Year C

Luke 11:1-13

The Very Rev. Denise Vaughn

The Prayer of Intimacy, Confidence and Persistence

During a summer-long drought, the Monday morning edition of The State, a newspaper out of Columbia, SC in 1986, carried this story: About 100 people gathered on the Lexington County Courthouse steps Sunday afternoon and prayed for rain. We had a very specific prayer, said the Rev. Henry Hank Moody, Jr., pastor of the Pisgah Lutheran Church, who gave the prayer during the twenty-minute service. We prayed for a gentle, soothing rain for the land, a rain without lightening and storm, a rain that will nourish the land and refill the ponds. The article continued, that’s a tall order, and one the National Weather Service says won’t be filled anytime soon.

Isn’t that the way of the world? The world seems to say: Ok, Christian, pray if you want, but don’t expect anything to happen because of your prayers. But by the next weekend, the city had gotten more rain in that one week than in the previous three months combined! The rains came, but not without storm. Did God hear the prayer? Did God answer the prayer? George Buttrick in his book ‘Prayer,’ wrote “If God is not and the life of man poor, solitary, nasty, brutish and short, prayer is the veriest self-deceit. If God is, yet is known only as vague rumor and dark coercion, prayer is whimpering folly and it were nobler to die.

But if God is in some deep and eternal sense like Jesus, friendship with God is our first concern, worthiest art, best resource, and sublimest joy.” “Lord, teach us to pray” ask the disciples. Christians of every time and place have asked the same question. “Lord, teach us to pray.” And Jesus answered with what has become the prayer written for over two millennia on the human heart, as well as a story about a midnight knock on the door and comments about snakes, fish, scorpions, and eggs. What does it all mean for us? Jesus’ story begs Butterick’s first point. If God is not, then is prayer no more than the veriest self-deceit? Do we bow our heads, bend our knees, cry out our grief, our needs, and our sorrows to the empty air? We may feel this is the case at times when we pray to God for help to no avail or find, we are doubting God’s very existence.

Therefore, Jesus begins his instruction by acknowledging the silence with which all who pray have been met and teaches that where we need to begin is with confidence and persistence, which includes more than simply asking. The continual knocking of the beggar would have disturbed the whole household, but he would not be silent; that kind of persistence requires first to ask, then to search, and finally to knock. The theme of this gospel text today is that we never ask, seek, and knock in vain. Yet, asking how to pray is only the beginning. Prayer must include also an intimacy and confidence that brings us closer to God’s will and grace in our lives.  Jesus wants us to feel as close to God as a trusting child feels to a loving parent and that is why, Jesus invites us to pray to God as Father.    God is as father and friend, even in the middle of the night, we may go and ask without shame and or embarrassment; God is giver of all good things. Friendship, especially in Eastern cultures, within which Jesus was speaking, allowed such bold requests as the friend who in the middle of the night needed food. One cannot say no, because of the bond of friendship. God is a friend who will arise even at midnight to help a friend. God, who had all our transgressions forgiven through Jesus Christ, nailing them to the cross, will surely not be indifferent to us, God’s children. We can have confidence that God knows, and God desires to give, what is best for us.

With vivid word pictures contrasting fish and snakes, eggs and scorpions, Jesus would have us see that when what we want is something useful, God does not tease us with something useless; when what we need is that which is nourishing, God does not taunt us with that which is harmful. If we parents, who are imperfect, manage to provide well for our children, how much confidence can we place in the Lord who loves us infinitely more than we can imagine or deserve? Jesus is saying; intimacy, confidence and persistence are what we are to remember when we pray. God is like a father who cares for, listens to, and opens to those who approach.

If God is, then prayer becomes a conversation with the one who is our friend. Each instruction Jesus gives the disciples invites them to enter into this holy relationship. In this holy relationship, we can expect always to be heard and to attended to but we may not expect that all we ask for through prayer will be answered. We should not pray to get whatever we want. Our prayers should be asking God to bring the fullness of God’s kingdom of justice, love, and mercy, here on earth, “Your kingdom come”. This text today affirms God’s commitment to accomplishing this, and those who pray as Jesus taught should expect that God intends to use them as a means toward doing so.

Our example is Jesus who took time to pray because he knew that his ministry, his teachings, his preaching, and his healing ability all depended upon being in an intimate relationship with God. He asked, putting God and God’s will first, seeking to listen to God and to follow the path God set before him with persistence. And we can take comfort in knowing that even when we do not know how to pray as we ought the Holy Spirit will help us in our weakness. We never ask, seek, and knock in vain. Through the Holy Spirit’s work in the world, we can show the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

If God is in some deep and eternal sense like Jesus, we can pray; through thick or thin, come hell or high water, no holds barred, because nothing will be able to silence the Word that answers our prayers. This whole passage gives us a picture of who the Father is. God is the one who is not irritated by repeated pleadings on behalf of others, by insistent questioning about the way the innocent must suffer along with the guilty. God is the one we can know intimately and who asks us to pray with persistence and confidence. So ask and keep on asking and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.