Pentecost 10 C: Shameless Prayer
Dear Partner in Preaching,
I think I would find this passage easier to preach on if there weren’t so many people dying right now. I know, I know, people die every day. More than that, people die in really difficult, preventable, tragic ways every day that I know nothing about. But in recent weeks, the violence in our cities and around the world has been nearly overwhelming. Orlando, Baton Rouge, St. Paul, Dallas, Nice, Baton Rouge again… there are too many people dying for me to read this passage and wonder, not how to pray, but why we pray at all.
And here’s the thing: the overwhelming majority of the people we preach to this weekend will have had moments just like that: moments when life seems overwhelming, if not unbearable; when God feels incredibly far away; and when they wonder why in the world they bother to pray.
The two avenues often taken to preach this story are either to take the opportunity to teach our people to pray – I’ve done that myself – or to encourage persistence in prayer. But while each might make a fine sermon at another time, they seem to beg the issue at this particular time and place. Because the questions I suspect will be more on people’s mind this week may run as follows: Does God answer prayer? If so, why are some of my prayers not answered? Even if God does, can I really pray for anything – healing, wealth, relationship – and expect God to answer? And if God doesn’t seem to answer, does that mean I prayed wrong?
These are notoriously difficult, if not impossible, questions to answer, at least not without offering somewhat simplistic explanations like “God always answers, but sometimes the answer is ‘no.’” I mean, that’s not exactly what Jesus says here, and even if the answer is no, how do we live with that when the questions are about healing a loved one with cancer…or bringing an end to violence…or providing the way out of an abusive relationship. Whatever else we do in our preaching about prayer, Dear Partner, let’s take care not to trivialize the difficult and sometimes painful experiences some in our congregation may have had.
All of this makes the passage before us difficult to read and preach, and I’ve felt rather stuck on figuring out how to move beyond mere instruction about prayer or exhortation to persistence. And then something occurred to me: when I think of prayer, I often think of it as a rather passive activity. Not passive in the sense that I don’t believe what I pray or don’t care deeply about what I’m praying about. No, what I mean is that it can be passive in the sense that I assume prayer is, well, all about praying – you know, praying and then waiting around until God answers or doesn’t answer.
But what if that’s not the case at all? What if prayer isn’t simply a petition I send to God but rather is part of a more active and full relationship with God. Prayer, from this point of view, is less like putting a message in a bottle – or, for that matter, in an envelope or email – and setting it adrift in the sea and more like the regular conversation we have with others with whom we are in relationship.
I’ve wondered about this before, particularly when reading Paul’s exhortation to Timothy to “pray without ceasing.” I don’t think the Apostle meant spending all day sitting with your hands folded and eyes closed. Instead, I think Paul imagined our whole lives – our thinking and acting and very being – offered to God as a prayer.
With regard to today’s story from Luke’s Gospel, what occurs to me is the importance of how we translate one particular word: anaedeia in the Greek, which most translations render as “persistence” (11:8). But a better translation might be “shameless.” Our prayers to God ought to be bold, audacious, and unfailingly confident.
So the question I am pondering just now is, how would we act if our prayers were offered to God confidently, trusting that God will respond so much more generously than any earthly parent (vs. 13)? Perhaps I wouldn’t just sit back and wait for God to answer but would start moving, get to work, actually start living into the reality of what I’ve prayed for. So rather than pray for someone who is lonely, maybe I’d go visit. Rather than pray for an end to violence, maybe I’d campaign against the legality of military-grade semi-automatic weapons, or protest when police use unnecessary force, or go visit the police station to tell officers that I’m grateful for their service and pray for their safety. And so forth.
Look, I know this doesn’t answer all of our questions about prayer, and it certainly doesn’t ease the pain of when we feel our prayers are not heard. But it does invite us to imagine that as we live into the future we pray for, we are in fact praying shamelessly. As we work for the dignity and rights of others, we are praying shamelessly. As we comfort those in need, visit those who are imprisoned, feed those who are hungry, we are praying shamelessly…and perhaps being used by God as to answer another person’s – or even our own! – prayer.
We have an opportunity this week, Dear Partner, to gently challenge how we think of prayer. At times prayer is words we say alone in moments of thanksgiving or desperation. At times prayer is words we share with others, gathered in the sanctuary or around a hospital bed. And at other times prayer is action and work as we try to live into and even bring about those things we’ve prayed for. All of this can be praying shameless, praying, that is, confident that the God who came in Jesus understands our hurts and disappointments because that God took them on. Because God in Jesus not only endured the life we lived, but died the death that awaits us, and was raised again to show that even death does not have the last word and that all things are possible for God. And so we pray with confidence, trusting that if we know how to give good gifts to our children, how much more will God give us as we embrace God’s Holy Spirit and live, as well as speak, our prayers.
There are so many people, Dear Partner, who need our prayers, prayers understood as words, actions, and our very life. People who are dying and don’t need to. People who are lonely and welcome friendship. People who are excluded and waiting to be invited in. All kinds of people. So let’s get started praying… and let’s do it shamelessly.
Thanks for your good work, Dear Partner, and particularly for the prayers you will pour out during your sermon this week. Blessings on your proclamation and life.
Yours in Christ,
David
Thank you for reminding me that HOW we pray is not important, but what is important it THAT we pray. Peace.
“And don’t you think the Father who conceived you in love will give the Holy Spirit when you ask him?” This translation of the final verse by Eugene Peterson, The Message gives me the key. Through prayer we open ourselves to the Spirit or invite the Spirit, who empowers us to trust, acknowledge the world and its pain and joys, and to move forward for the sake of the kingdom as Jesus did, confident in the love of God and the triumph of love.
Elijah in 1 Kings 18:16-46 calling on God to burn the bull in front of the 450 prophets of Baal. Soaking the wood in water, and knowing that God will provide. Shameless!
Thank you for your words of wisdom. I am reminded that when tragedy and suffering occur in our lives, we often ask the wrong question. Instead of asking God, “why did this happen,” which can be healing in the midst of grief; it also helps to ask God shamelessly, “Now that this has happened, what will we do.”
I was thinking of last week with Mary and Martha and how they are symbols of two needed aspects of our faith–being and doing. In Sunday’s passage from Luke, there is plenty of doing, for example,the parable of waking the friend for bread. Then Jesus tells his disciples to ask, search and knock. Like you said, prayer is not a matter of passivity. So, I see a blend of being and doing as we pray.
By the way, thank you so much for your insights last week. They really helped me with my sermon.
Mark Davis uses the word impudent, rather than shameless. I think I find the meaning somewhere between these two words!
Thank you for all your good work especially in such a busy time.
I’ve been considering how this is the first time in Luke’s gospel that Jesus specifically gives the disciples instructions on how to pray, and that at their request. Prior to this, Jesus has called them, taught them, revealed God’s power through miracles, empowered and sent them to go out twice (as the 12 and then the 70)to proclaim the good news and heal. I’m exploring why it is so late in their relationship that Jesus actually taught prayer to his followers; did he make them into followers first so their prayers would be for the furthering of the Kingdom and not their own prosperity gospel? Jesus seems to have been training his followers to be doers and proclaimers before pray-ers, though he himself is often recorded as praying. I’m drawn to Pope Francis: “You pray for the hungry. Then you feed them. That’s how prayer works.”
Thank you! What a wonderful and timely take on prayer.
Reminds me of Garth Brooks’ lyrics to Shameless,
“I’m shameless, oh honey I don’t have a prayer
Every time I see you standin’ there
I go down upon my knees”
Where else are we to turn? We don’t have a prayer save the One who will hear and answer us.
Thank you Dr. Lose for your insights into prayer. While I don’t mean to contradict you, I do want to offer a thought or two about your reflection on the word ‘anaedeia.’ My comment is offered in memory of the late Dr. Kenneth Bailey, whose lifelong work on this and other parables in Luke is incredibly important. (In this case I refer to his book Poet and Peasant and Through Peasant Eyes, Eerdmans, 1983, pp.119ff.) ‘Shameless’ is the better translation of that word. You are correct. However, Dr. Bailey’s research points out that it is more appropriately applied to the householder/sleeper, not the friend at the door. The meaning is this – that for the sake of avoiding shame and to preserve his honor in the village the householder will not deny the visitor the bread he seeks. Jesus is telling us here that when you go to this kind of neighbor everything is against you – and yet he will give you even more than you ask because he is a person of honor. He will not violate that quality. God will also not violate honor and beyond this God loves you! Therefore, how much more can you rest assured when you take your requests to a loving Father. This insight shifts the conclusions we usually make about this text. Obviously, this brief comment does not do justice to the extensive exegetical and contextual work of Dr Bailey, but I thought in honor of his recent death his voice should be added to this conversation.