Your Father Gives a Yes Guarantee
Luke 11:1-13 One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he 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, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us. And lead us not into temptation.’ ”
5 Then Jesus said to them, “Suppose you have a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; 6 a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have no food to offer him.’ 7 And suppose the one inside answers, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is already locked, and my children and I are in bed. I can’t get up and give you anything.’
8 I tell you, even though he will not get up and give you the bread because of friendship, yet because of your shameless audacity he will surely get up and give you as much as you need.
9 “So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.
11 “Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? 12 Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 13 If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”
Friends in Christ, my family just moved to a house after two years of living in an apartment complex, and three times during those two years we got a knock on the door quite late at night. The first was a kind neighbor letting us know our van door hadn’t closed and was sitting open. She didn’t want our battery to die or anything to crawl in there, so thank you! The second time, a kind neighbor let us know we had left our keys in the lock, dangling in view of the everyone in the hallway. She didn’t want anyone to walk off with them—thanks! The third time a kind neighbor realized a package on her step was misdelivered and it was actually ours, so she knocked loudly to make sure we got it. In each case, the loud knock on the door after 9 at night set our hearts beating fast, and our minds racing with a flurry of possibilities: Is someone going to barge in and rob us? Is this person crazy—do they not know how rude this is? Or wait…do they know it’s rude, but whatever they have to say can’t wait until morning. Of course, that last thought was correct in all three cases.
I’m sure not everyone here would dare open their door to a stranger that late at night, at least unarmed, but Jesus describes this happening at back-to-back houses in his story illustrating prayer here. First friends show up at your house in the middle of the night, then you hustle over to knock on your neighbor’s door even later in the middle of the night.
I love when Jesus tells us a story to get his point across to us listeners. Nothing draws you in like a story, especially if it gets a little silly and exaggerated…you want to see how it ends. Probably over half of his stories are totally relatable even now—they’re about parents and kids or plants or animals. Other parables make us imagine back to the days of kings and servants, and we can picture that. But a few stories include details from the culture at that time that would just be lost on us if we didn’t get other hints about what people in that culture acted and—most importantly here—what was polite.
Before phones, before GPS, before Holiday Inns at every exit, people got where they were going whenever they got there. And there was a standing agreement that towns would cover for travelers passing through, even if it imposes on you: Our town will host guests. And that’s that. You might entertain them one night, I might the next, but together, it’s our responsibility—not theirs—ours—to make sure everyone has a place to stay. Our town’s reputation depends on it.
Obviously we live in very different times. We never know who’s passing through, and we don’t think it’s our problem if they don’t have a place to stay. They can go find a hotel or Air B&B. But when your whole town was ten houses, all connected, or a few dozen families all around a town square, or inside the city walls, it was different. Common decency meant opening your home, offering not just a slice of toast but a full meal and going through motions of being a generous host, even if you’d rather be sleeping.
I’m guessing nobody wants a knock on their door here, and certainly not in FL, where that’s illegal in most neighborhoods. But in parts of the world, what Jesus describes is still the norm. I heard in the news that the census takers in Saudi Arabia are barely making progress because everyone invites them into their home for coffee and conversation, to be polite, so the government had to tell people to stop doing that--just let them take their survey and move on!
Jesus tells this parable, because the desperate person in his story is you. The man with extra bread to spare is God, your Father in Heaven. And you know it might be rude, you know it’s asking a lot, but what other options do you have? Your only hope for daily bread and forgiveness hangs on that man in his house with all that bread. You depend on him being generous, understanding your need, and answering his door. And if even a grouchy, tired curmudgeon like the guy in Jesus’ story will eventually get up and give you as much as you need—his point is, don’t you think God your Father will be much quicker than that, and give to you much more generously?
Ask, then. Seek out good things where you know you’ll find them. Knock and knock, even if it’s rude, even if it’s late at night, and even if it’s the thousandth or ten-thousandth time you’ve come to your Father in Heaven, desperate, hoping he can help you out in a pinch. Of course he will answer the door. He’s not hard to wake up, and he won’t hold it against you in the morning. In fact he loves to give you good things.
Best of all the good things he loves to give is his Holy Spirit. The Father gives the Spirit through the Son. You pray to your Father asking for strength to live an upright life, to make it to heaven, and not to lose the grace you’ve been given—of course he’ll say yes to that prayer, and he’ll answer your prayer by steering you to the word of Christ, the marvelous work of Jesus for you, in you, over you, through you. The Father gives the Spirit through the Son.
When you ask those famous Lord’s Prayer requests that Jesus taught a few verses earlier, what in there could God possibly say “no” to? His kingdom won’t come? He’ll withhold your bread or forgiveness? All of a sudden he will start leading you into temptation? Of course not. God himself guarantees you that his answer to all of these prayers is always going to be ‘yes.’
So don’t hesitate to pray because you feel you’re on the outs with God right now, or your request would be too big or too annoying or too impossible or too selfish—no, knock all that off and look at Jesus. The Son of God came to earth, was a guest in homes, taught us to pray, then went to Calvary, and on that cross answered our biggest, craziest, rudest prayer, which is: “Lord, don’t treat me like my sins deserve.” And clearly your Father’s answer, through Jesus is, “Yes. Because of what my Son is paying on that cross, Yes. I guarantee you I have forgotten your sins. I will treat you as my child—I want you to be a guest in my house forever. And you can talk to me about anything you want at any time, and it’s not rude. In fact, I would be the rude one if I did not get up and answer your prayer—my reputation depends on it.”
We love those guaranteed yes requests of the Lord’s Prayer, so we pray it often and love it. And even as expand off of that model prayer and pray to our Father about all sorts of other things on our minds, we always ask for it (1) in Jesus’ name (because he’s the only reason we have access to the Father) and (2) we pray according to God’s will. So your requests always sound like, “Lord, please give me or give my friend this thing that I want…or…something better if you can think of anything.” Ask, seek, knock that way, and again God’s answer will always be yes. He’ll either give you exactly what you’re asking for, or something that he can see is going to be even better for you
I want you to go through this week reassured by Jesus’ teaching here, Pray! It’s never rude. Again, he would consider it rude of himself not to answer you. So take him up on that. An answer is guaranteed, and it’s guaranteed to be as good as or better than you were expecting. Be a frequent guest knocking on your Father’s door this week, and those prayers of yours will get things done. Like James 5:16 says, the prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. Thank you, Lord, for declaring us to be your righteous people, and for making our rude requests such a priority for you. Amen.
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Activities:
Are you too timid or too bold in your prayers to God? (Is it possible to be either?)
Commit to “ask…seek…knock” bravely and boldly before God’s throne this week about an issue that’s been bugging you.
Your Father loves to give you his Holy Spirit through his Word and sacrament. Do you have a solid personal Bible-reading or devotion routine, or is it time to start a new one?