As you heard our gospel lesson you may have noticed that it has three distinct parts – a ready made outline for a three point sermon; a preacher's dream; especially for a preacher just back from vacation!  In part one Jesus teaches his disciples The Lord's Prayer.  In part two he tells an intriguing parable.  And in part three Jesus speaks to us about our prayer life.  Three distinct parts with one theme.  It's all about prayer. 

            Jesus prayed.  Fervently, earnestly, regularly.

            Many of us encounter people here and there with a condescending attitude toward Christianity and church.  They try not to use the word “crutch” but that’s what they have in mind.  “I think it’s so nice that religion plays a role in your life.”  Or “It is so great that prayer gives you comfort.”  That outlook is so far from what prayer is about, what God is about, what Christianity is about.  Prayer is not like taking Tylenol.  Prayer is a vision of the world, a view of the kingdom, participation in God.

            Jesus prayed.  His disciples saw him praying.  Only once in all four gospels do the disciples actually ask Jesus to teach them.  It is right here in these verses, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.”  John the Baptist apparently had taught his disciples their own unique prayer; a prayer to repeat mornings and evenings.  Jesus' disciples wanted a prayer, too.

            In part one of today's lesson, Jesus graciously gifts his disciples with what we call The Lord's Prayer.   The words Jesus gives are faithful words that yearn for and claim God's kingdom.  But they aren’t magic.

            Sometimes we wish the words to the Lord’s Prayer were magic.  A friend of ours tells a story about her younger sister.  They grew up as preacher’s kids during the 1970’s.  One day her sister had some friends over to the parsonage for a sleepover.  As the evening went on they got bored.  It was the 1970’s.  Some of the girls decided to go streaking.  They talked the younger sister into it.  So they did what streakers do.  They snuck outside and ran around the church a couple of times.  Then they went back to the parsonage, only to be met by the pastor and his wife!   They were beside themselves in the face of such revealing behavior.  They made the girls go inside.  Then the pastor did the only thing he could think to do.  He made them stand together in a circle, hold hands, and recite the Lord’s Prayer!  At that moment those girls must have wished those words were magic!

            Jesus grounded his life in God and he invites us to do the same.  Prayer is both easy and difficult.  It is easy because it is a conversation.  It is difficult because prayer requires that we pay attention to our words and thoughts. Jesus grounds us in God by saying “When you pray, say, ‘Father, hallowed be your name.’”  The parental image of God wouldn't have surprised the disciples, but the invitation to address God in such a personal way surely would have.  Faithful Jews hesitated to speak the divine name.  God as loving Father, God as loving Mother represents such startling intimacy.

            When our children are young we teach them to put their small hands together and to close their eyes to quiet their active bodies, so they can focus their minds.  Their hearts are already open.  Adults face an additional challenge, not only to center our minds and bodies before God; but to open our hearts.  How guarded we are! How carefully we shield our hearts.  Given life’s wounds, it is no wonder, and yet God extends an invitation to open our wounded and hesitating hearts to the One who loves us beyond all loving.

            The Lord's Prayer is all about the kingdom of God.  We pray for the kingdom among us now, even as we long for its full realization in the future.  By praying The Lord's Prayer we say we are ready to receive God's kingdom.  We say we are ready to pay attention to the way God is already here among us.  The heart of the Lord’s Prayer is “your kingdom come” because it is the heart of Jesus' life and ministry. 

            The kingdom of God is filled with hope.  Not because of what we can do, but because of what God has already done for us and for the world in Jesus.  Wars and the almost unending news of human despair and violence in our world can overwhelm our sense of hope.  But even the weight of such real bad news has no ultimate power over the hope of God's kingdom.  The Lord's Prayer focuses our longing for God’s justice and mercy, love and truth.  God gives us glimpses and signs of the kingdom.

            Our vacation out west brought to mind memories from when I was newly ordained.  I served as an associate pastor at a large suburban church in San Diego, California.  I know, someone has to minister in the land of sunshine!  During my first year the session of the Point Loma Community Presbyterian Church provided me a glimpse of the kingdom.  At that time I was one of four ministers.  The clergy staff was inundated with non-member wedding requests.  That’s the down side of living near the San DiegoYacht Club!  Those requests were doled out, almost like cards, equally, among us.  I met with one of the young couples.  I thought I was clear about my role.  But as we parted at the door they asked me when they would meet the minister!  So I had to say, again, that I was the minister!  At which point their tanned faces suddenly went pale and they said I most certainly would not be the minister for their wedding.

            I talked with my colleagues and the session about amending the wedding policy to something like, for non-member weddings, the minister you got was the minister you got.  Which was none too soon; that night our clerk of session had in hand a long letter of complaint from the bride's father.  The beauty of it all was that the letter had been addressed to "Dear Gentlemen of the Session!"  Session approved our suggested changes and instructed the clerk to write a polite but firm letter back to the father of the bride.  I experienced that support as a glimpse of the kingdom of God, where all ministers are created equal, and where the churches they serve stand with them.  And by the way, the couple decided to seek another minister, from another church…

            Still speaking about the kingdom of God, and moving closer to home, I am aware that for some of you, finding this church has been an experience of glimpsing the kingdom.  Not because this church is perfect, but because this church is a place of welcome for gay and lesbian people.  I remember conversations a few years ago with some church members who voiced concerns about extending such an overt welcome.  Who might come?  Someone weird?  Someone flamboyant? 

            Guess who came?  People who follow Jesus came.  And it just so happens, you are as traditional, as orderly and Presbyterian, as any who were here before!  For some of you, that expression of welcome, that invitation to return to church, has been an answer to prayer, profoundly healing and spiritually life giving, a glimpse of the kingdom of God for you, of how the church can nurture and include, instead of judging or rejecting.

            Now that we are in a transitional time, you may be wondering if that kind of unconditional welcome is at risk.  I think the answer to that question is clear.  No.  Not at all.  In these last ten years, Broad Street has become open about something that was already present, but maybe not articulated before, which is that here, individuals are known and accepted for who they are.  This is a place where Jesus is, where people are able to know and be known, to care for each other deeply, across boundaries and prior histories.  This is a place where God’s name is hallowed and all who are created in the image of God are welcome.  God gives us glimpses of the kingdom.  The presence of all our new members and their families in this congregation is a sign of God’s Spirit among us.

            And now we move to part two and we’re still talking about prayer.  Jesus tells a parable.  "Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight and you say to him, "Friend, lend me three loaves of bread.  A friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him."  (Luke 11: 5-6)

            The Parable of the Friend at Midnight is a host’s nightmare.  Unexpected guests come in the middle of the night and you are out of bread.  Social etiquette expects you to be hospitable. You knock on your friend’s door to ask for bread.  You get a strong reaction.  "Don't bother me.  I've pulled the deadbolt, the kids are asleep.  I can't get up and give you anything."  Then Jesus says, "I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, at least because of his persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs. 

            The parable's first big question arises.  Whose persistence is Jesus talking about?  Is it the persistence of the one who is knocking?  Or the persistence of the one who is struggling to wake up?  Is Jesus talking about our persistence as knockers in prayer?  Or God's persistence in meeting our needs?

            Before we can solve that one, the parable’s second big question arises.  Biblical scholars get excited about this, because the Greek translation of the word we read as “persistence” is actually best translated “shamelessness,” which makes understanding the parable harder.  No wonder many translators have stuck with “persistence.” 

            Whose shamelessness might Jesus be talking about?  The knocker’s shamelessness?  Or the shamelessness of the sleeper asked to be a good neighbor?  In middle eastern culture, the sleeper's shamelessness is the most compelling. Friendship alone might not get you up in the middle of the night, but the threat of public shame, the loss of honor, surely would, especially given the social standards known today as the shame and honor code.  Would a neighbor turn away a friend in the middle of the night and allow him to be shamed because he couldn’t provide hospitality for a guest?  Of course not!

            Jesus teaches us to knock on God's door in prayer.  A common reading of our parable often leads to the idea that if we really want something from God, then we should want it badly enough to keep asking.  Not in order to wake God up but for us to show what we really desire.  In this understanding, persistence doesn’t build desperation, but rather focus and clarity.  The unimportant drops away, and what is left is our heart's desire. Part of our prayer even becomes the longing for God to shape our heart's desires.

            But our persistence in prayer only makes sense because of the character of God.  The parable asks us to compare our expectations of our neighbor with our assumptions about God.  We can absolutely, positively count on our neighbor to lend us the bread because of the rigidity and shame attached to the honor code.  God is even more reliable than a trusted neighbor.  We can pray persistently, because God persists, shamelessly, in meeting our needs.  If God is the persistent, shameless one, then Jesus is saying, "I tell you, even though the sleeper will not get up and give the knocker anything because he is his friend, at least because of the sleeper's shamelessness he will get up and give him whatever he needs."  God is willing to overcome every obstacle to seek and find us.

            On to part three, and it's still all about prayer.  "Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you." We pray with confidence because God is ready to answer.  Jesus has total confidence in the goodness and generosity of God, and invites us to have the same confidence, not to get what we want, but to become who we should be.  Sometimes, as we are on the road to maturity in prayer, we use prayer as a way of panhandling God, for money or things or relationships. When our prayers are not answered as we believe they should be, then we have an opportunity and an obligation to reexamine our prayer.  Sometimes we turn to God for help when our foundations are shaking only to learn that it is God who is shaking them.            

In part three Jesus asks us to be persistent receivers of the kingdom.  The translation in The Message puts it this way:

            Don’t bargain with God.  Be direct.  Ask for what you need.  This is not a cat-and-mouse, hide and seek game we’re in.  If your little boy asks for a serving of fish, do you scare him with a live snake on his plate?  If your little girl asks for an egg, do you trick her with a spider? (Luke 11: 9-12)

            Of course not!  Even mediocre parents do not give children cruel substitutes in the face of their need.  How much more can we count on God to provide for us!

            It is all about prayer.  We each have an inner life and an outer life.  We spend a lot of time in the outer life, and yet can hesitate to go inside. God offers us prayer, a sudden quietness, a way to listen to our inner selves, to nurture our spiritual lives.  The disciples ask for a lesson on prayer and Jesus teaches them about dependence on God.  In prayer we bring our need to God’s love in faith, to God's shameless and persistent love.  “Thy kingdom come.”  Amen.

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