By Rev. Dr. Charles J. Tomlin, DMin
Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership
Pentecost 10c, July 28th, 2013
"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. (Luk 11:9 NRS)
There is a powerful scene in the movie, "Flowers of War" based upon the
catastrophe of the 1937 Japanese invasion, massacre and destruction of Nangjing, one the four
great Chinese cities. American mortician, John Miller, played by British actor Christian Bale, found himself in the middle of the death and desolation of a war zone, taking
refuge in a Catholic Cathedral along with other catholic school girls and also
13 flowers. When I say 13 flowers, I’m
referring to 13 prostitutes from the red light district of that city. This story takes a most dramatic turn when
the Japanese leaders, who do not know about the prostitutes hiding in the
basement, demand that all the school girls come and sing for their victory
celebration. This is only a set up for a
planned raping and murdering of the young girls.
Not knowing how to save the girls, John
Miller, a sort of international playboy, who has up to now had little to do
with God, finds himself in the middle of the Cathedral dressed up as a priest, praying and asking God
about what to do to save the girls. A
surviving Chinese from that massacre, who later wrote about it, expressed her feelings in the voice of a survivor, “I’ve never even seen a priest pray like John
Miller prayed for us in that moment.”
This amazing story of redemption and sacrifice concludes with the
prostitutes being made to look like school girls by the artistic mortician. They load into the Japanese trucks to attend
the so called ‘celebration’ where they will raped and killed (but not without a
fight), while the young catholic school girls escape with the help of the
American. It’s quite a story of
redemption, sacrifice, and surprising prayer, where every character is
transformed by the event as a family of heroes who work to save these young Chinese
girls from their doom.
Maybe something in your life has
transformed you from a player into a serious pray-er? “Prayer is real religion,” wrote 19th century pastor and
French reformed theologian, Auguste Sabatier.
I might add a simpler definition: Prayer is ‘getting real’---real about
our human condition, real about our situation, or just getting real about the
limits to our very short, brief lives, that are, as I heard some reiterate last
week, ‘like a vapor.’
You have noticed, haven’t you, that even
people who don’t normally make prayer a daily habit of their life; people who seldom
go to church, will find themselves praying, or attending a prayer vigil when
tragedy strikes. We all remember how
many people returned to church to pray right after 911. Or we might also remember the prayer services
after the Oklahoma bombing of the Federal Building by Timothy McVeigh. You might even remember a time in your own
life, when trouble threatened, when you lost someone you loved, and you found
yourself uttering a prayer within, crying out ‘why me, Lord’ or ‘why them?’.
We may not pray as we should, but humans
do pray. Evidence of humans praying
goes all the way back to the Neanderthals.
Prayer has a history among both pagans and monotheistic believers. Thus prayer is not just about belief but it
is also about facing our limits and our deepest fears. We are not always people of prayer, that is, making
prayer a daily habit of our lives, but sometime or other we will
pray. People will pray whether they
actually believe in God or not. We pray
because we are fragile and frail human beings.
And when we come to know our limits in moment of difficulty or desperation,
we will find a way to cry out beyond ourselves.
People of faith, all kinds of faith, will cry out to the infinite, the
eternal, and to the mysterious one. There
are very few obstinate persons like Christopher Hitchens, the avowed atheists who
allowed no one to pray for him when he was dying with cancer. Most people without faith or people of the
Judeo-Christian faith will pray. Most
all of us will all upon the one whom Jesus taught us to call, “Father”.
In our text today, the disciples were
‘transformed’ by the presence of Jesus.
When they observed Jesus praying, they approach him asking, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his
disciples” (Luke 11:1ff). We are
told that Jesus answers their request gladly, saying: “When you pray”…. Notice that Jesus does not say not ‘if’ you
pray, but Jesus rightly says, ‘when you
pray say: Father, hallowed be your
name. Your Kingdom come…. Already Jesus shows himself a true
prophet because he knows that most all of us will realize the need to pray. But how?
How should we pray and why should we keep on praying?
TO
WHOM DO WE PRAY?
Jesus beings his ‘school’ of prayer by
giving instructions about ‘whom’ his
disciples are to pray. Jesus does not
instruct believers, or Christians, but Jesus instructs his followers, his
disciples. And in Luke’s gospel, Jesus
begins his instruction of the correct ‘pattern for prayer’ with a single word,
“Father”.
Jesus is the first who dares to called
God, ‘Abba’, Father, or even more endearingly, “Daddy!” All biblical scholarship will tell you that
this was the most drastic change ever made in the practice of human
prayer. Jesus took a radical step
forward when he instructed his disciples to address God as if they are part of
God’s own family. Jesus does not
understand God as some distant, impersonal deity who created the world and then
rode off into the sunset, but God is a constant, compassionate and caring
Father and we are the his children---children of his great love and gracious concern.
Now, I realize, right off the bat, that
in an imperfect world everyone does not have such a favorable image of ‘father’
in their mind. Many people have been tremendously scarred by
the painful remembrances of very imperfect, or worse, even cruel, harsh, or very
absent fathers. Some people cannot
imagine a loving Father because such an appealing image most difficult, if not
impossible, for them. Perhaps they will
need to call God their mother, as Jesus implies that he ‘would gather little ones us under her wings like a mother hen’. Or perhaps they need to refer to God in more
generic terms as a ‘caring, compassionate
Spirit’. There are even Christian
theologians who insist that we should remove all expression of male gender when
we pray, because God is not male or female, but God is an eternal Spirit with
both feminine and masculine qualities.
This is what happens in the famous outrageously popular Christian book
entitled, The Shack, where God is
imagined as a mysterious, loving African-American woman named Papa who likes to
cook. I know this sounds quite strange
to those who have ‘orthodox’ hears, but this image of God is filled with love,
compassion and care for a man named Mack who is wondering if God cares after
his daughter is killed. The image of
God he finds in the Shack helps him deal with the heartbreak of his own life
through redeeming relationships with a God who reveals himself in many loving
ways. I can sympathize with such pain
and limits with human language to grasp the loving presence of God. God understands our human limits—that’s why
even in the Bible God also has many, many names we can identify with: Jehovah,
Lord, Yahweh, creator, provider, redeemer, sustainer, good shepherd and many
more.
A Jesuit priest in training tells how he
once went to a shelter to hold mass and to preach on prayer. He told his pastoral advisor what he planned
to preach and his intent on helping the people understand that God is even bigger
than a ‘father’ and other images of God can also apply to God, such as a nurturing
mother. When he revealed his sermon
topic of giving God a feminine side, his advisor said, “I’d go slow on that
one”. But the young preacher dared to
preach it anyway. Then, right in the
middle of the sermon, a homeless man named ‘Con’ stood up and lambasted the
preacher in front of the entire congregation.
Con turned to everyone and said something like (I’m softening his more
graphic words) “This fellow doesn’t have
a clue what he’s talking about. God is
not our mother. Everyone knows that Mary
is our Mother and God is our Father. Who
in the world does this ignorant Moran think he is to change the truth?” With these words, the homeless man stormed
out the door. Everyone was stunned. After the service, the young priest, still in
shock, went back to his advisor who said, “I hate to say, but I told you to go
slow on that one”. “Do you think I need
to change what I preached” for the next service, the young priest asked. “No,” you go ahead and preach that same
sermon again. I’ll take care of Con and
make sure he’s O.K. Besides, the teenagers were all excited about
how it went. They loved the drama. The truth is that even if people don’t like
it, they need to understand that God is bigger than any single image, including
‘our Father’. No one can exhaust or control
how God decides to show up and share his great, limitless love (From “Why Bother Praying” by Richard Leonard, Paulist Press, 2013).
WHY WE ARE TO
KEEP ON PRAYING?
For Jesus, and for most of us, understanding
and addressing God as Father is a much welcomed advancement in the history of
prayer. Yet, even Jesus knew that his
disciples would sometimes struggle to address God in this way or keep on
praying to him. In at least two places
in the gospel of Luke, Jesus deals with the problem of why and how we are to
keep praying to this loving Father, even when we don’t always get immediate
answers to our prayers.
In Luke 18, Jesus told of the widow who
went to unjust judge, persistently
pleading for him to hear her case and give her justice. Jesus intentionally reminds his disciples
that God is not like this ‘unjust’ judge. “Will God not grant justice to his chosen
ones who cry to him day and night? Will
he delay long in helping them? I tell
you (Jesus says), he will quickly grant justice to them. And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he
find (such) faith on the earth?”
(Luke 18: 7-8). Jesus tells this
story precisely because sometimes it seems like God is not answering, does not
care, and is a distant or absent Father.
Jesus assures his disciples that God cares, even if it seems like he
doesn’t. The unjust judge is who God is
not.
In our current passage, Luke 11, 5ff,
Jesus gives us another look at why we should keep praying. Jesus likens the Father we pray to as ‘friend at midnight’ who is approached by
his friend with a very urgent need. Stop
and think! It’s midnight. It’s an inopportune time, but this friend of
a friend needs to borrow a loaf of bread to feed an unexpected guest who has
arrived late. The friend wakes his friend from sleep who
answers negatively: “Go away! Don’t bother us, we are all gone to
bed! They are friends, but in this inconvenient situation
the friend is naturally hesitant. He
needs his sleep. Jesus then adds this
important point about prayer: “Even
though he will not get up because they are friends, because of his persistence
he will get up and give him whatever he needs.”
What Jesus is saying is that God, our
heavenly Father is NOT like this ‘unjust judge’ and surprisingly, God is
also NOT simply a ‘friend’ who will simply wake up and give us what we
want. When you think about it, this is
really an awkward, even a somewhat ‘mature’ or complicated understanding of God
as Father. God is a good Father, but he
is not a pushover either. God is more
like a loving Father who requires just as much from his children’s own
determination and resolve in their praying.
The father lovingly cares, but he cares in such a way that prayer can
never be reduced to magic words or demands of entitlement to get whatever we
want in life. Life or prayer will ever
work that way.
So why pray? If we can’t control the outcome of our
asking, and there are no guarantees for answers, why bother praying? This thorny issue of unanswered prayer is
exactly why many have trouble picturing God as a loving, caring Father. How can people believe that God is a loving
Father who has their best interest at heart when they have had a terrible
father in this world? And how can they or
we visualize God as loving, when all kinds of bad things have happened--when
we’ve had too many prayers go unanswered, or when, in spite of all our praying,
life has not gone as planned, hoped, or as we prayed? It is indeed, hard to keep on praying to God
as a loving, caring Father who looks an awful lot like unjust judge or like
this slumbering ‘friend’ who doesn’t want to get out of bed in to meet our desperate
need. Why pray to a God who looks like
that?
There are many lessons we need to learn
from Jesus about praying, but Jesus teaching about ‘persistence’ in prayer may
be Jesus’ most practical lesson: “I tell
you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his
friend, at least BECAUSE OF HIS PERSISTANCE he will get up and give him
whatever he needs.” Why do you
think Jesus approaches our major problem with prayer very much like my mother
used to tell me, “If you don’t first
succeed, try and try and try again?”
It sounds almost too real, too human, and leaves a lot of the power and
purpose of prayer within our own attitudes, our own tenacity, and in our own
efforts, doesn’t it? Why do you think
Jesus approaches prayer in this very non-magical and almost non-miraculous
way? Is prayer as much human
perspiration as it is divine power?
How Jesus pictures persistent in a
disciples’ praying might explain the ‘why’ of praying better than any explanation
we could come up with. In verse 8, Jesus
offers us this unforgettable picture of praying with perseverance and
persistence, saying: “Ask, (the
original Greek (imperative active) can also mean ‘keep on asking’) and it will be given you; search (keep
on searching), and you will find; knock (keep
on knocking) and the door will be open
for you. For everyone who asks (keeps
on asking) receives, and everyone who
searches (keeps on searching) finds,
and for everyone who knocks ( keeps on knocking), the door will be open.” What
do you think God is trying to accomplish in requiring that we keep on keeping
on in our asking, our seeking, and our knocking? Could there be something more to prayer than
getting answers?
In one of the greatest books ever
written on the practice of the Christian life in my lifetime, including the
practice of prayer, Quaker theologian Richard Foster describes prayer this way:
"Prayer catapults us onto the
frontier of the spiritual life. It is
original research in unexplored territory… Real prayer is life creating and
life changing… To pray is to change. Prayer
is the central avenue God uses to transform us… In prayer, real prayer, we
begin to think God’s thoughts after Him: to desire the things He desires, to
love the things He loves. Progressively we are taught to see things from His
point of view..." I believe
Richard Foster is on to what Jesus is teaching us about persistence in prayer. I might add that we are not simply taught to
see what God sees, but we are also called to ‘trust’ God, even when we can’t
see why or what is going on. We need to
trust God more than getting answers because we need God most of all. To
understand prayer and asking, seeking, and finding God in our life, takes us to
the highest purpose of prayer. By not
always giving us what we want, God, the loving Father can offer us more than we
know to how to ask for. God the loving
father is never reduced to a ‘sugar daddy’, but God remains the loving father who
draws us toward a living relationship so he can give his children what they could
have never imagined. Listen again to
Jesus: “If you who are evil know how to
give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Father give the Holy
Spirit to those who ask him!”
Has your main priority in prayer been receiving
the presence of God into your life through the Holy Spirit? I didn’t think so, but it should be. It is this relationship of trust that God is
after because this is what we need most to get us through all our lives. What we need most is not things, not stuff,
not what we want or even think we need, but what we need most is God, and to come
to trust him, not matter what.
I heard E.V. Hill preach when I was just
beginning my ministry in Statesville in the 1980’s. Dr.
Hill died back in 2005. For years, Dr.
Hill was the pastor of Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church in south central Los
Angeles and regularly was listed among the best preachers in the United States.
One of his best known sermons was the
eulogy he delivered at the funeral for his wife, whom he affectionately called
"Baby." Here was a man doing
a most difficult task, preaching his own wife’s funeral. That would be extremely difficult. But, what is particularly memorable about his
sermon, says Ron Holmes, is the grieving pastors message about unanswered
prayer and about trust in God.
In his eulogy for his wife, Dr. Hill
tells of his persistent prayers to God during the time of Baby’s illness, asking
God to heal her. His prayers grew more
and more persistent as she worsened and drew closer to death. And the message
that came to E. V. in his prayers was simply this—"trust me." In that repeated-theme-sing-song style of
African-American preachers, E. V. tells of his persistent prayers and the
repeated answer from God, "Trust me." By the end of his message, E.
V., again in that unique style, is shouting the answer, "Trust me, trust
me," and telling the congregation while that was not the answer he was
seeking, it was good enough for him. Through a difficult time, E. V. Hill
persevered and grew in his trust in a loving Father whose answer was not the
answer he sought, but the answer we all will need when that time comes. http://www.soth.net/sermons%202006/sermon%203-26-2006.htm)
WHAT DO WE PRAY FOR?
We are to keep praying because God is
our loving father who cares for us. Even
when our prayers are not answered as we want, God still cares for us and calls
us to trust in him. So, now that we
know who we pray to and why we should pray, answering the
question of what we should pray for should be more easily
understood. Once we get our priority of
who and why out of the way, the what of prayer is made clear.
When you look at the Lord’s prayer, Jesus’
pattern of prayer encourages us to pray for the most basic needs we all have. The list Jesus teaches us to pray for is not
at all exhaustive, but exemplary. ‘Give us our daily bread’ reminds us of
our most basic physical needs God wants to supply according his riches and
life’s resources. “Forgive us, as we forgive others” points us to our emotional and
relational needs which help us know and
experience the greatest gift: merciful love.
Finally, “Do not bring us to the
hour of trial” is to ask for spiritual guidance so we are not overcome by temptation
and give in to the destructiveness of evil.
These are the most basic examples of things we should be asking,
seeking, and knocking on God’s door about.
God does not invite us to pray every extravagant thing we might imagine,
but God invites us to keep prayer directed toward the simple things that enable
us to live our lives to their fullest and to the glory of God.
Jesus’ approach to prayer is very much
like that hit AT&T commercial, which says through the voices of children,
“It’s not complicated”. Of course,
AT&T is claiming that their network is bigger, faster, and has more
benefits. God doesn’t need to talk like
that because what God has to give us through prayer nothing can compare. “To
whom shall we go,” the disciples once told Jesus, as other were leaving him.
“Only you have the words of eternal life.” In this way, what we should pray for is not
complicated because Jesus lifts up our heavenly Father as the ultimate answer
to all our prayers.
Because our loving, heavenly Father has
‘gifts’ the world cannot give us, we pray.
This is where Jesus finally lands his lesson on prayer. This
is what Jesus means when the says that God is a father who knows how to give
good gifts, even the best gifts to his children, of which the greatest gift is
the Holy Spirit (11:13).
What Jesus means by giving us God’s
spirit is so greatly illustrated in the story I began with, 13 Flowers of
Nangjing. In the story I mentioned
before, neither the American John Miller, the Prostitutes, or even the convent
catholic schoolgirls are as spiritually or heavenly minded as they should
be. Before the war came, they were all
stuck in life, going nowhere. The
American is a playboy who drinks too much.
The Prostitutes are survivors who are making their living the best way
they can, which brings them much regret.
Even the catholic school girls are not always Christian, as they
struggle with their own character development.
There is also a young boy, who helped the priest look after the girls,
who feels inadequate because has not done a good job protected the girls, as he
promised the Priest who was killed.
Then, there is the father of one of the school girls, who is helping the
Japanese navigate the besieged city, so he can help his daughter survive. But his daughter calls her father a traitor
because he is helping the Japanese.
Everyone in the story is a misfit, a
mistake, or in some way either a failure in life until the day of testing comes. In the day of trial, the American sobers up
and plays the brave role of father to the girls. The girls stop looking down on the prostitutes
and appreciate them as hurting, helpless, and unfortunate women whom God loves. The young boy who struggles to be a man,
seizes the moment to sacrifice himself by dressing as a girl and sacrificing
himself to the Japanese for the sake of the girls. The father is killed trying to help his
daughter escape. His deed is what makes
the escape possible. Last of all, which is the most outstanding
fact of the massacre in history, is that the prostitutes are willing to stand
up, substitute and sacrifice themselves in order to save the young girls. They take their place by pretending to be the
virgins the Japanese soldiers want to rape and will eventually kill. This is the one truth of the story which is
verified, but in this story all of the victims become heroes. They become a transformed people, who from
this side of the tragedy, are now viewed as those who found their best selves
while serving God and others, even at the sacrifice of their own lives in the
worst of situations.
Isn’t this core of the Christian gospel;
that in dying we can live, in giving we will gain, and in serving, we bring the
kingdom we are asked to pray for? This
is what prayer is about. We should keep
on praying because we can be more and have more than we now imagine. We pray so that we become people who make a
difference. We pray so that God can give
us, even in our worst moments, the greatest gifts we can never give ourselves so
we can stand when the test that comes. So,
keep on asking, seeking and knocking because only God can give you what you can
never give yourself: your salvation, your final redemption, and best of all,
eternal life to all who believe and endure to the end! Amen!
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