationship with God says that, somehow, some way, sometime, things will make sense, that everything will be all right; and, we will learn how to find our way.

The author Madeleine L’Engle, as an adult, writes about how she instinctively comforted her mother who was seriously ill. As I read her tell about this touching moment, I think of our relationship with God. L’Engle writes of the experience with her mother:

She turns toward me, reaches out for me. "I’m scared. I’m scared." I put my arms around her and hold her. I hold her as . . . she, once upon a time and long ago, held me. And I say the same words, the classic, maternal, instinctive words of reassurance. "Don’t be afraid. I’m here. It’s all right." . . . [But,] What’s all right? What am I promising her? I’m scared, too. . . . How can I say it?

But I do. I hold her close, kiss her, and murmur, "It’s all right, Mother. It’s all right." I mean these words. I don’t understand them, but I mean them.^[2]

Like any relationship, prayer that understands that "it’s all right" takes time. It takes a willingness to keep trying even if it might not feel right or even if it feels pointless. Robert McAfee Brown reportedly said,

"Prayer for many is like a foreign land. When we go there, we go as tourists. Like most tourists, we feel uncomfortable and out of place. Like most tourists, we, therefore, move on before too long and go somewhere else."^[3]

Yet, as we return to God in prayer over and over again, the way becomes familiar; and, the relationship we find there begins to mature. That doesn’t mean that things will always make sense to us. We may still be angry with God at times. We may be hurt and disappointed. We may still have a long list of questions to ask when we meet God face to face. Yet, we will trust that, in God’s hands, everything will be all right; and, we will know that at Jesus’ feet we will find the strength and direction to be a part of the kingdom that, in him, has come, is coming and is yet to come.

Let’s pray without ceasing both as a community and as individuals. Let’s pray with persistence. Let’s ask and search knowing, as the best of parents give their child good gifts, God will give us the best part, the best gift – a relationship with God’s very self – a relationship that will gives us answers - not in terms of a specific "how to," but in the terms of love and trust.

"Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen."       (Ephesians 3:20-21)