July 27, 2025 Sermon

Sermon title:  “Ask and you Shall Receive”

Scripture:  Luke 11:1-13

(Other lectionary suggestions include Hosea 1:2-10, Psalm 85, and Colossians 2:6-15.)

Luke 11:1-13

The Lord’s Prayer

1He was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.” 2He said to them, “When you pray, say:  Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. 3Give us each day our daily bread. 4And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us. And do not bring us to the time of trial.”

Perseverance in Prayer

5And he said to them, “Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; 6for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.’ 7And he answers from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door has already been locked, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.’ 8I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, at least because of his persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs. 9“So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given 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. 11Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish? 12Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion? 13If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

          Another title for this sermon could have been “The Lord’s Prayer” because the disciples do ask Jesus to show them how to pray. This is Luke’s version. Most of us are probably more familiar with Matthew’s version. But both are similar, as we would expect them to be. Also, I think Jesus is laying down the IDEA of a prayer, and it’s not as if we need to say every word the same as he did. More on this later. Let me read you what Amy Elizabeth Hessel says. She is a Lutheran pastor from St. Paul, Minnesota, where she graduated from Luther Seminary in 1995.

          Says the Rev. Amy Elizabeth, “When the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray,....many people thought of God as the distant and nearly unapproachable king of the universe. Even though God’s personal name appears more than 6800 times in the Hebrew Scriptures, it was never spoken out loud because it was thought to be too sacred to fall from the lips of mortals. Jews used dozens of what we might call nicknames, such as El Shaddai, Adonaii, and Hashem (which I had never heard of, and neither had Harlane!) to avoid speaking God’s name directly. Only once a year during Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, would the high priest utter ten times The Name. To be sure, there was a tradition of personal and intimate conversations with God in Jewish religion, but it appears that the disciples had either lost their connection with that part of the tradition or never had it in the first place. I suspect that if they had any kind of prayer life at all they weren’t getting much out of it.” And I just had THIS thought:  maybe Jesus purposely chose non-religious men to help him accomplish what he wanted to do. Just a thought....

          And the Rev. Amy Elizabeth Hessel continues...... But there was something different about Jesus - at least, from what the disciples were able to see. “They see the importance of prayer in his life. They observe that prayer makes a difference for him. We don’t know exactly what difference they see because the scriptures are almost silent about that. But we can certainly make some educated guesses about it. Perhaps they saw that he had peace about him in the midst of chaos - calm in the midst of life’s storms. Perhaps they saw his courage when they just couldn’t stop shaking in their sandals. {{The Rev. Amy shows she has a sense of humor here!)) Perhaps they saw patience when they were at their wit’s end. Perhaps they saw his assurance that it would all come out right in the end, even though at the present moment it appeared that no good could come out of a situation. Whatever benefit they saw Jesus receiving through prayer, they wanted to be in on that action."

          But now comes the BIG surprise! Jesus says to call God our DADDY who art in Heaven! What do you think ABBA means but Daddy? Says the Rev. Amy, “With that four-letter word that looks the same backward and forward, Jesus builds a bridge across the universe and tells the disciples that the king of all creation invites them to cross over that bridge and come sit on his lap.” Isn’t that amazing? Even I had a tough time accepting THAT concept of God. When people would tell me that they prayed for a parking place at the mall, I was appalled! I thought that the ruler of the universe has more to think about than finding me a convenient slot for my vehicle! But I was wrong!

          And Rev. Amy says this:  “King Daddy WANTS to hear their requests. He’s not too busy running the universe and taking care of the nation to bother with the other concerns that lie deep within their hearts:  bread enough to live on, guilt that plagues the conscience, worries about what the future might bring. He tells them that he doesn’t mind if they keep coming to him with the same concerns over and over again."

          Now we may not get our answer right away, but eventually we WILL get the response that God wants us to have. And get this:  God is never personally going to send harm our way. That’s what’s involved in that verse about giving you an egg and not a stone, a fish and not a scorpion. God is a loving Father, not a trickster who lies in wait for his children to make a mistake.

          The Rev. Amy closes her sermon by asking us how each of us is doing in his/her prayer life. Are you growing closer to King Daddy? Do you try to find your place in his lap? There you will find a place for yourself, “a place where you will be comforted, restored, and sometimes challenged or redirected. When you pray, you can trust that God will be listening. After all, Jesus made you part of his royal family, too.” Do you believe that? I hope so! And Jesus and God hope so, too! Amen.

Pastor Skip