Keep on Praying, No Matter What—Lectionary Reflection 7C (Luke 11)

James Tissot, "Lord's Prayer"

Luke 11:1-13 New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

11 He 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.” ² So he said to them, “When you pray, say:

Father, may your name be revered as holy.

    May your kingdom come.

³     Give us each day our daily bread.

⁴     And forgive us our sins,

        for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.

    And do not bring us to the time of trial.”

⁵ 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, ⁶ for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.’ ⁷ 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.’ ⁸ I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything out of friendship, at least because of his persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs.

⁹ “So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. ¹⁰ For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. ¹¹ Is there anyone among you who, if your child asked for a fish, would give a snake instead of a fish? ¹² Or if the child asked for an egg, would give a scorpion? ¹³ 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!”

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                Whenever a mass shooting or a disaster occurs, people (often politicians) will offer up “thoughts and prayers.” It’s become a cliché because these words are usually offered to excuse leaders from doing anything about a serious problem. It’s as if God is to blame, so thoughts and prayers serve as a replacement for action. However, prayer is something that people of faith engage in, but prayer is no excuse for inaction. When it comes to prayer, Jesus did offer a word of wisdom suggesting that we should be persistent in our prayers. He also reminded his disciples and us that God is faithful and does respond. Often that response requires some kind of action on our part.

                The reading from Luke 11 provides a word of instruction about the nature of prayer. What we read here parallels, to some degree, what we find in the Sermon on the Mount. This includes Luke’s version of what we know as the Lord’s Prayer. This reading, which is designated by the Revised Common Lectionary for the Seventh Sunday after Pentecost, comes immediately after Jesus visits the house of Mary and Martha. Reading between the lines, what we read here could have been shared at their house. Perhaps Mary is the one who asked Jesus to teach his followers to pray. The text isn’t clear about where Jesus was at the moment. We know that he is on his way to Jerusalem, where he will meet his death.

                The focus of this reading from the Gospel of Luke is on prayer. The reading begins with this question on the part of his disciples about how to pray. They want Jesus to do for them what John the Baptist had done for his disciples: teach them to pray or at least teach them a prayer. Jesus responded with this abbreviated version of the prayer that Jesus offered his disciples in Matthew 6:9-15. Christians around the world recite a version of this prayer with regularity, perhaps every Sunday. The question the disciples asked of Jesus is one we also ask as we seek help in conversing with God. What we call the Lord’s Prayer or the “Our Father,” especially in its Matthean form, also serves (in my estimation) as our pledge allegiance to God and God’s realm (See my book Ultimate Allegiance: The Subversive Nature of the Lord’s Prayer for a discussion of this perspective).

                After Jesus teaches them a prayer, he then moves on to the attitude people should bring to their prayers. The emphasis is on persistence. To make his point, Jesus, as he does so often, makes use of a parable. He asks his disciples to imagine having a friend. Around midnight, you knock on this friend’s door and ask him for three loaves of bread because a friend has arrived, and they don’t have any food in the house to share.  Now, note that the door you’re knocking on is a friend. However, it is midnight, and the friend is (was) sound asleep (as one would expect). In this parable, the friend responds to this inconvenient knocking on the door by telling his friend to go away. Don’t bother me, he says to the friend who has awakened him in the night. Besides, the door is already locked, and the children are in bed. So, the friend tells the one who is knocking on the door asking for bread that they’re not getting out of bed (would you?). Now, the flaw in this parable is that a friend would never bother someone in the middle of the night asking for bread. But that’s not the way it works with parables. Now for the punch line: “I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything out of friendship, at least because of his persistence, he will get up and give him whatever he needs.” In other words, if the neighbor kept knocking and shouting outside the door, the (former?) friend will, in the end, get out of bed and give the person the three loaves of bread so they can all go back to sleep.

                The parable invites the hearer to be persistent in their prayers. Keep on asking because if you do something good might happen. In the final paragraph of this reading, Jesus explains his meaning. He tells his hearers that if they ask, they will receive. If they search, they will find what they’re looking for. If they knock, the door will be opened for them. Now, you can see how this can all go wrong. It is almost an invitation to try to wear God down. Just keep knocking and asking, and eventually God will get tired of the knocking and asking and will give you what you want. I don’t think that’s what Jesus had in mind, but that’s the way many take it.

                After talking about asking, searching, and knocking, Jesus then raises a question about God’s goodness. Jesus doesn’t doubt that God is good, but he asks his disciples to wrestle with that question. So, Jesus contrasts God with a parent (after all, the prayer is addressed to “Our Father”). If a child asks their parent for a fish, will the parents give the child a snake? Or, if a child asks for an egg, would their parents give them a scorpion? Of course not. That would be rather cruel. The question isn’t meant to be answered. It is a way to get the reader to wrestle with the question of how one expects God to answer a prayer. Would God send a person something dangerous? I hope not. So, one should expect good things from God. Now, the contrast here between God’s goodness and human evil is a problem. It’s not that God is not good, but rather the meaning of Jesus’ reference to humans being evil. Perhaps the better way of looking at this word is to remember that even our brokenness as a parent, we would not act cruelly (of course, there are plenty of examples of cruel parents, but I think we get the point). Perhaps the Message provides us with a way forward: “As bad as you are, you wouldn’t think of such a thing—you’re at least decent to your own children. And don’t you think the Father who conceived you in love will give the Holy Spirit when you ask him?” (Luke 11:13 MSG).

                This passage is insightful, but as with the above phrase, it can be troubling. It’s insightful because it reminds us that God wants us to be in conversation, and to stay in conversation, no matter what happens. It speaks of God’s goodness and God’s faithfulness. God doesn’t give us snakes instead of eggs and scorpions instead of fish. It’s just not in God’s nature. At the same time, this call for persistence seems to suggest that we’ll get what we want if we wear God down. God might not give us what we ask for at first, but if we keep asking, God will eventually give in. It’s a bit like a parent giving in to a child who simply won’t stop asking. It’s easier to give in than deal with the bothersome child. We who are parents have been there at some point. So, we need to wrestle with this image. I prefer simply to think of God acting out of love and grace. We might not get what we ask for, but maybe that’s not the point of prayer. After all, in Luke’s version of the Lord’s Prayer, we are directed to pray for the coming of God’s reign, our daily bread, forgiveness (as we forgive others), and pray that we’ll be delivered from the time of trial. The latter has apocalyptic dimensions that we tend to ignore, but are present here. The primary message here is that in our prayers, we should hallow or make holy God’s name. It’s a reminder of the first table of the Ten Commandments given to Moses on the mountain.

 “Hear, O Israel, the statutes and ordinances that I am addressing to you today; you shall learn them and observe them diligently. ² The Lord our God made a covenant with us at Horeb. ³ Not with our ancestors did the Lord make this covenant but with us, who are all of us here alive today. ⁴ The Lord spoke with you face to face at the mountain, out of the fire. ⁵ (At that time, I was standing between the Lord and you to declare to you the word of the Lord, for you were afraid because of the fire and did not go up the mountain.) And he said:

⁶ “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; ⁷ you shall have no other gods before me.

⁸ “ ‘You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above or that is on the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth. ⁹ You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents to the third and fourth generation of those who reject me ¹⁰ but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.

¹¹ “ ‘You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.

¹² “ ‘Observe the Sabbath day and keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. ¹³ Six days you shall labor and do all your work. ¹⁴ But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, or your son or your daughter, or your male or female slave, or your ox or your donkey, or any of your livestock, or the resident alien in your towns, so that your male and female slave may rest as well as you. ¹⁵ Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.(Deut. 5:1-12).

This is the starting point when it comes to prayer. We start by acknowledging the fact that God is God and we’re not. It’s a reminder that we are tempted to embrace idols of our own making. So, we begin our prayers by acknowledging God’s position, such that we might welcome God’s reign. This is why I have come to believe that this prayer, whether Luke’s version or Matthew’s more expansive version, is a call to give to God our ultimate allegiance. That means nothing comes before God’s reign, especially not a nation or its leader. So, we pray, knowing that God is faithful. So, be direct. Don’t beat around the bush.  For as  Douglas John Hall puts it:

Prayer is not meek, contrived, and merely “religious” act; it is the act of human beings who know how hard it is to be human. Real prayer cannot be faked. It’s only prerequisites are sufficient self-knowledge to recognize the depths of our need, and enough humility to ask for help [Feasting on the Word, p. 290].

Be bold but be humble. That seems to be the proper attitude when it comes to prayer. Ultimately, what God wishes to give us is the Holy Spirit.