Conflicted about Prayer: July 27

Year C, Pentecost 7                                             Luke 11:1-13                                                    

For most of my life, I have been someone who has depended heavily on prayer, as a source of comfort.  In the darkest times of my life, I found comfort knowing that God was there with me.  This probably doesn’t surprise you given my profession.  However, when I mysteriously contracted MRSA and found myself in the ICU in septic shock, I could not pray.  I tried the first day or two and then I stopped.  I felt something in my spirit break and what really scared me was that I didn’t care. I wasn’t angry at God. I just stopped caring about God.

         I called my friend who was also an Episcopal priest and had part of a lung removed because of lung cancer.  I asked her, “How did you pray in a place like this?” After a bit of waffling, she admitted she had not been able to pray either.  We both had the Book of Common Prayer with us, which is full of beautiful and eloquent prayers…but none of those prayers seemed right to us. The prayers that we had prayed for others felt hollow as we lay in the hospital bed.  So we wrote a book full of prayers that we felt we could have used while we were hospitalized.  When we started the book, my friend was in remission.  When the book was published, she was dying. She took the book with her when she was hospitalized for the final time. She told me it brought her comfort.  It helped her with her relationship with God.  But in the end, she still died.

Despite the fact that I should be an expert in prayer, when I read the Gospel for today, I thought, oh no.  Not prayer. I have a lot of conflicting feelings about prayer. The beginning of the text has Jesus praying. Of all the gospels, Luke puts the most emphasis on Jesus’ prayer life.  There are several examples of Jesus not only praying with his disciples, but also retreating to a private place to pray. If you were to read the first and last chapters of the Gospel of Luke, you will see that the Gospel begins and ends with people praying.  Sometimes we know what Jesus was praying for, but often we don’t.  For Luke, the act of praying and communicating was what was really important.

The prayer that Jesus teaches his disciples is beautiful in its simplicity.  He teaches his disciples to ask for three things.  The first two are nourishment and forgiveness.  The last request is a wee bit confusing.  “And do not bring us to the time of trial.” Most Bible translations say, “Lead us not into temptation.” When we say the Lord’s prayer during our service, we use that phrase rather than “do not bring us to the time of trial”.  I believe we are being encouraged to pray that God will help us handle the challenges of life.  We know we can’t avoid them entirely (that would be my preference), but we can lean on God during those times. 

This Gospel text would have been a lot more palatable if it could have just ended there.  Jesus then moves into a parable about a man knocking on his neighbor’s door at midnight looking for some bread because he has some last minute houseguests.  This all sounds wild to us because I would never knock on a neighbor’s door at midnight demanding bread.

But we have to remember this was a different time and place. They didn’t have hotels and airbnbs.  When people were traveling, they would often stop by unannounced expecting food and shelter.  Hospitality was important.  If one didn’t provide hospitality, that would shame them and possibly the whole village.  So it was also normal to expect your neighbor to help provide for the house guest, even at midnight.  The person who was being unreasonable in this story was not the guy knocking on the door, but the man who was refusing to answer.  Yet eventually, he relented, either because of the neighbor’s persistence or because he didn’t want to be shamed. 

The reason I find this parable problematic is that it seems to indicate that if we just ask for things over and over again, then God will eventually relent and grant our petition.  I’ve actually tried that. It didn’t work. In the end, it just left me extremely frustrated and disappointed.  I would never tell you not to pray for a specific thing, but I believe the time when prayer can feel the most frustrating is when we focus on the outcome.  I prayed a lot for my friend who died of cancer.  I prayed that she would live, but I also prayed for strength and peace. I knew that God was with her in the end.

Eugene Peterson wrote that “Prayers are tools, but with this clarification: Prayers are not tools for doing or getting, but for being and becoming.”  Prayer cannot be an order we give to God. God is not a short order cook. Prayer is the way that we deepen our relationship with God so that when we face the time of trial or the time of temptation, we will have a relationship with God that will help carry us through.

There are times in my life, even as a minister when I have been angry with God. There have been times when I even stopped caring.  I am not proud of that time, but I share it with you because I want you to know that even when we give up on God, give up on prayer, God never gives up on us.  If you feel like you are talking to God and God is not responding…consider this. The fact that you are talking to God, means that God has already spoken to you in some way.  Because otherwise you would not be moved to talk to God at all.  God spoke at your birth. God speaks with every breath you take. God speaks with the sunrises and the sunsets.  God has never stopped speaking.

The last line of our reading is: “how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirt to those who ask him!” Jesus never guaranteed outcomes.  Jesus gave us the Holy Spirit…which is sometimes described as an advocate or comforter.  Perhaps our expectations of God are too narrow. God has provided more than we could ever desire and the more we open our hearts to God, the more we will feel God’s presence. Prayer is a tool for being and becoming.   We don’t come to church because we have reached perfection or because we have figured it all out.  We don’t worship God because we never question or doubt. We do these things because we have not yet become who God has called us to be and we want  to be that person.

            Jesus told his disciples, “For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.”  Jesus never told them that they will receive what they were asking for or find exactly what they were looking for.  He just promises that we will receive. We will find. The door will be openned. We will become who God has called us to be.