Along the Way

Recollections of Our Trip Through Samaria

The Friend

 8-2-09

Text: Luke 11:1-13

● In a previous series, I suggested that prayer is the “rhythm of life”; that prayer is our response to God in the context of life (suffering, sick, happy, committed sins… that pretty much covers it, huh?)

            We pray because often something within us feels the need to say “thanks”, to someone or something, for the beauty that surrounds us, or for something we deem favorable or pleasant. We pray because we often feel ‘helpless and inadequate. We pray because we are fearful.

In each case, the prayer is an attempt to connect us with that “someone”… that “other”. 

● The first parable Jesus tells in Samaria is meant to bring people out of the periphery and back into our field of vision. This parable is designed to bring God from out of the cloudy and mysterious margins and firmly locate him in the center of life where he belongs. 

● It seems that sometimes Jesus uses the parables to offer ridiculous contrasts which are meant to expose all of our faulty notions about God which inevitably shape our view and approach of him.

Jesus knows that sometimes we pray because of our view of God and sometimes we stop praying because of our view of God. 

Samaria, Jesus suggests, provides the context for prayer; it’s where we “get our material” for prayer.

The place where we deal with “God” and “glory”. The place where we are daily confronted with need; the place where we struggle with sin and its effect on us and our relationships; the place where we long to believe that there is a God and that he is involved and that life is not simply chaotic or random. 

If we’re honest, prayer is often a means of ensuring that we don’t lose control.

            Prayer helps us define what matters most to us, doesn’t it? Listen to people verbalize their requests; read the prayer needs people submit: we pray when we are losing our health, when we are losing our job, when we are losing our kids, when we are losing our marriage, when we are losing our mind…. when we are losing control! 

● There are (2) particular types of people I enjoy being with in prayer: 1) children, 2) those in crisis.

            children--- are so free; shameless; nothing is ‘off-limits’ or ‘out-of-bounds’. They were told by people that they trusted that God was listening and they were just naïve enough to believe it.

            crisis--- their prayers are purged of any pious language or self-sufficient posturing; they are vulnerable, raw and unedited. I never envision God saying, “Hey, you lose that attitude, then you come back and talk to
me!" 

● This is the only time in the gospels that the disciples actually ask to be taught. It seems an interesting request. Not, “Help me get these commandments down” or “Could you show us that water-into-wine thing again?”

            In the time spent with Jesus, they concluded that it was this relationship with Father-God which centered him; which  motivated/compelled him; which made him so aware of and alert to everything and everyone around him. 

● But, the prayer he teaches them is so brief and so concise, that he’s done while many of them are still scrambling for their pencils or PDA.

            A mere (38) words which take less than (30) seconds to recite casually. Which is actually good because it seems that we often want prayer to better compliment our modern forms of communication: we would like to “tweet” God (keep our prayers at 140 characters or less) or send him a text (complete with the semi-colon and closed parenthesis wink!) 

● No one listening to the story would have imagined a neighbor that would be so rude. The laws of hospitality in the Middle East were such that if a traveler happened by with need of food or shelter you were obligated to provide it. So, the neighbor at the door knows that the neighbor in bed understands his situation.

Historians tell us that the sleeping arrangements in many of the first century homes involved the family all sleeping side by side on the floor. If the father had to get up, it would have disturbed the sleeping children. 

● So, Luke’s recording of Jesus’ parable just confirms my suspicions… God is like the crotchety-neighbor who’s too lazy to get up, wipe the sleep out of his eyes and help? God wishes we would just “go away” and let him rest?

And, we are just the pesky, needy neighbor who’s always asking to borrow stuff? We’re just the neighbor who proves to be a nuisance? 

● So, we should utilize prayer as a means of “wearing God down”; we should attempt to “catch him while he’s still a little groggy” [the clear emphasis of the story is that the best time to pray is when God is asleep---, but you’re going to have to work out the ‘time-zone’ issues].

Remember, God will give you anything you want “if you’ll just go away?!” 

Prayer is never a “passive” acceptance of the way things are.

It’s an appeal (not a demand) for things to be different. Ultimately, for things to be more consistent with the way he dreams for them to be; it what it means to pray “in Jesus’ name”.

            Living in the Kingdom demands more than merely voicing our disapproval at the absence of justice or simply appealing for God to “make it all better”. It compels us to not only “pray” for the Kingdom to come, but also challenges us to “be” the Kingdom; to “establish it” at every opportunity and in every relationship. 

But we usually we pray just long enough to get resentful and bitter.

            It’s hard enough to work through the disappointment and convince ourselves to keep asking because our prayers have seemingly proven so ineffective.          

● I’ve heard people say that God answers prayer in (3) ways: “yes”, “no” and “wait”. I would like to include a 4^th… “You’ve got to be kidding?”

            Prayer is not always about, “getting to yes”. 

Persistence in prayer is not from a lack of faith in God; in fact, it’s the deepest expression of faith in God.

Persistent adversity simply evokes persistent prayer. It just reminds us of all that’s still wrong about us and our world.

Prayer is a means of patiently navigating through all the present challenges in anticipation of the “not yet”.  

What we pray for repeatedly will reveal the condition of our heart and cause us to either alter our request or strengthen our resolve.

            I find that there are certain prayers that I abandon with little struggle (i.e. we’re a little disappointed, but ‘no big deal’). There are circumstances that force us to ‘abort’ the prayer process because the circumstance has obviously not been altered by our prayer.         

But, there are things for which we pray that will require that we never stop “knocking”: it’s our prayers for God to eliminate injustice, or to show mercy, or to capture the hearts of our loved ones who have yet to embrace Jesus…. those are the prayers that we dare not abandon because they resonate with God’s heart. 

In the end, when all of our prayers have been offered from the most sincere heart and posture, and when the answers have not proven to be in keeping with what we had hoped, we come to faith in its purest form… trust.

[Philippians 4:6-7] What you get is the ‘peace of God’, not necessarily understanding. It’s the quieted-center we experience as a result of not having to get our own way.

Having persistently made its appeal and even contested the results, it rests in the goodness of Father God; it’s the atmosphere necessary to pray, “nevertheless, not my will…” It’s the rest that comes once we stop resisting. 

 “Ask, seek, knock”…

            I keep knocking, but no one seems to be home. Or, maybe he’s hiding behind the door because he knows it’s me?!

● In the parable Jesus offers, we are challenged to ask, seek and knock… then we are to assume a posture of reception.

It’s assuming that all of my prayers are offered from a limited point of view and that God, as a Father, can be trusted to do “good” for us. 

“…if you, then, who are evil…”  

“…give the Holy Spirit to those who ask…”

            Holy Spirit? I didn’t ask for that! Jesus is giving us what we needed most… himself, personally and perpetually; listening, feeling, responding--- always giving us more than we ask for. 

● It becomes apparent that the focal point is persistence: that prayer is not just the occasional petition tossed out to an unsuspecting God, but an ongoing struggle amidst all of the ways that we are still broken; prayers for peace, for justice, for reconciliation. Asking, seeking and knocking will be our posture until “shalom” is realized here on the earth as it is in heaven. 

Romans 8 says that “the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We don’t know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us…”

It’s why God’s answer is to give us the Holy Spirit; the one who partners with us in prayer. Who “groans” at the point of our pain--- at the place of the world’s pain. 

Why is it so hard for us to come to God this way? Why do we make it so complicated?

            One of the hardest things in the life of faith is dismantling all of the false conceptions about God and allowing him just to be God; to be the Father that Jesus trusted with his very life (‘into your hands I commend my spirit’).  

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