Luke
11:1-13
“Everyone who
asks, receives, and everyone who searches, finds, and...everyone who knocks,
the door will be opened.” So says Jesus this morning in our reading from the
gospel of Luke. He’s talking about prayer. Yet as lovely as those words sound
here in church, don’t we all secretly know that that doesn’t always square with
our experience. Haven’t we all, at one time or another, asked for something in
prayer and not received, searched and not found, knocked and the door has
remained shut. Sure there are times when we have not asked wisely and so God’s
loving response to such requests is no. But countless other times we have
offered prayers that are in harmony with God’s will - for Scripture tells us
that God desires that everyone be healed and made whole, that justice prevail,
and divisions cease. Yet the reality is that even today as we pray millions
suffer, injustices exist, and violence rages on.
Prayer. It’s at
the heart of Christian life and also can be the heart of Christian frustration,
misunderstanding, and pain. So what are we to do? How are we to make sense of
it? Well, some say that the reason a prayer isn’t answered is because a person
didn’t pray hard enough or didn’t have enough faith. Others suggest that the
prayer must have been asking for the wrong thing or asked in the wrong way.
Explanations like these suggest in one way or another God deemed the one who
prayed inadequate. That’s, at the very least, troubling. And then there are the
platitudes like, “God has something better in store for you” or “Everything
happens for a reason” which only serves to minimize the current need, suffering
or distress that someone is experiencing in the moment. Too many times I have
sat with someone who has been wounded by a person’s well-meaning but feeble attempt
to explain prayer and the ways of God. My advice? Hold your tongue. And just be
with someone so that they know they are not alone.
“Lord, teach us
to pray,” is the request of one of Jesus’ disciples. More than likely than not
he, along with the rest of the disciples, struggled the way we all do with
seemingly unanswered prayers. Now it’s hard for us to know what exactly he was
hoping to hear, but instead answering with some kind of explanation about
prayer or a how-to guide, Jesus offers an invitation - an invitation to
relationship with God - God as father. Now for all the difficulties this
gendered language can carry Jesus uses the term “Father” to communicate
intimate care. Before anything else what Jesus wants his disciples to know
about prayer is that it begins with the God who is in loving relationship with
us. And because that is our starting place it’s safe then to pour out our
hearts. To ask for what we need, our daily bread. To pray for God’s will in
this world, your kingdom come. To be in right relationship with others,
forgiveness. And to save us from hardships, do not bring us to the time of
trial. God desires that we share what is on our hearts and in our minds because
that’s what you do when you are in a relationship with someone.
Now this
relationship we have with God is personal and intimate, but it is also
communal. Prayer is not just something we do by ourselves, one-on-one with God.
Prayer is also something we do with others. I mean, what do you think we are
doing here? We come to church for many reasons, but one of them is to pray
together. And when you get this many people together at one time no doubt there
is someone here who is hurting while someone else is full of hope. There’s at
least one person right now who feels desperate or lost while another is
brimming of faith. Some are just going through the motions. While others are
keenly aware of the Spirit’s presence. Together we make up all sorts and
conditions. And that’s exactly why we need each other. In those times when all
that we can do is just get ourselves to church, the community then can hold us
and pray for us as a body when we aren’t able to do it alone. For we pray to
Our Father, not My Father. (And I just want to point out that I realize that
our English translation begins simply with “Father,” but the Greek actually
reads “Father of us” - so it really is Our Father. Meaning that when we pray we
draw close not only to God but to one another.
Yet even with
that understanding we can still struggle with prayers that seem to go
unanswered. Whatever the reason is for that, let me assure you it’s not about
us. We do not hold a magic key that unlocks the power of God to do as we ask.
God does or does not answer prayer because one person says just the right
combination of words or has more faith or recruits more people to pray or is in
some way a better person. No. The key to prayer is God. God who is good. God
who desires, even more than a parent with child, to give good gifts. 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!
Notice though
that Jesus isn’t saying that every time we ask, search or knock God will give
us exactly what we have in mind. Rather what Jesus is saying is that God will
always give us God’s highest gift - the gift of God’s very self, God’s Holy
Spirit. Because prayer is ultimately not about getting some thing from God, but knowing some one who is God - it’s about relationship
and experiencing a holy presence. Which means that there is ever only one
answer to our prayers and that is God. When we pray God always says yes. But
God’s yes means that God is always offering His life, Her life to us and to
those for whom we pray. The rub comes when that’s not the answer we want. At
least I know for me that’s not often what I’m looking for. I want God to do
something. To change something. To make something or someone right or better in
the way I think right and better should be. And, yes, God does sometimes intervene
to change circumstances in ways that pleases us. When that happens we say that
our prayers were answered. But make no mistake, whether or not the outcome to a
certain situation is as we wanted God still answers our prayers with yes. God’s
yes. The yes of God’s life and spirit flowing in us and through us. Sustaining
us, strengthening us, empowering us, comforting us no matter the circumstances.
On my best days that sounds like really good news to me. But there are times
when it just doesn’t feel like enough. And when that is so I say, “Lord, teach
me to pray” - trusting that because all of our lives is rooted in a loving
relationship that Jesus stands ready not only to answer that prayer, but to
show all of us the way.
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