"For everyone who
asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks,
the door will be opened.”
Written on the heels of the Lord’s Prayer, this famous passage is most commonly used in relationship with our prayer life. Often
times, this scripture is translated, if
you pray hard enough and long enough, God will answer your prayers. Has anyone ever suggested to you that if you just
pray hard enough, God will grant your request?
While I am a big believer in the power of prayer, I am
forced to consider the implications of this type of reading when prayers are
not granted. What about the couple who
prayed for years and years for a baby but never to any avail? Do we just say, “It must not have been God’s
will?” or “God must be punishing them for something”?
What about the young mother, devoted to her church and
family, who dies after a battle with cancer?
Were the prayers of her church family not enough? Was her faith lacking?
For two years, I prayed every night for my father when he battled
Major Depression. Every night for those two years I asked God to make him
better. And every night I felt as if my
prayers fell on deaf ears.
After my dad lost the battle to this terrible illness, I was
sure that my prayers did indeed fall on deaf ears. Did I not pray hard enough and long
enough? Was I not pious enough in my
asking? I know you have a similar story
to tell, too.
Episcopal priest and writer, the late Robert Capon comments
on this famous passage saying, “Taken literally, as a program for conning God
into catering to the needs of our lives, that is pure bunk: too many sincere, persistent prayers have simply gone
unfulfilled.”
So if this passage isn’t saying that God will eventually
answer our prayers if we are persistent enough in asking, then what is this passage
all about?
Scholars will tell you that a better reading of the Greek
word for “persistent” in this passage is actually “shameless”—at least in our
21st century context. So if
we substitute persistent with shameless we would get, “At least
because of the needy man’s shamelessness, the sleeper will get up and give the needy
man whatever he seeks.”
And the Greek word for “get up” implies that there some kind
of resurrection going on here. So the
original readers would have understood that this mini-parable suggests that the
answering of prayer has something to do with our shamelessness in asking and
Jesus’ resurrection from the dead.
Like the parable suggests, our prayers are not answered
because our prayers are reasonable or justified. Our prayers are not answered because we have
a really good personal relationship with Jesus.
Our prayers are answered solely because ours is a God who is
compassionate and chooses not to leave us for dead.
I believe we grow more satisfied to this answer on prayer
when we admit just how ignorant and blind we are in our asking, when we admit
that God is doing for us far better things than we can ask or imagine, when we
can shamelessly admit that the answer to prayer is solely dependent on a God
whose property is always to have mercy – and not on our own righteousness or deservedness.
As one preacher said, “If we knew what God knows, we would
ask exactly for what he gives.” But the
truth is – we don’t know what God knows and we rarely ask for exactly what he
gives. And when we admit how limited our
understanding of God is, then we can be shameless in asking because in the end
all of our requests are absurd as it relates to God’s final plan of glory.
Ultimately, this shameless approach to prayer calls us to be
less concerned about telling God what to do and more open to how God is
answering all our prayers through what Christ has done, through the One who is
risen from the dead, through the One who points to life even from the grave. Or as many have said, the aim of prayer is
not about changing God. The aim of prayer
is about changing us into a people who trust that God's great mercy is enough.
When prayer is seen in this light, prayer ceases to be a
formula that is to be mastered but as a way to enter into an authentic
relationship with the One who takes care of our every need – even when we hear
“no” or “not yet.” When we stop seeing
prayer as a vending machine, we can be at peace with a future that is uncertain
because prayer is about growing in relationship with the God who makes certain
our future.
Only when we die to the illusion that we are in control,
only when we die to our pedantic version of what life should look like, only
when we die to our selfish needs can we claim a shamelessness and death that invites
us to see that God’s way is the only way to life. And as Christians, we are invited to know that
the way of the cross – the way of suffering and death – is none other than the
way of life and peace.
On my last night as Chaplain Resident at Baptist Princeton
in Birmingham, I was called to the Emergency Department after someone died from
a gunshot wound. When I made it down to
the ED, the Doctor on-call asked me if I would go with him to the parking lot
to notify the family of the death.
I was hesitant. I
asked, “Why can’t the family come inside?” You see if you come inside, then you have to
go through metal detectors. I remember
thinking that it was a terrible idea to go outside. I could get shot by a grieving family
member. But the Doctor insisted so we
went outside.
About 40 family members gathered outside when the Doctor
broke the news. As you might imagine,
there were lots of tears and lots of screams.
The son of the deceased, who was about my age, couldn’t believe the news
and asked to see the body. When the
Doctor told the young man that he would have to wait because it was a coroner’s
case, the young man went off the hinges.
At this point, I tried to calm the young man down but all I
could seem to do was add fuel to the fire.
Eventually, the young man said that he was going to go back and get his
gun and shoot up the place. This was
probably the most terrifying moment of my life.
I tried to reason with him saying, “Now is not the time for
guns.” And to that he replied, “What do
you know? Don’t tell me what to do. You don’t know what it is like to have a
father who was shot.”
I stood there paralyzed and the only thing I could muster
were tears. There I was, the Chaplain,
the “non-anxious presence”, the one who was supposed to invoke the name of God
in this time of chaos, reduced to tears.
At that moment, we both knew what it was like to feel dead
inside. There were no words left to
say. And the scene became silent. And then someone from the crowd began to
pray, “Our Father, who art in heaven…”
One by one, we all joined in saying the Lord’s Prayer. Our prayers were answered – not because Jesus
magically raised this young man’s father to life, not because the Chaplain-on-call
whipped out the magic prayer for the particular occasion, but our prayers were
answered because through our shamelessness – through our tears and anger – our fundamental
hope in prayer was revealed – God with us.
At the end of the day, prayer is about connecting with the God
who promises to be with us even to the end of the ages. Prayer is about finding sanctuary in the God
who is with us through the valley of the shadow of death. Prayer is about claiming a faith that
believes death is not the end but the gateway to life.
Beloved, be persistent in prayer – not like a three-year-old
who doesn’t think her parents heard her the first time – trust me – God heard
you the first time. Instead, be
persistent to the point where you become shameless in prayer, to the point where
you are ready to give your prayer over to the God who lifts the dead to
life.
Keep knocking and searching and discover in Christ a life
where sin and death are temporary and ultimately things of the past. Keep knocking and searching and discover in God
a life where Jesus, the Bread of Life, is most alive in you when you are ready
to be shameless in your asking. Amen.
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