Grace: My Lord Jesus, I beg for the grace of an open heart that I may be able to enter into the mystery of your person. And in the end, I may see you more clearly, love you more dearly, and follow you more nearly.
Luke 11: 1-13
Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he had 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, holy be your name, your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread and forgive us our sins for we ourselves forgive everyone in debt to us, and do not subject us to the final test."
And he said to them, "Suppose one of you has a friend to whom he goes at midnight and says, 'Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, for a friend of mine has arrived at my house from a journey and I have nothing to offer him,' and he says in reply from within, 'Do not bother me; the door has already been locked and my children and I are already in bed. I cannot get up to give you anything.' I tell you, if he does not get up to give him the loaves because of their friendship, he will get up to give him whatever he needs because of his persistence."
And I tell you, ask and you will receive; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. What father among you would hand his son a snake when he asks for a fish? Or hand him a scorpion when he asks for an egg? If you then, who are wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Father in heaven give the holy Spirit to those who ask him?"
Other Suggested Readings:
Psalm 23, The Lord is my Shepherd
Psalm 139, Yahweh, You know me
Matthew 6:6-34, The Lord’s Prayer
Points for Reflection:
Teach us how to pray…
It was the regular custom for a Rabbi to teach his disciples a simple prayer which they might habitually use. John had done that for his disciples, and now Jesus’ disciples came asking him to do the same for them. This is Luke’s version of the Lord’s Prayer. It is shorter than Matthew’s, but it will teach us all we need to know about how to pray and what to pray for.
1. It begins by calling God Father. That was the characteristic Christian address to God (cf. Galatians 4:6; Romans 8:15; 1 Peter 1:17). The very first word tells us that in prayer we are not coming to someone out of whom gifts have to be unwillingly extracted, but to a Father who delights to supply his children’s needs.
2. In Hebrew the name means much more than merely the name by which the whole person is called. The name means that the whole character of the person as it is revealed and known to us. Psalm 9:10 says, “Those who know your name put their trust in you.” That means far more than knowing that God’s name is Jehovah. It means that those who know the whole character and mind and heart of God will gladly put their trust in him.
3. We must note particularly the order of the Lord’s payer. Before anything is asked for ourselves, God and his and glory and the reverence due to him, come first. Only when we give God his place will other things take their proper place.
Ask and you will receive…
Travelers often journeyed late in the evening to avoid the heat of the midday sun. In Jesus’ story just such a traveler had arrived towards midnight at his friend’s house. In the east, hospitality is a sacred duty; it was not enough to set before a man a bare sufficiency; the guest had to be confronted with an ample abundance. In the villages, bread was baked at home. Only enough for the day’s needs was baked because, if it was kept and became stale, no one would wish to eat it.
The late arrival of the traveler confronted the householder with an embarrassing situation, because his larder (cupboard) was empty and he could not fulfill the sacred obligations of hospitality. Late as it was, he went out to borrow from a friend. The friend’s door was shut. In the east, no one would knock on a shut door unless the need was imperative. In the morning, the door was opened and remained open all day, for there was little privacy; but if the door was shut, that was a definite sign that the householder did not wish to be disturbed. But the seeking householder was not deterred. He knocked, and kept on knocking.
The poorer Palestinian house consisted of one room with only one little window. The floor was simply beaten earth covered with dried reeds and rushes. The room was divided into two parts, not by a partition but by a low platform. Two-thirds of it was on ground level. The other third was slightly raised. On the raised part, the charcoal stove burned all night, and round it the whole family slept, not on raised beds but on sleeping mats. Families were large and they slept close together for warmth. For one to rise was inevitably to disturb the whole family. Further, in the villages it was the custom to bring the livestock, the hens and the cocks and the goats, into the house at night.
Is there any wonder that the man who was in bed did not want to rise? But the determined borrower knocked on with shameless persistence – that is what the Greek word means – until at last the householder, knowing that by this time the whole family was disturbed any way, arose and gave him what he needed.
“That story,” said Jesus, “will tell you about prayer.” The lesson of this parable is not that we must persist in prayer; it is not that we must batter at God’s door until we finally compel him for very weariness to give us what we want, until we will coerce an unwilling God to answer.
A parable literally means something laid alongside. If we lay something beside another thing to teach a lesson, that lesson may be drawn from the facet that the things are like each other or from the fact that the things are a contrast to each other. The point here is based, not on likeness, but on contrast. What Jesus says is, “If a boorish and unwilling householder can in the end be coerced by a friend’s shameless persistence into giving him what he needs, how much more will God who is a loving Father supply all his children’s needs?” “If you,” Jesus says, “who are evil, know that you are bound to supply your children’s needs, how much more will God?”
This does not absolve us from intensity in prayer. After all, we can guarantee the reality and sincerity of our desire only by the passion with which we pray. But it does mean this, that we are not wringing (squeezing, forcing) gifts from an unwilling God, but going to one who knows our needs better than we know them ourselves and whose heart towards us is the heart of a generous love. If we do not receive what we pray for, it is not because God grudgingly refuses to give it but because he has some better thing for us. There is no such thing as unanswered prayer. The answer given may not be the answer we desired or expected; but even when it is a refusal it is the answer of the love and the wisdom of God.
O Lord, God of Mystery, we know you so little. Indeed there are times when we feel we know you even less. We feel we are struggling with you as Jacob struggled with the Angel; perhaps we are struggling with the image we have of you. We cannot comprehend you; we cannot succeed in understanding you.
O Lord, reveal your face, show us the face of your crucified son. Grant that in this face we may learn to understand something of the immense sufferings that are afflicting so many parts of humanity. Grant that we may know you as you really are, in your Son, crucified for us, in his death, in his agony and in his resurrection. AMEN.
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