SERMON FOR JULY 28, 2019, SEVENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST TEXTS: GENESIS 18:20-32; LUKE 11:1-13

The confirmation program at St. Martin’s Lutheran Church in my hometown ran three years, 7th-9th grade. Our first teacher was a kindly man, blessed with a gentle spirit and a generous nature, neither of which served him well in maintaining order. It was a large class. We met at 6:00 PM on Thursdays, which meant most of us hadn’t had time for dinner. Some students, who may not have been bad kids, nonetheless acted very badly. Perhaps Mr. Dunn just had rheumy eyes, but he often looked on the verge of tears. That made me just as anxious as the obnoxious adolescent behavior that prompted it. At the end of every class Mr. Dunn asked someone to close with prayer. A handful of us regularly volunteered, because we knew it would be a mercy to everyone involved to bring this gathering to an end. I went to church regularly with my parents. I learned the cadences of prayer and the usual topics, and I was, in this case, blessedly verbal. I gladly took my turn to pray us to freedom. One evening Mr. Dunn took my hand gratefully, looked at me with his watery eyes, and said, “Jane, you have a true gift for prayer.”

I didn’t really know then what that meant; to be honest, I’m not that clear about it now either. Praying is a defining activity for any person of faith, no matter what deity you worship. It is the most basic connection one has to God. There are a variety of forms of this communication, explosions of joyous thanksgiving, laments, even a cry of despair, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” There are straightforward petitions of request like our every-Sunday prayers of intercession and the singing of hymns, the practice of contemplative prayer, which occurs in stillness and silence, and rhythmic repetitions of the rosary or the Jesus prayer.

Luke’s Gospel offers a shorter version of the familiar Lord’s Prayer. Jesus gives his disciples a broad outline of the subject matter to be covered. After asking that we act in a way to keep God’s name holy and live the kingdom life on earth, Jesus’ prayer covers sustenance (daily bread), relationship (forgiveness), and safety (bringing us through the time of trial). These are the basics of life, and Jesus limits himself pretty much to the essentials. He leaves it to us to elaborate the specifics, the needs and longings that drive our own lives: restored health, fulfilling work, relief from anger or anxiety or loneliness, peace in our family, love that lasts. Whatever it may be, Jesus urges us to be forthright and insistent, even relentless. The Greek for the word “persistence” in the text can also be translated “shamelessness”: “So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.” And be confident. In the ancient world the requirements of hospitality were inviolable. For that reason, you could count on the fact that, even after midnight, if you requested your neighbor to show you the kindness of giving you bread so that you could care for your unexpected company, he was going to do right by you. Even if he balked at first. I take Jesus’ point to be that if flawed human beings can deliver in such a situation, you can bet the store on God’s graciousness every time.

When one of his disciples asks Jesus how to pray, he is not, I think, looking for technical instruction but for insight. Jesus’ response reveals much about the One to whom he prays. Jesus addresses God as his Father, not his judge. All of us are invited to stand with him in this intimate relationship, one marked by commitment to our welfare, lovingkindness, protection and common purpose — the sharing of God’s reign of mercy and justice.

Today’s first lesson offers us another important insight about the One to whom Jesus prays, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Abraham and God are in the early stages of their relationship. The covenant between them is the beginning of God’s chosen people. All Abraham has to go on so far are some extraordinary promises — that his aged wife Sarah will bear him a son, that his descendants will be as numerous as the stars in the heavens and that through him ultimately all the nations of the world will be blessed. But of this he is certain: that the One whose call he has answered, whose covenant sign he bears upon his flesh, is righteous and just. God has included Abraham in his plans, and Abraham actively takes up his part. “Then the Lord said, “How great is the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah and how very grave their sin!” Here is what the prophet Ezekiel has to say about Sodom’s transgression: "Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy” (Ezekiel 16:49). The indictment is deserved, yet Abraham calls God’s attention to the possible minority report. What if not everybody in Sodom is guilty? Even if there be just a handful of righteous people, will God allow them to perish as collateral damage? “Far be it from you to do such a thing,” he tells God, “to slay the righteous with the wicked . . . Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?” And the Lord said, “If I find at Sodom fifty righteous in the city, I will forgive the whole place for their sake.” Abraham negotiates the figure down to a mere ten. It seems it does not take many righteous people to leaven a sinful loaf, which is comforting. Yet Sodom apparently came up short; the city is destroyed. Abraham’s plea for mercy does not prevail.

How do we make sense of this? We pray for things great and small in good faith. We pray with hope and often out of desperation. We pray not just for ourselves but for people we love and people we don’t even know. We beseech God for things that would mend lives and bring wholeness to the world. We ask, we search, we knock. And still the door does not open.

In the night in which he was betrayed our Lord’s fervent prayer in the garden was heard but not granted: “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me . . . .” Luke’s account continues: “Then an angel from heaven appeared to him and gave him strength. In his anguish he prayed most earnestly, and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down on the ground. When he got up from prayer, he came to the disciples and found them sleeping because of grief, and he said to them, “Why are you sleeping? Get up and pray that you may not come into the time of trial” (Luke 22:39-46). Yet our Lord did exactly that, and we who follow him will find ourselves in that same place at some point, in the time of trial, beseeching our Father that we might be spared a dreaded cup of suffering, that a brutal blow not fall upon someone dear to us, that the agents of cruelty here and abroad experience a change of heart and stay their hand. We continually seek, but we do not always find relief. Listen again to Jesus’ concluding words in today’s Gospel: “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” In his Small Catechism Martin Luther writes: “I believe that by my own understanding or strength I cannot believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to him, but instead the Holy Spirit has called me through the gospel, enlightened me with his gifts, made me holy and kept me in the true faith . . . . “ At the heart of every prayer is our need for the Spirit’s presence, the Comforter who will not surrender us to despair, who will hold us steadfast in the time of trial. The Spirit reminds us that in every circumstance nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Whenever we knock, that door opens. And so we pray. Amen.