PRAYER LICENSE

A Sermon for The Ninth Sunday after Pentecost
July 29, 2007
by Pastor Laura Gentry

Luke 11:1-13
Jesus was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples." He said to them, "When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us. And do not bring us to the time of trial."

And he said to them, "Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say to him, `Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.' And he answers from within, `Do not bother me; the door has already been locked, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.' I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, at least because of his persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs.

"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. 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? 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!" (NRSV)

What do you say when you pray? Do you get uncomfortable when someone asks you to pray out loud in a group setting? Do you worry that you won’t have words that sound right to the other ears? Even if you have been praying all your life, you may have doubts about your ability to pray. Your pulse might start to race if I had you stand up here and offer a prayer right now.

Even Jesus’ disciples felt this way. One of the important questions they asked Jesus was: how do we pray? Teach us, they begged him. And so he tells them. In Luke’s Gospel, he relays a shorter version of the Lord’s prayer, as a model prayer.

But in this Gospel, Jesus seems more interested in telling them how to pray and than simply telling them what to pray. Prayer, it seems, is not about having the perfect words to say. It is about having a relationship with God. It is about being intimately connected to our Creator. Jesus explains that we can call upon God anytime, anywhere, as we would call upon a loving parent in time of need. God is never far from us and is eager to help and to hear us when we pray. We do not need to fear imposing upon God—that’s exactly what God wants.

Then, Jesus launches into a funny anecdotal story that would have made the disciples chuckle. He says, "Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say to him, `Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.'" Now this could certainly happen since many travelers in ancient Israel traveled by night to avoid the extreme heat of the desert sun. And without modern conveniences like telephones, it would not be unlikely to have an unexpected guest. But what an embarassment to be caught without any food to serve him! Hospitality was so important. So of course, you'd have to run to your neighbor's house in sheer desperation to find some food.

Now in order to ask a neighbor for bread at midnight, you'd have to knock on the door, which was considered an impropriety. If the door to the house was closed in ancient times, it meant that the family had gone to bed and did not want to be bothered. The typical Palestinian house consisted of just one room, with a low platform taking up about a third of the room. On the raised platform was a charcoal stove that burned all night. The whole family would gather around the stove to sleep. And oftentimes, people would bring some of their livestock into the house at night to protect them from the cold night air. So when a family settled in for the night, they would shut and lock the door and expect to remain undisturbed until morning. But in this story, Jesus suggested that you would knock anyway—that is if you REALLY wanted to get some bread to serve your guest.

Certainly the neighbor would be annoyed and would reply, “Do not bother me; the door has already been locked, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.” Of course he can’t get up—if he would, it would wake everyone up and it could really become a zoo if that happened! But if you really wanted bread, you'd keep right on knocking. Eventually, the groggy man would get up, open the door (probably with bed head) and give you the bread you asked for.

So what in the world is this story supposed to teach us about prayer? Like other stories Jesus tells, this is a parable, which means that it is a story laid alongside a teaching to further illustrate a point. Jesus point with this parable is not that God is like an grumpy neighbor who doesn’t want to answer—who must be coerced into giving us what we want. The point is that if persistence can even cause a tired neighbor guy to wake up all his children, chickens and goats and go give his neighbor what he wants—then how much more will God, who is our loving Father, generously supply all our needs when we ask?

In telling this simple parable, Jesus is showing his disciples a whole new way to approach prayer. We’ve been praying this way for so long that I think we miss the revolutionary nature of this teaching.

In the Old Testament times, people did not refer to God as their father. In fact, they revered God so much that they dared not call God anything, lest they blaspheme the holy name of their Lord. And when they prayed, it was only through strictly calculated rituals. That’s why Jesus’ disciples want to know exactly how they ought to pray. First, Jesus shocks them by giving them the term Abba with which to address God. Abba was very familiar term that trusting children used to address their loving fathers. Abba was not something they would have dreamed of calling the Most High God. And names were very important—to know someone’s name was to really know that person’s character. So to call God Abba, was to know the tender character of God, who was as accessible as a loving parent. This was an intimacy they had never dreamed they could find in their relationship with Almighty God.

And then when Jesus goes on to tell them this parable of the man in search of bread, he reveals that you can not only address God as your Abba, but you can be bold in your prayer requests—as bold as you'd be if you had to beg your neighbor at midnight for bread. Jesus gives them permission to pray to God with that kind of boldness and urgency!

Jesus says to them, “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.” (Lk 11:9-10)

This kind of prayer implies an intense hunger on the part of the person praying. This is no stale, droning prayer here. Someone who asks and searches and knocks is really seeking wholeheartedly. But I wonder if we seek the kingdom of God with that same urgency. Do we really want God’s kingdom to become a reality here on earth? And do we actually want our wills to be bent into the likeness of God’s will? Are we hungry to be buried with Christ in baptism so that we will be raised up with him by the power of God, as today’s reading from Colossians describes? (Col 2:12)

Remember how exciting it was to turn 16 and get your driver license? It was the ticket to freedom, even if you didn’t have a car of your own. We were warned to drive safely and sent off into the world behind the wheel all by ourselves.

Here in this scene, Jesus’ teaching is so powerful and unique that I imagine it like he is giving them a ‘prayer license”. Only this prayer license doesn’t say “pray safely”—in fact, it says just the opposite: “pray boldly!” Ask! Seek! Knock! Hunger for God with your whole self! Yes, in fact, you can even pray aggressively because God is your Father and knows what is best for you so you can’t pray wrongly. There are no heavenly patrol men who will pull you over on the highway of life and give you a ticket for reckless praying. Even if you pray for things that aren’t right to pray for, at least you’re in dialog with God and God’s not going to grant any prayer request that would be bad for you.

And guess what? We, too have been given a prayer license. But do we ever take it out on the road? Are we praying boldly? Are we hungry for God’s kingdom to come? Are we willing to do long-distance prayer trips? To keep knocking until we get our answer? Well, if we’re not, then a very valuable license is going to waste.

Jesus says, “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!” (Lk 11:13) God gives us the gift of the Holy Spirit—that is God’s answer to our prayers.

May we be inspired by the hearing of this Gospel to use our license to pray more vigorously, to pray with urgency and with boldness and with familiarity—for Abba, our tender Father, is not far from us. We know that if we truly ask, search, and knock, our heavenly Father will freely give us the Holy Spirit and all that we need to transform this world into God’s kingdom. Happy praying! Amen.

Now may the peace of God which passes all understanding keep our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.

© 2007 Laura E. Gentry