When
You Pray
Genesis 18:20-32 & Luke 11:1-13
by Rev. Rick Thompson
Aren’t those some interesting stories
about prayer we read today?
In the first one, Abraham goes
toe-to-toe with God. Abraham doesn’t like the fact that, it seems, God
is eager to wipe out the cities of
Sodom and Gomorrah. So he boldly takes God on. “How many people will
it take to save the city?” Abraham persists in asking. And he gets the
answer he’s hoping for: God is just and holds the wicked accountable,
but God is also merciful. In fact, God bends toward mercy. In
those two wicked cities, only 10 righteous were necessary to save the
people. And, as the story of God and God’s people unfolds, one
righteous person can save the whole people: Abraham, Noah, Moses,
Deborah, and Elijah are among those who come to mind. And, in the New
Testament, we hear the remarkable story of one righteous
person—Jesus—who saved the whole creation!
Abraham
learns that God is merciful.
And that’s the God who sends
Jesus. And that’s the Father to whom Jesus prays. Again and
again—especially in this Gospel of Luke—we discover Jesus at prayer,
tending to his relationship with the Father, tapping into the source of
strength for his challenging and difficult ministry.
The disciples notice this, and ask
Jesus, “Teach us to pray, Jesus”. Their observation of Jesus at
prayer, and of the power that resulted in his ministry, has convinced
them that prayer is important. “John the Baptist taught his
disciples to pray, after all! We want to have a prayer of our own,
too.”
And Jesus agrees. “When
you pray,” he replies. Prayer is not an option for disciples of Jesus,
is it. It is something disciples do. It is one of the marks, the faith
practices of discipleship—along with worshipping, studying God’s word,
giving, inviting, serving, and encouraging one another in our faith.
Disciples pray. Disciples practice their faith. Are you being a
diligent disciple?
“When you pray, pray like
this…” Jesus says. And he teaches them the Lord’s Prayer, the prayer
that God will put an end to all the foolishness and injustice of this
world and bring the fullness of God’s kingdom now. And he tells
two parables about prayer: one in which a desperate neighbor asks
assistance in providing hospitality in the middle of the night, and the
other in which God is compared to a parent who gives the children what
the children need—only much more so!
Interesting stories, aren’t they.
We read them as being about persistence in prayer, as if it’s our
praying—gathering enough people, praying long and hard enough—that
finally gets God’s attention so that God will give us what we want.
But what if we read these stories
as being about God rather than about us? And what if we kept in the
back of our minds the truth about God that Abraham discovered—that God
is both just and merciful, but that God’s mercy trumps God’s justice?
How would that impact our response
to Jesus’ instruction, “When you pray…”?
Knowing that God is merciful,
knowing that God wants desperately to give us good things, we
pray—persistently, confidently, boldly, like Abraham. Because prayer,
above all else, is about the relationship—our relationship with the
living and life-giving God who wants us to approach God as children
approach a loving parent—with trust and confidence that God means us
well.
Prayer is about the relationship.
That’s why Jesus begins his teaching, “When you pray.”
Imagine this scenario. A man and
a woman are married. They promise to live together forever, no matter
what. Shortly after their honeymoon, the man goes on a long trip. He
leaves town with no forwarding address, and his young wife never hears
from him again.
Ten years later, the man shows up
in town. He goes to his wife, and plans to resume the life they had
begun together. He’s surprised to discover, though, that his wife
doesn’t recognize him. And, besides that, she’s had their marriage
annulled and has married someone else.
“Why don’t you love me anymore?”
the man protests. “Why have you forsaken me and broken our marriage
promises?”
Technically, that man was still
married to his wife. But was he, really?
And isn’t it absurd for a disciple
of Jesus to put no effort into nurturing our relationship with Christ,
and yet claim we belong to him? That’s why Jesus says, not, “If
you pray…” but “when you pray.”
It’s about the relationship—the
relationship with a merciful and compassionate God, who wants us to have
all that we need.
And that’s exactly what God
does—gives us everything we need!
Isn’t that what Jesus tells us?
“How much more will the heavenly Father given than a sinful earthly
father. Why, God even gives you the Holy Spirit!”
Can you think of a better gift?
Oh, there’s lots of things we think would be better—most of them
having to do with our own personal happiness or our own financial
well-being. But God doesn’t seem to be in that business. God isn’t in
the business of making us rich as the world counts riches; God is in the
business of giving us God’s riches—the ones that come when God
gives the Holy Spirit. Gifts like forgiveness, and faith, and eternal
life. Isn’t that what we really need?
Well, that’s what God gives!
That’s what Jesus promises when he encourages us to “ask, seek, and
knock” at God’s door, because God is waiting…waiting…eagerly
waiting, to give us the Holy Spirit.”
In fact, when we take a closer
look at the other little parable of Jesus—the one about the friend
needing
midnight assistance—that’s exactly what we discover!
When he tells this parable, Jesus
is mindful of the strong cultural expectation around hospitality. The
bottom line is that, when someone comes to town needing food and a place
to stay, it was an obligation to take care of that person. If
someone refused, the whole town was shamed. So, at
midnight, a man knocks on his neighbor’s door, rudely awakening him.
“I’m sorry to bother you, neighbor, but a friend has just arrived at my
house, and I have no bread to feed him. Can you help me out?”
Jesus holds out the possibility
that the neighbor would say, “No! It’s too late! And I don’t want to
wake up my family! Come back in the morning!”
The story is actually one long
question, and the implied answer is, “Of course not! No one in this
town would act like that! Unless he wanted to be shamed, and shame the
whole town, he will, indeed, get up out of bed, wake his family in the
process, and give the neighbor the bread he needs.”
And this is another “how much
more” story. “How much more will God do the same for us—even if we make
an inappropriate request late at night. God will certainly get
up and give you what you need—that Holy Spirit I’ve been talking about!”
In fact, God has gotten up
and done just that! The language about the sleeping neighbor getting
up—three times that phrase is used—that language is the same Greek word
that’s used of Jesus when he gets up, when he rises from the sleep of
death.
In his resurrection from the
dead, Jesus has gotten up and poured out the Holy Spirit on us, giving
us EVERYTHING we need the most—God’s grace, God’s forgiveness, God’s
power for our lives, God’s promise that we will live with God now and
forever!
That’s quite a gift, isn’t it! And did
you notice something? It’s given even before we ask! It is,
precisely, a gift!
And that’s why we pray. We pray to
stay in relationship with the God who gives such wonderful gifts—even
the Holy Spirit!
What do you expect when you pray?
Do you expect the Holy Spirit? Do you expect anything at all?
A rural community was experiencing
a devastating drought. The people were desperate. They didn’t know
what to do—except pray. A community prayer gathering for rain was
called. People showed up in droves, wearing somber faces with desperate
looks.
All except one young boy. He
showed up wearing a raincoat and galoshes and carrying an umbrella. He
was going to pray, and he had heard God’s promises, so he was expecting
God to answer![i]
And what happens when God
answers?
One fifth grade girl thought she
had it figured out. Her mom sent her to bed for the night, then came up
to check on her daughter a short while later. Mom found the girl
kneeling beside her bed, praying. Pausing to listen in, she heard her
daughter ask, “Please, dear God. Please let it be Tokyo!”
When she had finished her prayers,
her mom asked, “What did you mean, ‘Let it be
Tokyo’”?
“Oh,” her daughter replied. “We
had our geography test today, and I was praying that God would make
Tokyo the capital of France.”[ii]
But that’s not what prayer is
about, is it.
First and foremost, it’s about the
relationship.
And it’s about expecting God to
give us what we need—not what we want, but what we need.
And prayer does change things.
It doesn’t change God’s mind, and it doesn’t change the capital of
France from Paris to Tokyo. What prayer does change is us.
Prayer changes us by teaching us
to trust in God—and not ourselves. Prayer changes us by teaching us
that God gives us what we need, not what we want. Prayer changes
us.
And that’s a good thing.
That’s a good thing because, when we
pray, we are reminded, again and again, that God gives the best gift of
all. God gives us the best gift of all when Jesus wakes up from death
and pours out upon us the Holy Spirit.
And if that’s what prayer
accomplishes, what are we waiting for? Let’s pray!
