“Give us this day our daily bread.” Jesus, in the Lord’s Prayer, Luke 11:1-13.
“Is prayer your steering wheel or your spare tyre?” Corrie Ten Boom.
Today’s Gospel reading begins with Jesus at prayer and something about this makes one of the disciples ask him to teach them how to pray. They have presumably seen him pray many times and begun to understand how central prayer is to Jesus, who then teaches them what is now known as the Lord’s Prayer. He tells them to call God by the familiar name of Abba, Father, to honour his name and to pray for his will to shape our lives and world. Jesus also tells them to ask for daily needs to be met, the forgiveness of sins and the avoidance of temptation as well as protection from danger. Two stories then follow: first, that of the persistent friend and then about asking. These say much about prayer itself.
In the first parable, a friend goes to his neighbour at midnight and asks him for three loaves of bread as a guest has arrived and he has nothing to give him. It may seem that, at such a late hour, it’s a cheek to wake up a neighbour and that it’s no surprise when the neighbour angrily tells him not to bother him. However, in those days, hospitality was fundamental and a neighbour would be expected to help supply what was needed no matter when that happened – it’s not the neighbour asking who is behaving badly but the one who’s refusing to help him and ignoring what was seen as a social obligation. Eventually, when the neighbour who needs bread refuses to give up, his insistence pays off and what’s needed is given in order to stop the nuisance. Perseverance is rewarded!
The second story about prayer suggests that, just as a caring parent will give their children what they need, so God will give even more to those who come to him. Jesus invites his followers to ask, seek and knock – just like that persistent neighbour – and to bring their requests and hopes to God in prayer. Just as the neighbour is implored for bread, which is eventually supplied, so Jesus tells his followers to bring these practical needs to God too, in the hope that they will also be answered.
So, Jesus encourages his followers to be persistent in prayer and develop a personal trust in God akin to that of a good parent/child relationship. He suggests that prayer will be answered, but as those who pray often discover, this will not always be in the time or way expected and sometimes prayer will not be fulfilled, for reasons which may only become clear much later on. As Randy Smith puts it: “If the….blessings we desire were always and immediately given at our request, God would become nothing more than a slot machine….and our prayers would become meaningless tokens mechanically fed into an apparatus….with which we have no relationship.” Part of being a good parent is saying no to protect or enable learning and perseverance – might it be that difficulties with prayer sometimes develop because it is unoffered rather than unanswered?
With my prayers; pob bendith,
Christine, Priest Guardian.