25 July 2010

Genesis 18:20-32
Psalm 138
Colossians 2:6-19
Luke 11:1-13

“Teach us to pray, Jesus, like John the Baptizer taught his followers to pray,” they asked. Not to put too fine a point on it but quite obviously, Jesus’ dear disciples are absolutely clueless as to what they’re asking for here. However it was that the Baptizer prayed – well, you judge – his head was served up on a platter. No, the disciples do not know what they’re asking, but not straying one bit from the Gospel narratives, we can safely assume what the disciples wanted was THE BIG SECRET to getting God to give us what we want – some way of getting God to be our personal Harry Potter house elf. Or as Janis Joplin sang it: “Oh Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz, my friends all have Porches, I must make amends. Worked hard all my lifetime, no help from my friends; Oh Lord, won’t you buy me . . . .” But that just isn’t going to happen: this whole story is all about death and resurrection, is all about Jesus putting the disciples and their desires, along with the rest of us and our desires, decisively to death. “You want prayer?” asks Jesus. “Here, I’ll give you prayer – a few short words and a parable custom-designed to undo all your conventional ways of thinking and being.”

“Father,” Jesus begins – with no adornment. But the father of whom Jesus speaks is a bit of a whack job – one who continually searches for the wayward loser of a son and upon seeing said son a long way off ditches all dignity and runs to embrace the wastrel, throws a welcome-home party, and wills to bring about reconciliation between the older, dutiful child and the younger, wild child. And everybody dies in that little story, but especially the father who dies to his own dignity and to every innate sense of justice and fair-play. And just so goes the whole rest of the prayer. “Give us each day our daily bread.” There’s the death of the American dream along with our every instinct to store up as much as we can – at best, for the proverbial rainy day, but just as often so that “our kingdom come.” But as we shall hear next week, all we’ve got is today – and it’s doubtful whether even this day is ours in the first place.

And then there’s that forgiveness part of the prayer. Lots of death going on here. First and foremost, the death of God in Jesus Christ: on the cross, the God of vengeance dies, really dies – and on the Third Day, the God of new life, of everlasting, steadfast love rises. And as for our forgiving debts, by the world’s accounting procedures, this of course makes us complete losers – we and our business will surely die when all debts-payable are cancelled. But that’s just how things are in God’s kingdom, God’s dominion. Which swiftly brings us to the last petition of this prayer: Save us from the time of trial – the time of trial being none other than the temptation to reject dying, losing as the only way to resurrected life. Now some scholars are inclined to translate this last petition, “Save us in the time of trial,” a translation I’m rather fond of myself. I seem to be forever mired in the time of trial, in the temptation to save myself – to win my way to God, to earn my own way, to be a success, to be highly effective and efficient – or failing that, to curry God’s favor by way of kissing the divine tokhes. But we pray that we’ll be rescued from this way of thinking and being, rescued from trying to make our own way to God by hook or by crook – we’re praying to die so that we can be raised, praying that when we are sorely tried to trust in ourselves, in our good names, in our morality, and in the promises of this world, we’ll be delivered from just such temptations, to be instead forever yoked to Christ, dying with God in Christ, so that we rise with God in Christ, alive forever with Christ, our trust alone in the God who raises only the dead losers to new life.

And then a parable – one in which a certain householder is asked to get out of bed and supply bread to a thoroughly meshuggenah midnight caller. And here, you see, it is only after dying to the desire to remain comfortably in bed that the householder gets up – or as in the Greek – rises, the Easter verb – to answer the crazy beggar at the door. God, the householder, once again dying to the conventional and rising to give . . . to give what?

Well, Jesus tells us: “seek and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.” And be persistent – though a better translation might be audacious or even unconscionable, shameless. Now the world is filled with seekers and many are those whose knuckles are calloused from persistent knocking. But the prayers of so many seem to go unanswered. Jesus clarifies – “if your child asks for a fish – will you give that child a snake? Or if she asks for an egg, will you give to her a scorpion? So, since you who are continually being evil – that is to say, centered upon yourselves – since you know how to give good gifts to your children, how much, much more will the heavenly Parent give the Holy Spirit to those who ask!” And the work of the Holy Spirit – that One’s work is singular – to bring to us the Christ (note – not to bring us to Christ, but to bring Christ to us) – to unite us to Christ’s death – that we be raised with Christ in a resurrection like Christ’s. And we cannot say it enough: only the dead can be raised. That for which we continually pray – it is nothing more nor anything less than to die, to be losers in the games of this world, to be counted with Christ – the God who is a total loser in the Messiah department, a total loser in the ways of organized religion, a sissy who turns the other cheek, a pathetic excuse for an omnipotent deity who can’t even get himself off the cross, who forgives all – even those who hate and murder – an outrageous offense to our sense of how justice ought be. We pray to be with Christ on the cross – united with a pathetic God, ourselves now surrendering all power, status, and might – not raising a finger in our own defense – instead forgiving every sin, releasing every debt. We pray to be, like Christ, failures at what the world holds dear so that dying with Christ, we be raised with Christ.

But of course, not one of us can do this on our own. Which is why this Holy Feast on this Holy Day. (Though by the world’s standards it can hardly be called a feast – each of us getting a scrap of rather unremarkable bread and a few drops of a wine that most of us would never serve our own guests.) As we eat that bread and drinking that wine – we are promised to be in communion with the God who dies to power and might – the broken body of a broken God becomes one with our bodies that will be broken – the spilled blood of a mortally wounded God becomes our blood that will be spilled – and we are all made one upon the cross – and one in being raised from the dead – raised from the dead to new life today – raised already from our final death to our new life in the timelessness of God.

And so to those seek and to those who knock – whether for the first time or whether you’re blind from seeking and your knuckles are bloody from knocking – the prayer of Jesus is here answered before it’s even prayed: In this Holy Eucharist you are made fully one with Christ – no matter who you are and without conditions – here you are crucified with Christ and here you are raised with Christ. God’s dominion has come – on earth as in heaven – for you. And that, my dear friends, is the true CORE of the Holy Gospel. AMEN