Jesus’ disciples came to him and said, “Lord, teach us to pray.” They had followed him. They had watched him. They had seen how the Pharisees and all the others tried to trap him. They knew his power came from those moments when he would leave them, go off by himself, kneel in the dust on his knees and list his head toward heaven.
We all know Jesus’ answer. He gave them the Lord’s Prayer. I digress with a funny story. A man was speeding one day and a cop stopped him. Blue lights and all. Cop got out, hitched up his pants and came to the man in the driver’s seat. “Do you know how fast you were going? Fifteen miles over the speed limit.” “Officer,” the man said, “Yes I was. But I am a preacher and I am late for church. That’s why I was going so fast.” “You are a preacher. People say that all the time just to get off. But if you really are a preacher let me give you a test.” The man nodded. “If you are a preacher recite the Lord’s Prayer.” And the man said, “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want…” The Cop thought just a minute and said, “You’re right, preacher Go on your way.”
Teach Us to Pray
But we all know the difference from the 23rd Psalm and the Lord’s Prayer. Jesus answered their request; “Lord, teach us to pray.” He gave them the Prayer we still know. “Our Father which art in heaven…” But he wasn’t finished. He underlined the prayer words with a story. A parable.
The custom was if you had a guest to arrive at your house one evening and asked for food—you’d set him down at your table, open the pantry and there was no food. “I told her to go to the Grocery store!” He had nothing to offer his guest. So he told the man to wait. It was getting dark—real dark. So he went down the street to a friend’s door. Not a lamp burning in the house. “Maybe he can help me.” Everything was quiet. “They must be asleep”. He knocked on the door anyway. Silence. So he knocked again and from inside the house he heard his neighbor say:’ Who is it?” And the man said I need some food. I have a guest and I have no food. Could you spare me, say 3 loaves.” From the other side of the door the neighbor said, “Are you kidding Everyone is asleep and I don’t want to wake them up. Sorry.”
You see in that tiny house inside the door the animals slept. A goat. Two sheep fast asleep. They kept them in the house at night to keep them safe from wild animals. And beside them were four kids side by side. And then on a raised pallet the man and his wife slept. If he answered the door he had to be careful not to wake his wife. He would also have to crawl over his sleeping children and the animals. Everybody would wake up. “I can’t do this,” he said.
But the man outside kept knocking, “Help me! Help me!” And I can’t tell you the man’s response because we are in church. I delete the expletive that we find in the Bible. But to stop the knocking and the noise the owner got up crawled over everybody. Found three loaves pushed them through the cracked door and said goodbye to the man.”
Keep on Knockin'
And Jesus told his disciples, “You see because of the man’s repeated request. Kept knocking on the door he finally got the food he needed. So Jesus wrapped up the story by saying: “If you are persistence in prayer…and don’t give up…you’ll get what you need.”
That story used to bother me. Was Jesus saying: Don’t give up and finally God will give you what you asked just to make you shut up.” My daughter used to come up while I was watching the ball game or reading the newspaper. “Daddy, I need you to…” I kept reading the newspaper. But my daughter just pulled my sleeve and said, “Daddy.” Then she took my face in her hands and turned my head toward her and said, “Look at me…look at me.”” I finally got the point. She was persistent and she got through to me.
When Luke wrote out this story years later he looked around at the early church having real problems. The central problem then was apostasy. Falling away. All those who started out to follow and believed but then the hard times came and they just fell away. Quit going. Throwing in the towel.
What does persistence have to do with prayer? Everything. What does persistence have to do with faith—everything. And when we read “they all forsook him and fled” it was one of the saddest words in the Bible. Remember Jesus, in frustration asked that little handful, “Will you also go away.”
For you see prayer is not just words. Real prayer is also what we do. That’s what we call putting legs on our prayers. Somebody said, “Pray without ceasing. When necessary—use words.” Which means, I think, prayer is a whole lot more than what we say.
I think this is the heart of the parable. Action.A missionary taught the natives a chorus. “Go on…Go on…Go on…Go on. That’s prayer too. What we do.
There were good reasons why many in the early church fell away. Sometimes they just got tired of the squabbling. Sometimes they were just tired of being tired. Sometimes they were scared to death of Rome. If they did not bow down before that huge Caesar’s stature that he had erected to himself and forced all his subject to say: "Caesar is Lord.” But Christians refused and said: “Jesus is Lord. If Rome heard about these traitors they could lose their jobs. Their children would go hungry. They could be hounded out of town. Many of these Christians would be crucified. And were. No wonder some of them fell away. It was just a hard, hard time.
It's About the Boat
We’re all in this same boat. To keep on keeping on is hard business. We all know that. We wonder about Ukraine and all that suffering. We wonder about this cursed virus that has killed over a million Americans. And we are told that of those million that died there are about 9 loved ones left behind grieving…grieving. We keep gouging each other in this country. Democrats. Republicans. Lord, we hate all those others. Keeping on is not easy. We lose health. We battle cancer. Some of our kids are on drugs. Or life has not turned out the way we thought it would. We lose heart. All of us facing one thing or another. I picked up the Greenville News this week and on the front page was a picture of the sweetest little three-year old girl smiling. Big bow in her hair. Pretty flowery dress on. Victoria Rose Smith. Dead Beaten to death by foster parents. Dead. It just kills me.
And so Luke’s story comes down to us. After 2,000 years. Why do we still have it? Because looking back at all the heartbreak and agony through the years…plagues, wars, unfairness and injustice—I turn to this crazy, crazy story. Keep knocking. Don’t give up.
Someone asked Mother Teresa one day, “Why do you do what you do? You pick up one child and it’s already dead. You pick up another and then another and another. And out there in the streets are hundreds more. “Why do you do what you do?” And she looked at him with piercing eyes and said, “Young man, I do what I can. Where I am. With what I have. If that’s not prayer I don’t know what it is.
Finishing my coffee yesterday morning there came on the news which showed the two remaining survivors of the holocaust. One man was 99 years years old. The other man, a doctor was 101. And they are smiling and hugging one another and laughing. And the commentator said, “The Doctor—101 years old—is still practicing.” “Still practicing?” After all the hell which we cannot even imagine they went through and they are smiling and hugging and practicing medicine.
Hang in There
This is a hard sermon and a hard parable. But I keep coming back to this very strange parable. Keep knocking on the door. Hang in there. Some of us are barely hanging only by our fingernails. Hang in there. Worried about the church or our flickering faith. Hang in there. Worrying about gas or retirement or that bad report or that hurting back. Hang in there. Worried just about everything. Hang in there.
Langston Hughes was a black poet. And he lived in a hard age for blacks and many others. So he wrote these words in 1922. His poem is called: “Mother to Son.”
“Well, son, I’ll tell you:
Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.
It’s had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the
floor—
Bare.
But all the time
I’se been a-climbin’ on,
And reachin’ landin’s,
And turnin’ corners,
And sometimes goin’ in the dark
Where there ain’t been no light.
So boy, don’t you turn back.
Don’t you set down on the steps
‘Cause you finds it’s kinder hard.
Don’t you fall now—
For I’se still goin’, honey,
I’se still climbin’,
And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.”
“And let us not grow weary in well-doing: for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart.”
Hang in there.
(This sermon was preached at the First Baptist Church, Pendleton, South Carolina, May, 2022)
--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com
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