Ninth Sunday after Pentecost – Year C (Luke 11:1-13)

I know that this Gospel passage is most often read and preached as a message of hope. Upon serious reflection, however, it can be hard to take. Most of us have had the experience of asking and not receiving, searching and not finding, knocking and not having the door opened. There are three traditional pious responses to that situation. The first is that God has responded to our prayer, only in ways that we are not faithful enough, smart enough, and/or good enough to understand. The second is that, because we are not faithful, smart, or good enough, we have failed to ask for the correct thing, knock on the correct door or search for what is truly good for us. Finally, there is the notion that we have simply not been persistent enough. Unfortunately, none of those answers is particularly helpful to the person experiencing God’s apparent deafness.


Writers and preachers do their fellow Christians a disservice when they present this particular teaching and others like it, as a simple formula for answered prayer. The grieving parents who just lost a child to cancer should not have to contend with hearing that God knows better. The backsliding addict isn’t helped to hear that he or she has just not prayed hard enough. The lonely old person tired of living but afraid to die, finds no solace in the suggestion that their prayer for companionship is somehow misguided.

This is in no way to suggest that God does not, in fact, know better or that we pray hard enough or that our requests are not sometimes misguided. We are weak and sinful people. This is all the more reason, though, why the entire burden can’t be placed on the person asking, knocking or seeking. There are things for which God must give an account! Having been given this teaching by Jesus, we have a right.

Easy answers fill pews. When push comes to shove, however, and the easy answers fail to satisfy, the church has an obligation to be the place where it is O.K. to wrestle with God. Perhaps that is the ultimate meaning of this teaching. Asking, knocking, searching, pestering – these are not passive verbs. We must actively enter into the struggle and mystery of God’s provident love.