Harbor Church - Mid City

Investigating Jesus: On Praying like a Child

DT/UT/Mid-City Lk. 11: 5-13  Apr. 10 2011

 “God, I need help.”  “God, if you get me out of this one jam that I am in, then I’ll be more devoted to you.”  “God, my wife is sick, would you please heal her.”  “God, if you are real, give me a sign.”  All of these are prayers, some offered by Christians, some offered by non-Christians.  This sermon this morning isn’t just a sermon for Christians.  No, we all pray.  The question is how should we pray.  Well, in v1, the disciples asked Jesus how to pray and this was his answer.

 Now, before we get going here, I want to acknowledge my 3 preaching mentors:  Dick Kaufmann, CS Lewis, and Tim Keller.  All 3 shape every sermon I give, so it is redundant to footnote them every week, but Dick found this passage so helpful and he took me through it so many times that I have forgotten which thoughts are mine and which are his.  So, thanks Dick for this sermon.  Now, let’s get to it.

 Verse 2 says, “When you pray, say, “Father.”  Jesus says this is where you start.  Remember, he is speaking to his disciples, which means that he is laying out for Christians how Christians should pray, and he does so by saying that when you come to the God of the universe and you are a follower of Christ, then you must realize that the starting point is that you come as a child coming to Father.

 Not just Father, but daddy.  The Greek word used here is actually the same word that is translated Abba in Aramaic.  Abba is the equivalent of da-da.  Think about it.  Ab—ba, or da-da  These are the first sounds off of virtually every infants mouth b/c they are the easiest to make.  I proudly boast in the fact that all 3 of my kids said “Da Da” as their first word.  All it took was me in their room every morning with a bottle—if you want milk, say Da Da.  No.  Bribery wasn’t needed.  Their the easiest phonetic sounds to make and your like 50% of their life.  So Jesus begins with his disciples and says, “This is how intimate your prayer life can be.  He isn’t just God to you, he is Da-Da.  He is daddy.” 

 In order to realize how astounding this was to the disciples, you need to know a little something about the culture of their day.  For a first century Jew, it would be absolutely unheard of to refer to God as da-da or daddy.  In fact, throughout the Old Testament, the Jews had such a reverence for God that they wouldn’t even pronounce his formal name, Yahweh.  They just referred to it as, “The Name.”  It sorta reminds me of the Harry Potter Books when Herminy and Ron and others refused to say Voldemort out of their fear.  They would call him, “He who must not be named.” In a similar way, the Jews would refrain from using the most holy name of God, Yahweh, b/c he was so transcendent, or holy, or powerful, or fear-inspiring.

 And they weren’t alone.  The Romans did the same thing.  One commentator writes this, “Roman religion was an impersonal business-like arrangement which stressed the perfect performance of rituals and the perfect use of formulas in prayer.  If the worshipper did his part then the deity had to respond in the appropriate manner!  Romans had a magical view of the gods.  Prayer was a tool for coercing the powers of the universe.” ???

 So those who feared God, the Jews, and those who didn’t fear the God of the Bible, the Romans, had one thing in common:  neither prayed with this sort of bold intimacy that Jesus introduces.  Jesus breaks onto the scene and he says that when you pray it isn’t to some cold, calloused power of the universe that you either can’t name or that you are trying to coerce, it is to Daddy.  To Da-Da.  This was shocking.

 But as we drag this teaching into our world, it is also shocking for another group of you this morning. The notion of you coming to God as a Father is shocking and appalling for another reason:  it is because of your own earthly father.  Your father was such a chump and anytime you hear the word father you think of him. You’re father sexually abused you.  Your father abandoned you.  If you had gone to your father in the middle of the night, he would have beaten you.  You feel like your father would have done just would Jesus said father’s don’t do in v11-12, “If you asked for a fish, he would have give you a snake?  If you asked for an egg, he would have given you a scorpion?”  That was your Dad—he was demented and evil.

 There is nothing that excuses your dad’s behavior.  It is awful and tragic and grieves the heart of God.  But, here is the good news.  Your dad, as bad as he is, can help you appreciate God as a loving Father. Here is why.  Thankfully, we learn not only by comparison, but also by contrast.  Think about it:  for those of you that have traveled to developing countries and been in the slums, either on business or on a mission trip, one of the values in seeing extreme poverty is that it makes you realize, “Man, I don’t have it so bad after all.   The contrast helps you learn gratitude, to stop complaining.  We learn lessons from stark contrasts.” 

 I saw that recently.  I was spending some time with a skeptical friend recently in a curious discussion forum and he said, “You know what has made me want to become a Christian more than anything else.”  Certain that he was going to say me I took the bait and said, “Yes, what is that?”  He looked at me and said, “Not you.  It is my atheist friend.  I am watching him deal with life and the death of his loved one and it is utterly hopeless.  So dark, so powerless.”  Contrast—we learn by contrast. 

 So I hope the Fatherhood of God is remade for many of you today.  That for the first time that painful word will become a treasured word.  And if you do that and if all of us can latch hold of what Jesus is teaching us here, that when we come to the all-powerful God of the universe, we come as adopted toddlers coming to dada, then not only will the term Father be remade but our prayer lives will be remade as well. 

 Rather than going through the prayer that is familiar to us line-by-line, I am going to go Jesus’ commentary on the Lord’s prayer which are the stories after in v5-13 and we’ll refer back to the prayer.  Notice that just after Jesus model prayer, he tells a story about prayer.  In this story you have a man going to a friend in the middle of the night for bread.  FOR BREAD.  Not to borrow their car, or I guess in the first century, their donkey, to take their sick wife to the doctor.  But for bread b/c they have guests.  Are you kidding me?  If my neighbor knocked on my door at midnight for bread or for salt or any other frivolous item, I would think that my neighbor was a little wacky.  Vons is open—not my house for bread at midnight.  So why does Jesus set it up this way, at midnight, for what seems to just not make sense if your talking about regular bread? 

 2 things.  Why midnight?  What is it with bread?  Both of those 2 things are curious..  First, Jesus wants to show us how shockingly bold our prayer life should be.  Look at v8, “I tell you, though he will not get up and give him the bread because he is his friend, yet because of the man’s boldness he will get up and give him what he needs.”  Jesus is saying this is how you are to pray.  Boldly.  Another translation of this is shamelessly, or rudely, or impudently.  Jesus is saying bother God.  He wants you to go to him for anything, & everything.

 Just in case you miss it, Jesus reiterates it in Lk 18.  Here he tells a parable of an unjust judge and widow.  Widow asks for justice, judge doesn’t want to give it. Judge grants justice, and listen to what the Bible says, “yet because the widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually wear me out with her coming.  And 18:1 says that “Jesus told his disciples this parable that they should always pray and not give up.”  We are to boldly, shamelessly, bother God.  Keep coming before him.

 Now I realize this seems to fly in the face of what we just talked about.  That you come to God as a son or daughter comes to daddy.  Why would a loving daddy say this is the way you should communicate with me:  bother me with your boldlness & shamelessness. 

 B/c Jesus is helping us realize just how radical the implications of our adoption are.  What feels bothersome to us actually isn’t bothersome to the heart of a loving Father and that is who you are talking to.  Remember, he says pray, “Abba, Father.”  What he says only makes sense on family terms.  To relentlessly bug is something that only a little child can do.  To keep tugging at your fathers sleeve.  Only a child can do this without being rejected.  Only kids can pray with this kind of boldness, knowing that daddy won’t reject them and turn them away.

 There is a 2^nd reason Jesus sets this parable at midnight.  Let’s explore it.

Here, in this parable, the man has no bread b/c, in the first century, they made their bread fresh every morning and they made only what they would consume that day.  Why?  B/c they didn’t use preservatives in their bread in 1^st century Palestine.  If they kept it, it would go bad.  So, when the visitor arrives, he has nothing to offer.  But, he is confident that his neighbor will, so he goes to wake him up.

 Now, this begs the question:  how could he be so confident that his neighbor would have bread when he knew that no one kept bread over night?  The answer lies in the type of bread that he is asking for.  What is the bread that we ask for from our “friend” at “midnight”?  It is “mystery” bread or daily bread. The Greek word translated as “daily” appears only twice in the Bible—the two times Jesus gives the Lord’s Prayer, and it is the word that Jesus appears to coin b/c as far as scholars can tell, it had not been used in any other secular ancient manuscripts up until this point. 

What is this Mystery Daily Bread, which is an absolute necessity in order to fulfill our God-given responsibilities?  Jesus solves the mystery is verse 13: “If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give…” Give what? Bread? That is what you would expect.  But here he reveals the mystery.  “How much more will your father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?”

 The Holy Spirit is the needed bread.  He is the most basic necessity for living as a child of God.  And not only is he our most basic need, but he is all we need.  We see that in the man’s request for “three loaves” (5).  The number three is often used symbolically to speak of completeness, fullness, perfection.  Like the three loaves of bread, the Holy Spirit completely meets our spiritual need in any and every situation.  He is the necessary bread.

 So think about the point of this story.  You have a God-given responsibility to be hospitable to your neighbor who has shown up on your doorstep and is hungry.  But you have no resources to fulfill that responsibility b/c there is no bread in any 1^st century home.  So what do you need?  You need the mystery bread—you need Holy Spirit.  Ask, and he’ll give it to you.

 So here you sit this morning, some of you as fathers, with a God-given responsibility to provide for you family and you don’t have a job.  You have no bread and no idea where to get bread or a job.  What you need more than anything is Holy Spirit.  The mystery bread.  And to go to him like a child, tugging on his sleeve boldly and relentlessly telling him of your needs.

 Mothers:  you have a God-given responsibility to train up your kids to love Jesus.  But your sitting here thinking:  I am such a mess how can I ever do that.  I’m depressed, I’m barely making it.  My kids are struggling.

 “This prayer for our daily bread is the hand of the child of God reaching from the poverty of today into the riches of God’s tomorrow.”  Dick, that is poetry.  Prayer is the hand of the child of God reaching from the poverty of today into the riches of tomorrow.  You’re reaching into God’s pantry, if you will, and getting a power, a strength, a sustenance that without which you can’t accomplish what is before you..  You have a God-given responsibility to forgive Peter, but you want to gouge his eyes out.  You need your daily bread, you need Holy Spirit.  You have a God-given responsibility to faithfully steward God’s resources He has entrusted to you, but you have credit card debt and school loans and you can’t balance a checkbook.  You need to reach out of the poverty of your financial situation and into God’s pantry—you need Holy Spirit.

 We live in the midnight hour, that in between time, that transition time.  We see what tomorrow will look like in all of its glory as we read God’s word; we see what our present reality looks like in all of its prejudice and crime and poverty as we get up each day.  So prayer enables a little toddler to reach into the wealth of tomorrow and bring that glorious reality into our poverty-stricken world; prayer enables little toddlers who don’t have the skill, or wisdom, or expertise to accomplish the most-basic God-given responsibilities that are put before us to tug on the sleeve of Daddy and to find that somehow we have been mysteriously cloaked with a wisdom and acumen and grace that we didn’t previously have.

 And here is the concluding question—how can you know that Daddy won’t ever turn you away in your midnight hour? How can you come to Him with boldly with urgent needs, knowing that He will give you your daily bread?   Well, let me tell you a story.  It is a story that I read on adoption.  As a parent who has adopted and loves adoption, I’m a sucker for these stories.  It is a great article in Christianity Today that you can read online entitled “Abba Changes Everything.”  It is about a couple who adopted from Russia.

 The creepiest sound I have ever heard was nothing at all. My wife, Maria, and I stood in the hallway of an orphanage somewhere in the former Soviet Union, on the first of two trips required for our petition to adopt. Orphanage staff led us down a hallway to greet the two 1-year-olds we hoped would become our sons. The horror wasn't the squalor and the stench, although we at times stifled the urge to vomit and weep. The horror was the quiet of it all. The place was more silent than a funeral home by night.

I stopped and pulled on Maria's elbow. "Why is it so quiet? The place is filled with babies." Both of us compared the stillness with the buzz and punctuated squeals that came from our church nursery back home. Here, if we listened carefully enough, we could hear babies rocking themselves back and forth, the crib slats gently bumping against the walls. These children did not cry, because infants eventually learn to stop crying if no one ever responds to their calls for food, for comfort, for love. No one ever responded to these children. So they stopped.

The silence continued as we entered the boys' room. Little Sergei (now Timothy) smiled at us, dancing up and down while holding the side of his crib. Little Maxim (now Benjamin) stood straight at attention, regal and czar-like. But neither boy made a sound. We read them books filled with words they couldn't understand, about saying goodnight to the moon and cows jumping over the same. But there were no cries, no squeals, no groans. Every day we left at the appointed time in the same way we had entered: in silence.

On the last day of the trip, Maria and I arrived at the moment we had dreaded since the minute we received our adoption referral. We had to tell the boys goodbye, as by law we had to return to the United States and wait for the legal paperwork to be completed before returning to pick them up for good. After hugging and kissing them, we walked out into the quiet hallway as Maria shook with tears.

And that's when we heard the scream.

Little Maxim fell back in his crib and let out a guttural yell. It seemed he knew, maybe for the first time, that he would be heard. On some primal level, he knew he had a father and mother now. I will never forget how the hairs on my arms stood up as I heard the yell.

 Friends, the Bible is a story from Genesis to Revelation about how God hears the cries of his children.  He hears our cries and he promises us in John 14:18, “I won’t leave you as orphans.  I will come to you.”  How do we know that?  B/c of this incredible moment in history that we are moving toward in Lent. A Friday that forever settled our adoption.

 A Friday when the perfect, loving, heavenly Father was faced with a choice that I can’t fathom.  His Son, in agony, crying out on the cross.  And if He chose to go to Him and save Him, then He could never come to us.  We would have been permanently orphaned.

 And so the Father suffered the greatest pain any parent could ever endure—the death of His Son.  And the Son suffered the pain of an orphan whose Father didn’t come to His rescue.  Whose Father didn’t respond to His cry.  And then, on Easter, the Father resurrected the Son and can you imagine the joy, the reunion.  And He looks at the Son and says, “Now, let’s go adopt.  Do you hear their cries?” 

 But do you know how he did it?  Jesus Christ had to become orphaned himself.  All his life the Father had listened to his cries, until one fateful moment on the cross when he cried out, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”  How deep the Father’s love for us?  Can you imagine how difficult it was for a loving Father to not respond to the cries and needs of His Son?  That is how we know that the Father will not

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