Sermon for July 24, 2022 – Proper 12

Psalm 85:1-13 • Hosea 1:2-10 • Colossians 2:6-15 (16-19) • Luke 11:1-13

The theme for this week is the generosity of God. In our call to worship Psalm, we see the psalmist extoling the many virtues of God, including the proclamation that the Lord will indeed give what is good. In Hosea, we see God telling the prophet that he will be generous to Judah even after Israel has turned away. In Colossians, Paul reminds us how generous God was in forgiving us of all our sins and making us alive with Christ. And in Luke 11, Jesus shows us by way of a parable how much more generous God is than our earthly fathers and friends.

How Much More is our Heavenly Father…

Luke 11:5-13

If you were a child of the ‘70s or earlier, chances are, your parents may have given you a Christmas present that could have caused grievous bodily harm to either yourself or others. Gifts that, if they were given out today, would result in calls to Child Protective Services faster than you could say, “Red Rider BB Gun” or “Lawn Jarts.”

Pocket knives and pellet guns were at the top of Santa’s list, as were the now-banned, sharp, steel-tipped lawn darts. But after far too frequent post-holiday trips to the E.R., parents began to finally wise up regarding their apocalyptic Christmas present choices.

There is someone we never have to worry about when it comes to giving, and that is our heavenly Father. He knows exactly what we need and gives generously to us out of his wise and loving care.

Today we are going to be looking at a conversation that Jesus had with his disciples. Instead of answering a simple question of theirs, in Jesus’ typical style, he turns this into an opportunity for story time. It is through this story that he communicates how much more generous is our heavenly Father to us than our earthly fathers, and how much more generous he is as a friend to us than our earthly friends. Today’s text starts off with a passage most of us are familiar with.

One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just 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. Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us. And lead us not into temptation.’” (Luke 11:1-4)

The disciples requested Jesus to teach them to pray as John the Baptist’s disciples prayed. In Luke’s telling of this, he has Jesus giving an abbreviated form of what we refer to as The Lord’s Prayer. Because of its brevity, and because Jesus quickly moves on to a parable, it doesn’t appear that Luke is concerned with making sure this prayer gets cemented into a word-for-word liturgy to be passed down through the eons of church history. N.T. Wright said: “The Lord’s Prayer is not so much a command as an invitation… to share in the prayer-life of Jesus himself.”[1]

It would seem that what Jesus is communicating through this story isn’t about how, or what to pray, but more importantly, about knowing the character of the one we pray to.

What led the disciples to ask Jesus how to pray? Earlier in Luke’s Gospel (chapter 5), we have the Pharisees making comparisons between Jesus’ disciples and John’s disciples. They noted that Jesus’ disciples didn’t fast and pray like John’s did. Perhaps the disciples of Jesus felt that there was competition between the two camps.

Jesus will go on to make the point that prayer is not about performance, it’s about acknowledging God and experiencing intimacy with him. The next thing that Jesus does is tell his disciples a parable. But Jesus does something a little different. He asks them to put themselves in the story.

 Then Jesus said to them, “Suppose you have a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have no food to offer him.’ And suppose the one inside answers, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is already locked, and my children and I are in bed. I can’t get up and give you anything.’ I tell you, even though he will not get up and give you the bread because of friendship, yet because of your shameless audacity he will surely get up and give you as much as you need. So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.” (Luke 11:5-10)

The disciples are asked to see themselves as having received a guest in the middle of the night. As a host, you are unprepared as you find yourself without any bread to offer your nocturnal out-of-town guest. The disciples would have recognized this as a not quite so uncommon event in their day and age. Many people travelled at night to avoid the heat of the day. They travelled when it was cooler and more comfortable. Receiving a guest late at night would not have been uncommon.

Hospitality seems to be a lost art in our society today, but back in first-century Palestine, it was taken quite seriously. If someone came to you for lodging, then you put them up. And if you put them up, then you also were responsible for feeding them. But what happens when your cupboards are bare?

The disciples were asked to picture themselves going to their next-door neighbor and having to ask them for food so they could feed their guests.

Jesus shows the likely outcome of encountering a grumpy, sleepy-eyed neighbor who just wants you to go away. Afterall, everyone is already in bed, and if that neighbor has to get up, more than likely he will be waking the entire household (animals and all). The inconvenience to that neighbor would have been no small thing.

None of what Jesus is describing here would have been far-fetched. He was using a real-world example of what would occasionally happen, and what the result was likely to be. Jesus is drawing them into his example to feel the full weight of each of the characters in this story.

The road-weary guest is probably famished, and now he may feel bad about the tough position he has just put his host in. The last thing that the host wanted to happen was to have to wake his neighbor because he was caught being a neglectful, ill-prepared host. But the greater offence would have been in allowing the guest to starve, which would bring shame to his entire family. His only recourse is to get his neighbor to comply with his desperate request. The sleeping neighbor doesn’t want to wake his entire family and whatever animals he has, as this would cause quite the scene.

Finally, we have the resolution through the sleeping neighbor granting the urgent pleas of the host. And not because they were such good buddies, but as Jesus put it, because of his shamelessness. He knows that this neighbor of his is in a tight spot, so he bails him out.

The disciples are realizing that in this story everyone is asking for something. But none of these things are being asked or answered out of pure relationship. It is all about saving face or persistence or playing on someone’s sense of ethics and expectations within their culture. None of this is describing how our heavenly Father reacts to our prayers.

Jesus tells his disciples to ask, seek, and knock and that by doing so they will get what it is they are inquiring about. In fact, he seems to say the same thing in two different ways from verse 9 to verse 10. So, is this saying that anything we want from God is automatically answered? All we need to do is ask and all is ours, no questions asked? Well, we can see from real life that this is not the case. We all know people that we have prayed for, who not only didn’t get well but passed away. We prayed for broken marriages that were in trouble only to see them end up in divorce. If you haven’t done so already, pray that you win the lottery tonight, and let me know how that turns out. More on this in a moment. Let’s continue.

 “Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Luke 11:11-13)

Jesus is now asking his disciples to reflect on a human level. He describes how our deeply flawed fathers are capable of providing everything we need physically. They wouldn’t needlessly put our lives in danger. This would be unthinkable. We are under their protection and receive their provision. Fathers have a sense of obligation in these matters.

Then Jesus makes the comparison between earthly fathers and our heavenly Father. If our earthly fathers (as evil as they are) know how to give good gifts, how much more will the Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him.

This reminds me of Isaiah 55:8: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways.” If you read the rest of that chapter, you will see that the prophet is talking about how much greater God’s goodness is than our own.

The statement made by Jesus, “How much more…” is the punchline. It is the climax to this story – to this event that Luke records for us. It is not about teaching us a specific formula for how to pray. It is not teaching us to pray until we get our way. And it is certainly not about bringing God down to the level of our fickle expectations. Jesus is teaching us about how much greater God is as a friend than all those represented by his story. And how much greater God is as a Father than those who already protect and provide for us.

Unlike the sleeping friend, God does not try to shut us up or turn us away. God gives as a friend. A friend who never needs to be convinced of our need. He is aware of it far more than we are. Our motivations in asking do not impress him. He is already willing. We will never inconvenience him. We are in fact, told to enter into his throne room boldly. God is not reluctant and does not despise our asking. God does not hold out on us.

Unlike earthly fathers who can only provide for us physically, our heavenly Father is after far more. He is desirous of our spiritual well-being and will make sure that we are taken care of. He is what the disciples were told to ask for. It was the Holy Spirit that was to be asked for and sought after. It is through the Holy Spirit that we know the overwhelmingly generous mind and heart of God towards us and all his creation. The Holy Spirit shows us just “how much more is our Father in heaven” than anything else.

[1] https://books.google.com/books?id=MMRwL3OBI4sC&pg=PA132&dq=%22so+much+a+command+as+an+invitation%22+%22share+in+the+prayer+life%22&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj757PA4uL3AhWND0QIHRCnB8cQ6AF6BAgEEAI#v=onepage&q=%22so%20much%20a%20command%

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