Proper 12 C--Texts: Hosea 1:2-10 & Luke 11:1-13
Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. 10For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. ?
We all know that this patently absurd. God isn’t a car dealer or a clothier or a realtor. But what’s going on here when we read Luke’s gospel and Jesus tells us to ask? What happens in real life when we ask and it isn’t given? What do we do with that? And this is the same God that told Hosea to go out and marry a whore and have children of whoredom. A God that promised to reject
That whole first reading sets up an allegory that shows what God has planned out for Hosea. His relationship with his wife, this whoredom, which is a traditional Biblical attack, bears a daughter, whose name, Jezereel, is a thinly veiled reference to Israel; all that stuff. Imagine that God has said to you, go and do something for me that will cause me to reject you—and that’s an order! That’s what God has done for Hosea. The insults keep coming: God tells Hosea that he will have a second daughter, who will be named Lo-ruhamah [low rue-hah-ma], which means “Not Pitied”. And then a third, Lo-ammi, which means “Not My People”. First screw up, then receive no pity from me, then get rejected. These aren’t terribly rosy prospects, are they?
How often do you feel called to rejection? How often do you fall into that Catch-22 of following God’s orders, only to receive rejection? How often are we are told to speak out, but our words are thrown back at us! How often is our character under fire and how often do we attack each other the same way!
How hard we struggle to make things make sense! We know better; we come to church, we listen to the Scripture, we pray together, and we know that God has great plans but all we want is to be “in on” our own lives—we’ve got ideas about what we should be doing and all we want is to have some say. We pray to God and we say “God, I know we don’t talk enough, and I know I promised that I would stop swearing in the car, and I’m workin’ on it, but all I’m asking for now is to know what I’m supposed to be doin’ here. I know I don’t have a right ask, I know I screwed up that other thing, but I’m good for it, so what do you say? Just a hint—give me a clue.” Or we need answers and we ask God to explain Himself. We don’t think that a just God would give us hurricanes or murder. We don’t think a just God would spoil a 4th of July celebration with a house fire or that God should prevent us from attending a wedding or a funeral. We want God to answer for Himself. And the funny thing is that we even know our own audacity in even asking. We think it, we acknowledge our irrationality, and we keep moving anyway. We threaten our relationship and put it all on the line. We say “God, if you’re so awesome, prove it! Change my life!” And then nothing happens. You’re still sitting in your living room or your office or on your porch in the backyard and all of those problems are still there and so you conclude that God isn’t listening to you. To many of us, that’s prayer.
But Hosea knew what was to happen, because God promised him this. Amid all of this rejection that God has promised Hosea, and if he is able to persevere, they can achieve something truly great: restoration. This isn’t redemption,
And in our gospel, we are shown what that relationship looks like, in Jesus’ parable of the generous friend. He ‘calls out’ those listening and he says essentially this: “Who are you to reject your friend?” That’s it. It’s that simple. “Who are you to reject your friend? Your friend comes to you and it isn’t life or death or anything, and it isn’t because he couldn’t afford any food to serve, he comes over to borrow that proverbial bowl of sugar.” And so Jesus says “he’s coming over for the sugar, and you’re naked, you’re half asleep, your kids are asleep, and the dog’s going to wake ‘em up if you let this guy in: you are so desperate to refuse…but…you won’t. It isn’t going to happen.”
And he’s telling his disciples this, right? He’s telling them this right after the whole Mary/Martha affair. They know better than to complain! They don’t want to get a little bit of what Martha got, so they keep it zipped. But mostly because it isn’t about them: it’s about God!and it’s about who they are with God. It’s about the perseverance people are to show in prayer and in waiting and hoping. It’s about the perseverance people are to show in maintaining and reconciling relationships. The disciples started by asking about prayer, and what they got was no less than a treatise on grace.
When we call upon God, we like to ask for things. We want healing. We want strength. We want the Tigers to beat the Angels today (that one I mean). We forget that the words aren’t only “ask and you shall receive,” but it’s “search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.” This is active relationship stuff, on both of our parts.
God isn’t reminding us today of His generosity and isn’t being boastful. God is reminding us whose we are. We are being reminded of that relationship we have with God.
And that reminder extends, of course, to our friends, those people that wake us in the middle of the night, or upon whom we call for help. Being in right relationship with others is right relationship with God. We are generous to our friends, even if it’s helping them be a good host. But Jesus doesn’t put the onus on friendship; he doesn’t place the burden of friendship on our right behavior, but on persistence and perseverance. We don’t pray to fulfill our selfish desires, but the persistence with which we pray brings its own reward.
Jesus illuminates here what our relationship with God can look like. In this way, Jesus isn’t anyone’s ‘homeboy’, buddy, or co-pilot, but the one who responds to our persistence and perseverance. Through prayer and sincere effort, God might let us in on what’s really going on; and in our lives right now, that’s real grace.
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