Ask and it will be given to you, Seek and you shall find. These famous words
have echoed throughout the centuries giving hope to some while confounding
others. I read a news story this week that reminded me of the way many folks
interpret that phrase.
There’s an enterprising young man in Glendora CA, who uses a service on a
popular website called Craigslist. Craigslist is the reason why no one under the
age of 45 puts a classified ad in the newspaper anymore. Craigslist, and other
sites like it, is an online classifieds page.
You can buy or sell absolutely anything you want. You can talk about any subject
you want to discuss. And other computer users all over the world will interact
with you. The best part is that it’s free. You’d have to pay $20 to put an ad in
the Freeman, but if you sell your car on Craigslist you’ll have more people see
it and it won’t cost you anything.
Back to this young man from Glendora, Steven Ortiz. He spends hours every day
looking at a section on Craigslist where people are giving away things for free.
People are looking to get rid of all kinds of stuff, and sometimes you can trade
something you have for something they have.
Steven spent 5-6 hours a day on Craigslist looking for free stuff. He started
with an old cell phone that he didn’t want anymore and traded it for something
he thought was more valuable. Then he found something else and traded up. He
kept on trading up to items like an Ipad, some dirt bikes, a golf cart and then
a Mac Laptop computer.
At one point he found a guy who needed a laptop more than he needed his Ford
Bronco. Suddenly Steven found himself driving a Bronco without paying for it.
But the coup de grace was when he found someone willing to trade the Bronco for
a Porche Boxter. He was the only one at his high school driving their own Porche
to class.
All he did was seek and he found. He asked, and a Porche was given to him. I
think many of us tend to look at prayer the way that Steven looked at
Craigslist. We know there are things in our lives that we need. And we read
passages in the Bible like this one where Jesus seems to promise that we will be
given whatever we pray for.
So when Jesus teaches his disciples to pray in this passage, lots of Christians
say to themselves, “OK, now here’s what I have to do in order to get what I
need. God knows what I need, and God will only give me good things. So I just
have to pray and really mean it.”
Recently I was speaking to one of my uncles who experienced a real life change
when he started attending a large mega church near his home. I see the evidence
of change in his life. His way of behavior completely changed and his marriage
has seen great improvements. He couldn’t be happier. And I’m happy for him.
When I get together with my relatives, those who are religious like to talk to
me and tell me what’s going on in their churches and tell me about the volunteer
work they’re doing. But one time this uncle of mine told me that since he
started attending church his financial picture has completely changed.
He said he didn’t notice it right away, but he looked back years later and saw
that his net worth started climbing during the years when he started going to
church. I asked him what attending church has to do with a rising net worth.
He didn’t want to come right out and say it because he knows better than to say
something like that to me, but he implied that God had blessed him financially
as a result of taking his faith seriously and participating in the life of the
church.
There are a lot of folks who understand this passage the way he does. But if God
gives us whatever we ask for, every little girl would grow up to be Hannah
Montana, every boy would grow up to be a race car driver, the Cubs would win the
World Series every year, no one would ever die, and our church would have a
multi-billion dollar endowment.
And yet, Jesus tells people not to seek these things. He tells them not to
stress about food and clothing and shelter. They don’t need to ask God for those
things because God already knows what they need in that regard.
Instead, the focus of their prayer life is their own righteousness and the reign
of God on the earth. In Matthew Jesus says, “First seek the kingdom of God and
his righteousness. Then all these things will be given to you.” Now that’s a
very different way of understanding the concept of prayer.
The concept of prayer comes up in this instance because Jesus’ disciples see him
praying. They know that John the Baptist taught his disciples to pray. But to
this point in the gospel Jesus hasn’t taught them how to pray. So one of them
asks him how they should pray.
It wasn’t as if they didn’t already have some idea how to pray. People in their
society prayed all the time. The local synagogue was a place of prayer, as was
the temple. In Matthew Jesus wants to show the difference between the way that
pious people pray and the way his disciples pray.
But in Luke Jesus makes the point that prayer is a lifestyle, a long-term effort
at seeking God’s own righteousness for your life. The folks who are the most
successful in prayer are those who are the most persistent.
The prayer he teaches them is a shorter version of the Lord’s Prayer that we say
every Sunday morning. The version we say on Sunday morning is more like the
Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6, but it’s not exactly like Matthew’s version either.
The version we use is most like a prayer found in an early church document which
gives instruction on how to live the Christian life and administer the functions
of a church. I don’t want to go into the technical explanation of why Luke gives
us a shorter version of the Lord’s Prayer because no one honestly knows for
sure.
But I do want to have you take another look at it to see what Jesus really tells
his disciples to pray for when he taught them this prayer. In the beginning
prayer expresses the desire that everyone in the world know Israel’s God, and
that God would reign over all the earth.
Now we tend to think that God already does reign over the earth, and that God
always did. But back in that time people didn’t think God reigned over the earth
because they looked around and saw all kinds of really terrible things
happening. If God reigned over the earth, those things wouldn’t take place.
Jesus taught that his coming to the world was the beginning of the process of
God reigning over the world again, and that when Jesus returned God’s reign over
the world would be complete. Until that time Jesus taught his followers to pray
that God’s reign keeps coming one small step at a time as they told other people
about Jesus.
They ask God to give them the bread they need for the day. But do we understand
that bread to be literal loaves of bread or do we understand God feeding us in a
spiritual way? In Luke I think it’s the latter.
In this passage Jesus makes the point that just as parents know to give their
children what they need for nourishment, God knows that Christians need God’s
Spirit in order to live right. So I don’t think they’re asking for something to
eat here. I think they’re asking for God to guide them.
Then they ask for God to forgive their sins because they forgive the people who
have wronged them. That’s why there’s a difference between the way we pray this
prayer and the way some others do.
In Matthew the payer talks about debts and debtors, which are the words we use.
But we’re not talking about financial debt here. We’re not asking God to pay off
the credit card bills. People believed that when they sinned that they were
running up a debt of sin that they owed to God.
And when someone did something wrong to them, that other person became indebted
to them. So if they forgave the folks who wronged them, then Jesus taught that
God would forgive their debt of sin. And if they didn’t, then God wouldn’t
forgive them.
Finally, they ask God not to lead them into a situation where they were tempted
to do wrong. On the surface that sounds ridiculous. Why would God lead God’s own
people into a situation where they were tempted?
This phrase reflects the belief that whatever happened in history was God’s own
doing. If something good happened, God was blessing people. If something bad
happened, God was punishing people. And sometimes God tested people to see if
they were as loyal as they were supposed to be.
By the time the New Testament was being written that way of looking at the world
was being questioned. In James it says that God doesn’t tempt anyone. They’re
tempted by their own evil desires. Regardless of what people believed, they
always hoped they wouldn’t enter a situation where they were tested.
This is a rather simple, brief prayer. And I want you to notice that in none of
these phrases does he teach his disciples to ask for food or possessions or
clothes or anything like that. What they’re asking for is God’s own
righteousness. That’s what they’re supposed to seek.
Jesus ends this section by reminding his disciples that prayer is not simply
about repeating something for the sake of repeating it. He spent so much time in
prayer because he believed that persistence was the key to prayer.
One time Emma had a friend over at our house and the time came when her friend’s
parents told her to come home. But her friend wasn’t ready to come home. I
imagine that what happened next was a fairly frequent occurrence.
Her friend called her parents and began lobbying her them for more time. When
simple persuasion didn’t get them to relent, she began the emotional appeal. She
told them how sad she was. She said that they were going to making her cry by
insisting that she come home.
“Do you want to make your little girl cry?” She told them. This went on for
about fifteen minutes, and as she hoped, they finally relented and agreed to let
her stay longer. Now it isn’t my business how they conduct themselves, but it
reminded me that in many cases persistence has a great effect on the outcome in
life.
But if Jesus is teaching his disciples to be persistent, then one of the
questions you have to raise is this, “What kind of God would withhold something
from a person who prays simply because they haven’t been praying for it long
enough? Why would God need to be nagged?”
It’s like a parent whose child says, “Can I have this?” And the parent says,
“What is the magic word?” The child says, “Please?” “Pretty please?” replies the
parent. “Pretty please with whipped cream on top?” I mean, what are we saying
here? Why would God insist that we beg? Does God have a need to be needed? Does
God enjoy being begged?
I don’t think so. In fact, I think prayer is more about us than it is about God.
I think Jesus teaches his disciples to be persistent because the Christian life
requires so much persistence. You can’t become a person with a rich profound
faith in God overnight.
It takes time and effort and persistence. You have to want it more than Steven
Ortiz wanted that Porche. Think about it: if he was willing to spend 5-6 hours a
day on Craigslist (which I don’t recommend) trying to get better stuff for
himself, how much effort should we put into seeking God’s own righteousness for
our lives, which is much more important than getting stuff?
How much time should we spend asking so that it will be given to us? How many
times should we knock on the door, knowing that eventually it will be opened for
us? Many of us want to be solid Christians, but what are you willing to put into
it?
How badly do you want to know God? How intent are you in understanding what the
Bible tells us about God? Churches in the US are filled with people who show up
for church, listen to what the pastor says, and if the church is lucky maybe
they participate in some program or ministry of the church.
They don’t spend much time thinking about what was said. They don’t question
what the pastor says. They aren’t challenged with a sense that there’s so much
more to the Christian faith than what they already know. They aren’t interested
in other ways of understanding God, even if those other ways might help them
come to a deeper faith.
The stopped actually seeking a long time ago. They’re all done knocking on the
door. They don’t keep asking because they’re already satisfied with the morsel
of Jesus they’ve received, and they don’t want to risk having their whole way of
looking at things turned upside down if God ever gives them what they ask for.
Jesus is telling his disciples that it will be really tough for them to follow
the savior of the world if they have no desire to continue seeking and knocking
and asking. The problem isn’t with God withholding truth from us. It’s with our
lack of perseverance in seeking it.
In his classic book, The Meaning of Prayer, the great preacher, Harry Emerson
Fosdick, puts it this way: Some things God cannot give to a person until he or
she has prepared and proved his or her spirit by persistent prayer. Such praying
cleans the house, cleanses the windows, hangs the curtains, sets the table,
opens the door, until God says, "Ok! The House is ready. Now the guest may come
in."
I believe this is what Jesus is driving at in our Scripture reading for today.
When we ask long enough, seek hard enough, knock loud enough, and pray
persistent enough, something happens on the inside of us.
The discipline of prayer begins to awaken us to the Holy Spirit inside of us,
and our motives and desires begin to change. It is like the persistence of our
praying becomes the axe that breaks up the frozen numbness of our souls. Then
the power and wisdom of God break in and we begin to be formed by the will of
God.
Author Peter Annet once said that those who pray persistently are like sailors
who have cast anchor on a rock. As they pull on the anchor, they think they are
pulling the rock to themselves, but they are really pulling themselves to the
rock.
This is what persistent prayer does. It pulls us closer to The Rock, God
Almighty. And as we move closer to God in prayer, we find that we do not get
what we want from God. We get something better. We get what we need. We get what
God wants.
We find that as we move closer to our Rock, we begin to desire what God desires,
so that what we ask for, knock for, and seek after becomes what God so
desperately wants to give us. Then the truth of Jesus' words come to life so
that what we pray for we truly receive. It is a sacred surprise.