Reverend Ian Doescher

The Tenth Sunday of Pentecost

When my spouse Jennifer and I were expecting our first son, Liam, we made every preparation possible.  We made a list of things to take to the hospital, we got the baby bed and the car seat ready, and we had our doctor’s phone number all but memorized.  We also decided we wanted to have someone drive us to the hospital—located in a busy area of downtown New Haven with limited parking—rather than taking the car there ourselves.  Probably, we also wisely realized it wouldn’t be smart for me to be operating a motor vehicle while Jennifer was in labor.  So we planned for two friends to drive us to the hospital: one friend, Callista, would be the first person we would call.  The second person, Andie, would be a backup in case Callista was unavailable for some reason.  Both Callista and Andie, who remain some of our best friends to this day, assured us we could call them any time of the day or night, and they would be there as quickly as possible.

Today’s gospel reading from Luke presents us with one of the most familiar passages of scripture, one that each of us can quote verbatim because we say it every week in our service: “One day Jesus was praying in a certain place.  When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.’  [Jesus] said to them, ‘When you pray, say, “Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come.  Give us each day our daily bread.  Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us.  And lead us not into temptation.”’”  The prayer Jesus taught, what the Christian tradition has come to call the Lord’s prayer, is a simple yet profound prayer.  It praises God, it honors God’s will, it asks for human needs while seeking forgiveness for human wrongs, and it asks for guidance.  We all know it well.  But in today’s gospel passage, it is what comes directly after Jesus teaches this prayer to his disciples that gives the Lord’s prayer additional meaning: “[Jesus] said to them, ‘Suppose one of you has a friend, and he goes out to him at midnight and says, “Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, because a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have nothing to set before him.”  Then the one inside answers, “Don't bother me.  The door is already locked, and my children are with me in bed.  I can't get up and give you anything.” 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 as much as he needs.’”  There are a lot of hes and hims in this passage, and I had to read it over a few times to figure out who was who.  It turns out there are three people in this story, the visitor, the host, and the host’s friend who is sleeping.  Here is the passage again in my understanding of it, where Jesus puts the listener in the role of the visitor: Suppose one of you visits a friend.  Your friend and host goes out to a person he knows at midnight and says, “Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, because a friend of mine on a journey has come to visit me, and I have nothing to set before him.”  Then the one inside answers, “Don’t bother me.  The door is already locked, and my children are with me in bed.  I can’t get up and give you anything.” I tell you, though the man sleeping won’t get up and give your host the bread because you, the visitor, are the sleeping man’s friend, yet because of your host’s boldness he will get up and give the host as much as he needs.’”  Typically, in Jesus’ parables one of the characters represents God, or represents the way we are supposed to act, or both.  Who is God in this parable?  Who are we?  A friend of mine this week said that in Jesus teaching his disciples how to pray and the parable that follows directly after, God is represented as a friend who will wake up in the middle of the night for you and give you what you ask for, even when that means you’re disturbing God’s rest.  God is the one you can count on.  Which is why Jesus finishes his lesson by saying, “So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.”

Preaching professor Fred Craddock tells a story that helps put this passage in a modern context, puts it in a parable we can understand.  Craddock tells about a family, “out for a drive on a Sunday afternoon.  It is a pleasant afternoon, and they relax at a leisurely pace down the highway.  Suddenly, the two children begin to beat their father in the back: ‘Daddy, Daddy, stop the car!  There’s a kitten back there on the side of the road!’  The father says, ‘So there’s a kitten on the side of the road.  We’re having a drive.’  ‘But Daddy, you must stop and pick it up.’  ‘I don’t have to stop and pick it up.’  ‘But Daddy, if you don’t, it will die.’  ‘Well then, it will have to die.  We don’t have room for another animal.  We have a zoo already at the house.  No more animals.’  ‘But Daddy, are you going to just let it die?’  ‘Be quiet children; we’re trying to have a pleasant drive.’  ‘We never thought our Daddy would be so mean and cruel as to let a kitten die.’  Finally the mother turns to her husband and says, ‘Dear, you’ll have to stop.’”  Let me pause in the story and say not only that it reminds me, thus far, of my own family’s car rides, but also: isn’t the children’s persistent nagging so much like the host knocking at the sleeping man’s door?  If Jesus had told the parable with Craddock’s story in mind, he might have said, “because of the kids’ boldness the father will stop the car.”  And sure enough, as Craddock’s story continues, that is exactly what happens: “He turns the car around, returns to the spot, and pulls off to the side of the road.  ‘You kids stay in the car.  I’ll see about it.’  He goes out to pick up the little kitten, who is just skin and bones, sore-eyes, and full of fleas.  When he reaches down to pick it up, with its last bit of energy the kitten bristles, baring tooth and claw.  Hisss!  He picks up the kitten by the loose skin at the neck, brings it over to the car, and says, ‘Don’t touch it.’… Back home they go.  When they get to the house the children give the kitten several baths, about a gallon of warm milk, and intercede: ‘Can we let it stay in the house just tonight?  Tomorrow we’ll fix it a place in the garage.’  The father says, ‘Sure, take my bedroom; the whole house is already a zoo.’  They fix a comfortable bed, fit for a pharaoh.  Several weeks pass.  Then one day the father walks in, feels something rub against his leg, looks down, and there is the cat.  He reaches down toward the cat, carefully checking to see that no one is watching.  When the cat sees his hand, it does not bare its claws and hiss; instead it arches its back to receive a caress.  Is that the same cat?  It couldn’t be the same cat?  It’s not the same as that frightened, hurt, hissing kitten on the side of the road.  Of course not, and you know as well as I what makes the difference.”  This is a charming story, a story in some ways about persistent prayer answered, but here is how Craddock ends it: “Not too long ago God reached out a hand to bless me and my family.  When God did, I looked at that hand; it was covered with scratches.  Such is the hand of love.”

Who do you identify with in this story, and in the story of the visitor, the host and the man sleeping?  What do these stories have to say to us?  Maybe you identify with the children in Craddock’s story, or the host, being persistent until a concern is listened to.  Maybe you identify with the visitor or the kitten, having something done for you and not always—in the case of the kitten—being kind to the one who shows you grace.  Or maybe you identify with the man sleeping or the father in the story, grudgingly doing a good deed.  Where do you put God in these stories?  Christian belief traditionally puts God in the place of the sleeping person or the father in these stories, and ultimately I think that’s right.  But interesting arguments could be made to make God the other characters as well.  Maybe God is the visitor, on whose behalf we go to great lengths to do good things.  Maybe God is the host, persistently knocking on the doors of our hearts to get us up out of our laziness so we can do God’s work in the world.

As for us, I think we as hearers of these stories can identify ourselves with almost any of the characters.  Last Sunday, Jennifer and I visited a nearby church together and heard a sermon on the story of Mary and Martha from Luke, where Martha is up and busy and Mary sits at Jesus’ feet and earns his favor.  The woman who preached the sermon offered an untraditional interpretation of the passage, preaching about what it means to think of all people as our siblings rather than focusing on the difference between Mary and Martha.  She quickly dismissed the traditional view on the passage by saying, “Can we just admit that sometimes we’re Mary, and sometimes we’re Martha?”  So I’m going to borrow her interpretation of that passage and apply it to today’s gospel reading: can we just admit that sometimes we’re the visitor, on whose behalf people go out of their way to show hospitality, and sometimes we’re the host, persistently knocking at the door—or even reciting the Lord’s prayer—in hopes of getting what we need, and sometimes we’re the person asleep, frustrated and tired, sometimes willing to help and sometimes not?

When I thought about this passage this week, I started thinking about Stephen Bradley.  I’m going to be really honest with you and say that these stories reminded me of the way Stephen and I interacted sometimes.  Occasionally Stephen would ask me for a ride home.  I hope he didn’t have to plead with me like the host knocking at the sleeping man at the door, but sometimes I felt like that man or like the father in Craddock’s story.  I think we’ve all been in a situation where we know we should do something but find it hard to do it willingly or without grumbling.  That doesn’t mean we’re bad people, it means we’re human.  And we also know situations where we do something good for someone else, and like the father approaching the kitten the first time our graciousness isn’t appreciated, and we walk away with scratched hands. 

So friends, here is a newsflash: God is perfect, and we’re not.  Human interaction is messy, but in our better moments we know how to ask appropriately, we know how to give generously, and we know how to receive graciously.  And in our better moments, when we have failed to do these things, we remember how Jesus told us to pray: “forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us.”

Imperfect as we are, though, all of Jesus’ stories, including the parable from today’s gospel lesson, offer us a glimpse of what it means to follow Jesus and a chance to stretch ourselves so we can be more Christlike.  When we hear today’s gospel and imagine ourselves as each of the three different characters, I hope we’ll ask ourselves three questions: first: who has shown us grace or hospitality recently, and have we responded with great thanks or with claws bared and ready to scratch?  Second, who do we need to be advocating for right now—whose door should we be knocking on in order to spread God’s justice and God’s love?  And third, who is knocking on our doors right now, and how will we respond—with frustration or with generosity?  These are what we might call holy questions.  And in all things, “Thy kingdom come”—not our perfect society, but God’s realm; “Thy will be done”—not our will, but God’s.

My spouse Jennifer approached the end of her pregnancy, and began feeling flutters she couldn’t identify.  On the evening of September 11, 2003, Jennifer went to the normal rehearsal of her singing group, who prayed afterward with her in case those flutters she was feeling were, in fact, contractions.  She got home around 10 p.m., and shortly thereafter her water broke.  All of our calm preparations were suddenly thrown into disarray, and we called Callista as planned.  Callista is not a late-night person—to this day 10 p.m. is about as late as she makes it before falling asleep.  It was probably 10:30 or so when Callista showed up at our apartment and sat with Jennifer while I rushed around packing for the hospital.  Callista drove us to the hospital, got us there safely.  Eight hours later, our son Liam was born.  Callista was a friend we could call on day or night, her gift freely given and full of grace.  God is a friend—a ruler, a comforter, a guide—we can call on day or night, ready to answer what we ask, show us what we seek, and open when we knock.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.