A Midnight Friend

by Dave Wilkinson

Luke 11:1-13

October 13, 2002

I have a confession this morning that will certainly shock you.

I can be an impatient person. I bet none of you suspected that about me.

I stand in the express checkout at the supermarket and I count how many items the people in front of me have in their baskets. I feel great outrage at truckers who drive up the 23 in the left lane at 52 miles per hour just so they can pass another truck that is only doing 50.

Now there is no reason why my impatience should have any impact on you. Just make sure you are under the limit when you get into the quick check and at least close to the limit on the 23 and we'll get along.

It’s not just me. I recently read about a 51 year old woman in Lowell, Massachusetts who got into the quick-check with 13 items in her basket. When the other customers saw this, they proceeded top beat her and kick her.

I won’t do that. In fact, the only reason I am confessing this is because impatience also has an impact on my prayer life. I find it hard to be still -- even when being still would be the best possible thing I could do for myself and for those about me. My prayers tend to be offered on the run.

Now Martin Luther once said that prayers should be "brief, intense and frequent." I like that. It fit’s my style.

The problem is that while "brief, intense and frequent" may have been great for Luther, it’s not enough for my walk with God. I need some at least some contemplation.

Nothing gives me more joy, more peace, more of a sense of inner wholeness than a concentrated and quiet time alone with my Lord. I’ve done it enough and recently enough to know what it does for me. But I don't do it easily. Very strange.

Many of the sermons that I have ever heard on prayer -- and maybe some you have head from me -- have focused either on the importance of prayer or on that fact that it is our Christian duty to pray. Now if I’ve said that, I don’t take it back. I believe that this is true.

But duty can only take us so far. We can pray our of a sense of feeling duty bound only for so long.

John White in his book The Fight shares an experience that struck close to home for me. I thought I would share it and see if it speaks to you in the same way. He is talking about his efforts to come to a meaningful prayer life.

"Years ago" he writes, "I had attempted to pray. I was dissatisfied with the quality of my Christian life and I read some (now forgotten) exhortation on prayer. I set my alarm for 6 o'clock the next morning, determined to begin the day with two hours of prayer. It was winter and in England houses are not only dark, but miserably cold early in the morning. My eyes were sore, my nose was runny. I felt dirty, even though I had washed and shaved. The silent house seemed strangely unfriendly. Determinedly though I prayed. I prayed for my immediate family, for distant cousins, for uncles, aunts, neighbors, and friends. When I finished, I looked at my watch to find out that I had only covered five minutes. Somehow I had to carry on for another hour and fifty five minutes. Time just seemed to stretch before me like a cold eternity. Well, I managed to keep on praying for another twenty five minutes by which time I was exhausted and everything I could think of to pray about I had already prayed about. I was licked, and I knew it. I kept going for another two days, but on the third day I acknowledged defeat and crawled miserably back into bed fifteen minutes after I got up. It was for saints and martyrs but apparently not for me. I just wasn't made of the kind of stuff prayers are made of. But to tell you the truth, I really felt guilty and depressed and cheated."

Well maybe John White and I are alone in this. Maybe you’re sitting there thinking "what’s your problem?" Maybe none of you has any trouble with prayer. But you need to hear this word from God anyway because it will help you pray more effectively for me.

As our text opens Jesus is praying and one of his disciples walks up and asks to be taught how to pray. He feels a need for effective prayer and sees that Jesus can teach him how. For Jesus is a person of prayer. He teaches us and shows us that prayer is as essential to the spirit as breath is to the body.

A first-grader named Cheri was having trouble adjusting to school. Her counselor, Mrs. Edwards, tells how she called Cheri into her office fora little chat -- confident that her years as a guidance counselor had more than prepared her to handle the situation. "Cheri," she said, "I want to be your friend. I will never tell your mommy or your daddy or your teacher anything we talk about if you don't want me to. I want you to know that you can always trust me." With tearful eyes, Cheri looked up and replied, "Gee, Mrs. Edwards, you're just like my dog."

Well God is not just like our dog. He has a will for us, and we need to submit to that will. That is one of the themes of the Lord's Prayer.

But immediately after teaching how to pray through the Lord's Prayer, Jesus also teaches about prayer. He says that we are to pray in great confidence that God's will for us is good. He tells a parable about a man who receives unexpected company and goes next door to a friend to borrow some bread. At first the friend refuses but finally gives-in because the needy man just won't leave him alone.

In a Middle Eastern village, hospitality is very important. When a guest arrives the whole village is involved in entertaining. For the village to fail to do this would be a terrible breach of hospitality. And for the guest to refuse the hospitality would be an even greater offense. Whether the visitor is hungry or not, he is offered food and must eat.

It is like when I was serving as a pastor up in Oroville. The congregation sponsored a Vietnamese refugee family. And as the pastor, I was in the position of a visitor to a Middle Eastern village. I was treated as an honored guest -- which included giving me food. After I was seated in the best chair, the ten year old daughter would solemnly offer me a glass of warm milk.

Now I hate warm milk. But I smiled, said thank you, and drank it down. Later, we got some great egg rolls so it evened out.

But egg rolls or not, the point was not to hurt the relationship. It’s the same in the parable. The difference is that the issue isn’t milk but bread. That makes sense.

For in the first century Middle East, you can't eat without bread because bread is what you eat with. There are no plates, no knives, no forks, no spoons. You tear off a piece of bread, dip it into the common dish and then the whole thing goes into your mouth. You eat your spoon at every bite and then you start off with a fresh spoon. And so, without bread, the meal cannot be served at all.

So when Jesus describes the unwillingness of the sleeping neighbor, to provide bread, the disciples are horrified. For the man to say "don't bother me" is a violation of the social code and an insult to the entire village. It would be like your neighbor coming to you in the middle of the night because his house is on fire and he wants to use the phone. Would you tell him: "I'm sorry, I can't disturb the kids. Please go back to your burning house." You just wouldn't act that way and neither would the sleeping neighbor.

You can paraphrase Jesus' question in verse 5: "can any of you imagine a friend?" because Jesus expects a negative reply. No, they can't imagine a neighbor, especially a neighbor who is a friend, behaving in such a rude way.

In other words, Jesus is not saying that God is somehow like a sleeping neighbor who has to be woken up and nagged and bullied. What He is saying is that if a human friend wouldn't act like the neighbor in the parable, that God certainly will not act in a grudging way.

Jesus then makes the contrast even more explicit. He tells a parable about friendship. But then, in verse 11, He shifts his whole emphasis being children. Jesus says that true prayer is not even based on the fact that we are friends with God but on the fact that we, through acceptance of His gift in Jesus, are now children of God. Our relationship with God goes deeper even than friendship.

We are commanded to approach God. In fact, Jesus tells us in Matthew six that God rewards us for our prayers -- "pray in secret and your Father who sees in secret will reward you."

It is a special thing to realize that God not only hears our prayers but that He welcomes our prayers so much that He even rewards us for the act of praying. This suggests how much God desires to spend one-on-one time with us. He has certainly given His all to make the relationship possible. And it also suggests that when I fail to pray, I am not only hurting myself but, in a sense, I am grieving God.

That's not meant to be a guilt-trip. But it is meant to take prayer out of the realm of duty and place it where it belongs -- in the realm of relationship.

Prayer, in its most basic form, is the normal relationship you are privileged to have with the crucified and risen Lord of the universe. You are privileged to walk with Him. You are privileged to talk with Him. You are privileged to have an ongoing conversation with Him that is healthy, relaxed, and honest.

And out of that relationship, Jesus tells us to ask, to knock, to seek, and promises that God will answer with the most perfect love.

Jesus tells us that we must never be afraid of the answer to our prayer. Provided we need a fish we can expect to receive a fish from the Father. There will be no hidden fangs, no disguised traps, no subtle catches -- just straightforward answers to prayer. If it's bread we need then we can anticipate bread. A loving God will never give us anything that will harm us. "If a son asks for bread, he will not be given a stone." Jesus says that the Father knows what we need and He will give us what is right.

Tony Campolo comments: "This point is especially real to me because of an incident when my own father did not accede to a desperate request. I was about eight years old when I went to a Saturday matinee at the movies and saw a cowboy film about Hopalong Cassidy. I was so impressed with that cowboy hero that I went home and told my father that when I grew up, I wanted to be a cowboy. I really meant it! I was intense! I was passionate about it!

"The good news is that my father didn’t give me what I wanted. Wouldn’t it have been a weird situation if, when I was seventeen and asked him about going to college, he had exclaimed, "College! What do you mean you want money for college? When you were eight you told me you wanted to be a cowboy. You said it with such passion, and you pled with such earnestness, that I made sure your dreams would come true. I spent the money I had saved for you on a thousand acres of land in Texas, along with a horse and a hundred head of cattle. It’s all waiting for you, because that’s what you pled for. That’s what you said you really wanted!"

Campolo concludes: "I’m glad to say that my father did not give me what I thought I wanted when I was eight years old, so that he might one day give me something I really needed. He didn’t want me to have what I thought I wanted, because he knew, eventually, it wouldn’t be what I wanted at all. And so it is with God."

We ought never be afraid to pray and ought never be afraid of the answer. Our Father loves us too much to harm us and is too wise to make a mistake.

God is your Father. He is interested in you. Don't ever forget that. As you come to Him, remember that although he already knows your needs, He is deeply touched by your willingness to expose yourself to Him in an intimate relationship.

As Pulitzer Prize winning author Frederick Beuchner writes: "The wise look at twentieth century man -- civilized, rational, and at great cost emancipated from the dark superstitions of the past -- and suggest that to petition some unseen power is a very childish procedure indeed.

"In a way," Beuchner continues, "childish is just the way to describe it. A child has not made up his mind about what is and what is not possible. He has no fixed preconceptions about what reality is; and if someone tells him that the mossy place under the lilac bush is a magic place, he may wait until no one is watching him, but then he will very probably crawl under the lilac bush to see for himself.

"A child also knows how to accept a gift. He does not worry about losing his dignity or becoming indebted if he accepts it. His conscience does not bother him because the gift is free and he has not earned it and therefore really has no right to it. He just takes it with joy. In fact, if it is something he wants very much, he may even ask for it.

"And lastly, a child knows how to trust. It is late at night and very dark and there is the sound of sirens as his father wakes him. He does not explain anything but just takes him by the hand and gets him up, and the child is scared out of his wits and has no idea of what's going on, but he takes his father's hand anyway and lets his father lead him wherever he chooses in the darkness. "

In honesty," Beuchner concludes, "you have to admit to a wise man that prayer is not for the wise, not for the prudent, not for the sophisticated. Instead it is for those who recognize that in face of their deepest needs, all their wisdom is quite helpless. It is for those who are willing to persist in doing something that is both childish and crucial."

That describes us -- or it should. So let us pray.

Father, thank you that Jesus taught us how to pray. Thank you also that He taught us to pray in confidence of Your constant love and attention. We thank you for the gift of the Holy Spirit who is moving in us to make us people who can responsibly handle our answers. Teach us to come to you as children because you have made us Your children. Help us all to be more consistent in spending concentrated, quiet time with You. Amen.