Thursday of the First Week of Lent -- March 17, 2011
Matthew 7:7 – 12
“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; those who seek find; and to those who knock, the door will be opened.
“Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.
Prayer is asking, seeking and knocking, but it is not blank-check asking, seeking and knocking.
The selfish asking that we sometimes call “prayer” may be a form of prayer, but it may also be a way of keeping ourselves at the center of life, filling out a cosmic wish-list that keeps us from truly engaging God. As best I can tell, God has no interest in granting our wishes to be the center of the universe, the ways that we try to order the world around our own egos. To lay those wishes before God may be the beginning of prayer, but they are not the end of prayer.
Rather in prayer we give back to God what God has given us already. God has created us and shaped us so that we actually desire to live in harmony with God, others, and the created world. In other words, we were created for union, for healing, for wholeness. So when we pray for those things, both in ourselves and in our world, we are joining in what God is bringing to pass already. These are the prayers God answers.
So the analogy Jesus used went something like this: If feeding your child a stone hinders her/him from fully developing into the person they are to be – or worse, if feeding them a stone killed her/him – you wouldn’t dare serve them a stone on a platter. You’d want bread for them.
And even if they asked for a stone to eat, as a loving and generous parent, you wouldn’t put a stone on their plate. Your answer to them would be, “No,” and you’d wait until they were hungry enough to ask for bread.
Our prayer is like that. We ask for stones, we beg for stones . . . and God is silent, or God says, “No.” If we’re really convinced that stones are best for us, that we cannot live without stones, we may ask for stones for a very long time. We can bombard heaven for long years, even decades, asking for that which stunts us or may be our doom.
All the while, God patiently waits. One day we will be hungry enough to ask for bread. It’s what God has been waiting for. On that day, God does not give us stones. God gives us bread.
Our prayer is becoming, shifting, growing. On the day we begin to ask for bread rather than stones, we are entering the larger terrain of life-with-God for which we were created.
“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; those who seek find; and to those who knock, the door will be opened.
“Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.
Prayer is asking, seeking and knocking, but it is not blank-check asking, seeking and knocking.
The selfish asking that we sometimes call “prayer” may be a form of prayer, but it may also be a way of keeping ourselves at the center of life, filling out a cosmic wish-list that keeps us from truly engaging God. As best I can tell, God has no interest in granting our wishes to be the center of the universe, the ways that we try to order the world around our own egos. To lay those wishes before God may be the beginning of prayer, but they are not the end of prayer.
Rather in prayer we give back to God what God has given us already. God has created us and shaped us so that we actually desire to live in harmony with God, others, and the created world. In other words, we were created for union, for healing, for wholeness. So when we pray for those things, both in ourselves and in our world, we are joining in what God is bringing to pass already. These are the prayers God answers.
So the analogy Jesus used went something like this: If feeding your child a stone hinders her/him from fully developing into the person they are to be – or worse, if feeding them a stone killed her/him – you wouldn’t dare serve them a stone on a platter. You’d want bread for them.
And even if they asked for a stone to eat, as a loving and generous parent, you wouldn’t put a stone on their plate. Your answer to them would be, “No,” and you’d wait until they were hungry enough to ask for bread.
Our prayer is like that. We ask for stones, we beg for stones . . . and God is silent, or God says, “No.” If we’re really convinced that stones are best for us, that we cannot live without stones, we may ask for stones for a very long time. We can bombard heaven for long years, even decades, asking for that which stunts us or may be our doom.
All the while, God patiently waits. One day we will be hungry enough to ask for bread. It’s what God has been waiting for. On that day, God does not give us stones. God gives us bread.
Our prayer is becoming, shifting, growing. On the day we begin to ask for bread rather than stones, we are entering the larger terrain of life-with-God for which we were created.
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