Seventh Sunday After Pentecost
Year C, RCL
July 28, 2019
North Fork Ministries
Gospel:
Luke 11:1-13
Jesus 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 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!"
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There is a dreamlike quality to the story of the three loaves at midnight that follows on the heels of Jesus’ teaching of the Lord’s Prayer. Perhaps that’s because the story takes place in the darkness of night and involves the waking of one or more characters from deep slumber. Imagine, instead of hearing this passage, you suddenly remembered dreaming that you needed bread to feed a friend that had arrived late at night. And so, in your dream, you go to the door of another friend to ask for three loaves of bread. The man with the bread, without opening the door, tells you to go away, that he is in bed with his children and can’t give you anything. But you are persistent and you stand at the door and knock until he gets up and gives you what you want.
A method the early pioneer of psychoanalysis, Carl Jung, used to interpret dreams, was to ask the dreamer to imagine that he or she is a different character in the dream than he first thought. Jung believed that dream images reveal something about yourself, your relationships with others, and situations in your waking life. Indeed, Jung would say that you are, in fact, every single character in the dream, and that the dream provides a place where different aspects of your psyche can be played out. And so, if we think of the parable of the 3 loaves at midnight as a dream, imagine that you are not simply the person who goes to the door and knocks, looking for bread to feed a hungry guest. But you are also the man who arrives late at night, hungry. And you are the sleeping man, who has bread to give, but wishes to remain in bed with his children. And beyond that you are the child, who awakened by the commotion at the door, listens to her father as he first tries to convince his friend to go away, but then relents and agrees to give the friend what he needs.
A deep imagining of ourselves as different characters in this dreamy parable, can tell us much about who we are in our waking life – perhaps the person in need, or the one who pleads on behalf of others, or the one with much to give ( with the need to first awaken) or maybe you are the child who listens helplessly as life’s drama unfolds. At different times in our lives, each of has been hungry for something, pleading on behalf of another, refusing to give, or giving freely from our abundance - or maybe just sitting helplessly on the sidelines watching life pass us by.
Such is the story that the compiler of Luke chose to place in the middle of Jesus’ teachings on prayer. Why would that be? Not, I think, merely because Luke wanted to convey to his readers something about the value of persistence in begging. This isn’t a parable telling us that if we “pray hard enough” we will get what we want.
It is, I think, telling us something much more profound about the nature of prayer.
In prayer, we find ourselves residing in a network of connectedness, deep connection with the heart of our own being and our most basic needs, deep connection with others – and an acute awareness of their needs. And a movement toward a willingness to rise from our slumber and awaken to the hungry friend that knocks at the door. In prayer we learn who we truly are, and what our true relationship is with all of creation.
And it is that awareness of our interconnectedness with all creation that will ultimately stir us to compassion.
Praying with an awareness that we are one with creation, prevents us from simply asking that God will do something about our looming climate disaster or the mistreatment of immigrants. Jesus’ prayer teaches us that we must first ask for forgiveness for the role we have played in climate change or for our failure to fully welcome the immigrant. The prayer teaches that we can’t simply ask God to give us our daily bread and ignore the woundedness of our planet or the cries of the world’s hungry and oppressed.
“Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you”. Christianity isn’t a passive religion. We aren’t called to sit back and wait for the kingdom to come – we are being taught to summon it.
That’s why it’s not enough to pray with words. It’s not enough to quietly ask God for peace, expecting nothing to happen, and when nothing does, submissively going on our way. If we pray for peace and then allow our leaders to abandon peace treaties and accelerate an arms race, we pray in vain. If we pray for justice and do nothing on behalf of those who struggle to earn a “living wage”, justice will not prevail.
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel in reference to his 1964 march alongside the Rev. Martin Luther King wrote, “For many of us the march from Selma to Montgomery was about protest and prayer. Legs are not lips and walking is not kneeling. And yet our legs uttered songs. Even without words, our march was worship. I felt my legs were praying.”
It is a mistake to use the prayer “God’s will be done” as an excuse for lethargy. If we think we can kick back and let God take care of creation – then we are practicing the wrong religion.
True prayer isn’t flattery, or bargaining, bullying or begging. Prayer takes us on a journey of ever deepening awareness – of the self, of others, and of all creation. And that awareness enables us to awaken to the realization that God is the thread that weaves it all together and brings us together into a world of wholeness.
Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. Or in the words of an African proverb: “When you pray, move your feet.”