United Protestant Campus Ministries in Cleveland

On Prayer

Text:  Luke 11: 1-13 (NRSV)

"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.'  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 him 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!'"

This is God's Word for God's people.  Thanks be to God.
 

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As I read the last part of this sermon text, I could almost hear someone in this
     room object.
 

  And if not in this room, perhaps in a patient room across the street in University
         Hospital.
 

     ...or in a home not far from this room where there is not enough food to feed
           the children in the household or to secure a good meal for someone
               attempting to live on Social Security.
 

If not in this room, there is someone not far outside this room who would say
   to this Gospel text:  "Wait a minute here!

Let's think about this for a minute.

           Many times, I have prayed for something

                     …good things….not selfish things

                             …and received something else.”
 

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"What does Jesus mean when he says, 'Ask, and it WILL be given to you.

       Search and you WILL find.    Knock…and the door WILL be opened.
 

What does he mean when he says, "EVERYONE who asks
      receives....EVERYONE who searches finds... and for EVERYONE
           who knocks, the door will be opened."
 

"Who is everyone?"
 

For many people… who have prayed for one thing and received another

     …it does not seem to be them.
 

And many times in study groups and classes and in hospital rooms and
     so many other places….

..people wonder just exactly how Jesus could possibly have said
         such a thing.
 

EVERYONE who asks receives...who searches finds...who knocks has a door
     opened for them.
 
 
 

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It doesn't sound real.

     It doesn't have the ring of authenticity.

           Because it does not seem to be true to our experience.
 
 

We have learned that whatever else prayer might be,

it is certainly not a foolproof method simply to manipulate God into giving
         us whatever we want.
 

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And so, as we think about the passage more critically, our choices for
       understanding the passage begin to narrow.

   There are at least three choices we could make, those of us who have prayed
        for one thing and received something else.
 

One possible choice is that Jesus is simply inaccurate.  That it is not true
    that everyone who asks receives.
 

     Another possible choice for an individual for whom this passage
          seems strangely foreign to experience  is for that person to say to
              herself or himself,

" There is something wrong with me when I pray.   I must be
       doing something wrong!”
 

And the third possible choice a person could make in considering
     this text is that Jesus is correct, and that we are not really SURE
         what prayer is intended to do.

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If we make choice number 1, and simply say that Jesus is inaccurate, then there is little else to do except to dismiss the passage and go on with our day.

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The second choice is a little more interesting

      …because when we think that … if our prayers have not been answered, it is
             simply our fault, and that we are doing something wrong when we
                  pray, interesting things start to happen.
 

From the very earliest times in recorded history, from the time of
    primal religion, certainly, there was the thought that when people
        did good things, the gods would act favorably

         …and when people did bad things, the gods would be angry

               …and do things like smite people and create natural and
                         personal disasters.
 

                   Do good, get good……. do bad, get bad.

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And at an archetypal level, at the very basis of our collective thought, that primal
    superstition still exists.
 

     How many times do we say, “What did I ever do to deserve this?” and mean
         it!
 

The problem for those of us in the Christian tradition is that there are many
     objections to that way of thinking in our sacred writings...

                   ….the Hebrew scriptures tell about a man named Job who is
                            blameless before God and yet suffers for many years,
                                  unfairly and unexplainably.
 
 
 

And our own Christian scriptures tell us that God

    ….causes it to rain on the just…. and on the unjust.
 
 

The bad news, perhaps, for those who attempt to be good

       …is that there is no promise that that being will protect you from
               suffering.

               …and that seems very unfair.

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The good news is that since we all make mistakes

    …and all fall short of what we would want to be

          …there is no punishment…for our tendency to be human.
 

In terms of prayer, it means this:

…. if we do not receive what we ask for in prayer

          …it is not because of some long forgotten sin for which God is
                  punishing us.
 

If we don't get what we ask for in prayer

        …if we get snakes instead of bread and scorpions instead of eggs

                  …it is simply because that’s the way life is.
 

That is the way God is.

God's hospitality is radical.

    And by that, I mean that it is equal to each child, is
                                               unconditional, and is not something that can ever
                                                    be earned.
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The radical hospitality of God is what we call grace....
undeserved
free
unconditional
constant
  undiscriminating.

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The radical hospitality of God, as described in the parable of the friend asked for
       help at midnight, is not dependent on prayer.

         It is simply the way things are.

The man outside the door is unrelenting.

And an examination of the parable in its context would
   suggest that the man in bed fears more

          …that he will be shamed if his neighbors hear that he
                   is not responding to his neighbor in need

                …in a village where to be unresponsive to that
                       situation is about the worst thing a human
                             being could do!
 

The key of that passage in terms of prayer is that the man outside the
     door...

        ...the man whose request seems to be falling on deaf ears...

                 ...he is is unrelenting and persistent.
 

That’s the meaning of the parable with regard to prayer!

       The man outside….
 

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Everyone who asks will receive.  Everyone who searches finds.  And for every one who knocks, the door will be opened.

How could that possibly be true?

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Our options are reduced to two.

     Either Jesus is simply wrong, or, since I'm not sure that we really want to give
         in to that thought…

              …the second option is that we have misunderstood what he means
                         by prayer.
 

We must keep in mind, all the while, that God's hospitality…is… radical.
 

It is equal to each and every one of God's children

     …that is clear in the tradition we share with Jesus' Jewish heritage.

          …Job was an innocent man who suffered and wondered why

                …while watching others who did not seem to be such  good
                        people….succeeding.
 

The promise of the Christian sacred writings

       …is even more clear

            …when it says that it will rain on the just and on the unjust

                  …equally and without discrimination.
 

         It is difficult to misunderstand that message.

               God's radical hospitality is equally given to each of God's
                    children whether deserved or not.

It is a purely an act of grace.

We have to put that fact together…

     ….with what I have always considered to be the most important prayer in the
               Bible.

                 Not the Lord's Prayer, but the experiential prayer of Jesus in the
                       Garden of Gethsemane…on the night before his crucifixion.
 

         You might remember the story.

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He has shared the Last Supper with his disciples in the Upper Room and they have gone out to the Garden of Gethsemane to pray.  His friends, the disciples, all fall asleep, even though he has asked them to pray with him

Jesus begins that evening with a prayer of petition, that is, the kind of
     prayer where we ask God for something.
 

Prayers of petition are only one form of prayer, although it seems to be the most
    often used, especially by students at exam time.

   There are also prayers of thanksgiving, such as those we use before meals;

         …there are prayers of intercession, where we pray for other people

               …there are prayers of contemplation, where we quiet our minds and
                       focus on some object in nature or some passage of scripture

                     …and there are prayers of meditation, where we attempt to clear
                             our mind completely and simply listen for God to speak to us
                                  in the silence.
 

But prayers of petition are the ones with which we are most familiar; prayers where we ask God for something specific.

And Jesus begins his night of prayer in Gethsemane by asking God to take this cup of death away, by telling God that he doesn't want to die in this way.

       We don't know why he began the prayer that way.

           Perhaps he felt as though there was more for him to accomplish.

                 Perhaps he thought of the injustice of it.

                      We don't know.

                          We are only told that he began the prayer by asking God to
                               remove the threat of the cross.

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Of critical importance here is the simple fact that his prayer was not answered!

       If everyone who asks receives… why was his prayer not answered?

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Perhaps it is because the object of prayer

        … is not simply always to tell God what we want.
 

      Maybe there is more to prayer than petition.

             Maybe we have to explore the other four forms of prayer.

                Maybe we have to meditate sometimes... to listen for God.
 

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Because when we think about it

   …if God is omniscient… if God knows everything…

        …then what does God have to learn from us…. in prayer?
 

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Perhaps prayer is for another purpose.
 
 

     That’s why I think that Jesus' prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane is the most
          important prayer of all.
 

He prays all night, it says.
 

     And it is not easy.

              He sweats drops of blood, it says.  That's a way of saying it was
                      not easy.
 

                          And then, something happens!

                                        Jesus changes….. his prayer.
 

And he says, finally,

                  "God, not my will, but your will be done."
 

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To me, those are the most important words ever spoken

     …about the meaning of prayer.
 

       It is not wrong for us to ask for good things for ourselves and for others.
 
 

But it must be clear to us…

           …that when we do

                  …we are expressing our will.
 
 

We do not know…the will of God… what is possible… what is not.

And so, we must listen….. as well as ask.

      It might even be that in the end…

            …we will have to change our prayer, as Jesus did.

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For whatever reason, we are told in I Corinthians that one day we will understand, but that for now, for whatever reason, the will of God might be different from our own.
 

       And when that happens, we must be at peace

              …with what IS the will of God.
 

As good as our prayer might be

     … and it might be as valid a request as that of Job

            …as good as that of Jesus in the Garden of
                 Gethsemane

                 …as valid and loving as our petition might be

                           we cannot know the will of God.

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We can only persist in our prayer…

     …until we can find the grace to be at peace with God's will

                  …whatever it might be for us.
 

      We can only continue to knock at the door until it opens

                 …and find at that time…that it has opened from the inside.
 
 
 

We can only wait for that moment when we are given the Holy Spirit...

    … when the great Counselor and Guide comes to us

              …to help us to understand the things that are beyond our understanding

                       …and to be immersed in the incalculable love of God

                                …a love totally beyond our understanding

                                        …and a hospitality so radical that we might only fully
                                                  understand it when we meet face to face.
 

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So what are we to say about prayer?

   What can we conclude?

     How are we to make sense of it?
 

  We know, true to our own experience, that we have not always gotten
      everything we asked for in prayer.
 

         Perhaps the most helpful illustration, or parable, I could offer as we close

               …is one I read a couple of years ago in the work of the 13th century
                        mystic poet, Jellaludin Rumi.
 

                It is a parable about prayer, I think, and about radical hospitality.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning… a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,

still, treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out
for some…new delight.

The dark thought… the shame…the malice…
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in!

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each…has been sent
as a guide… from beyond.

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We would prefer… to get what we want when we pray.

    But we know better… than to think we can manipulate God’s will.

        The promise… can’t be that one.

               God can’t always give us what we want.

                    We know that cannot happen, even if we would like it to.
 
 
 
 

What our faith DOES promise us… is that we will receive –

… if not what we WANT

                   -- then at least what we need to get through.
 
 

This… we know is true to our experience.

   In the roughest of times, when we have had to go deep inside our souls
      to find the strength to get through….

          …we have found it, without fail.
 
 
 

         Never give up.

              Never let discouragement overwhelm you.

                    You may not always receive what you want in prayer.

                         But you will surely receive what you need.