Bothering God

SCRIPTURE TEXT:  Luke 11:5-13,  Rev. Monte Marshall

Noted preacher, Barbara Brown Taylor has a granddaughter named Madeline.  When Madeline was seven years old, Taylor says that she was “blond, skinny, and tall for her age.”  Taylor also says that from the day Madeline was born, they “have been able to look each other straight in the eye with no sentimentality whatsoever.” 

Taylor tells a story about her granddaughter’s seventh birthday: “When [Madeline] came to celebrate her birthday last summer, there were just four of us at the table:  Madeline, her mother, her grandfather, and I.  She watched the candles on her cake burn down while we sang her the birthday song and then she leaned over to blow them out without making a wish.

“Aren’t you going to make a wish?” her mother asked.

“You have to make a wish,” her grandfather said.  Madeline looked as if someone had just run over her cat. 

“I don’t know why I keep doing this,” she said to no one in particular.

“Doing what?”  I asked.

“This wishing thing,” she said, looking at the empty chair at the table.  “Last year I wished my best friend wouldn’t move away but she did.  This year I want to wish that my mommy and daddy will get back together…”

“That’s not going to happen,” her mother said, “so don’t waste your wish on that.”

“I know it’s not going to happen,” Madeline said, “so why do I keep doing this?”

Taylor then says: “Since the issue was wishing, not praying, I left her alone that afternoon, but I know that sooner or later Madeline and I are going to have to talk about prayer.  I do not want that child to lose heart.  I want her to believe in a God who loves her and listens to her, but in that case I will need some explanation for why it does not always seem that way.”[1]

Speaking of losing heart, there have been more occasions than I care to remember when I’ve come close to losing heart.  In fact, I’ve been tempted to give up on prayer altogether because there have been times when prayer seemed a meaningless exercise.  I’ve begged God for healing either for myself or others, and sometimes that healing has occurred, but at other times, it hasn’t.  I’ve begged God for the power to overcome my fears and my weaknesses, and sometimes it seems that my prayers have been answered, but at so many other times and in so many ways I can’t get beyond weak and afraid.  I’ve begged God for peace and justice and inclusiveness in the world—and sometimes there are glimmers of hope that these prayers are being answered, at least in small ways—but then something happens to remind me of the incredible amount of violence, injustice, and bigotry still plaguing the world. 

And to make matters worse, I don’t really understand how prayers like this work.  I don’t understand how they make a difference, even though I believe that they do somehow.

So I know exactly how Madeline felt.  Every time I lift up someone or some life situation in prayer, there’s part of me that’s thinking: “Well, this is not going to happen, so why do I keep doing this?”  This nagging doubt persists even though I value prayer.  And sometimes, the doubt is so intense that I come close to losing heart and giving up on this kind of prayer altogether. 

But then I read a text like this morning’s scripture reading from Luke’s gospel, and I’m encouraged to keep praying.  In this scripture passage, Jesus is teaching his disciples how to pray.  He’s taught them a particular prayer that’s Luke’s version of The Lord’s Prayer.

 Jesus then shares with them a parable about a neighbor who needs bread to share with guests who are arriving from a journey.  The neighbor goes to a friend’s house at midnight to seek help.  The friend says: “’Leave me alone.  The door is already locked and the children and I are in bed.  I can’t get up to look after your needs.”  Jesus then delivers the punch line: “I tell you, though your neighbor will not get up and give you the bread out of friendship, your persistence will make your neighbor get up and give you as much as you need.

“That’s why I tell you, keep asking and you’ll receive; keep looking and you’ll find; keep knocking and door will be opened to you.  For whoever asks, receives; whoever seeks, finds; whoever knocks, is admitted.”

This text says to me:  When it seems that God is unresponsive, or silent, or absent, keep praying—keep bothering God—keep asking—keep looking—keep knocking.  Someone once said, “When you come to the end of your rope, tie a prayer knot, and hang on.”[2]

Barbara Brown Taylor says that “the most important time to pray is when your prayers seem meaningless.”  So if you don’t keep bothering God, what are you going to do?  “Take to your bed with a box of Kleenex? . . . No.  Day by day by day, you are going to get up, wash your face, and go ask for what you want.  You are going to trust the process, regardless of what comes of it, because the process itself gives you life.  The process keeps you engaged with what matters most to you, so you do not lose heart.”[3]

If we bother God long enough and persistently enough, will we receive?  Will we find?  Will the door be opened to us?  I don’t know.  But I’ve decided “to trust the process.”  I’ve decided that my responsibility is to pray what’s in my heart, align myself with God’s purposes as best I can, and then leave the rest to God.

Now on the screens is a painting that speaks to me of persistence in prayer.  Notice the clothing of the people in this picture.  These are men and women of the Nazi concentration camps.  They are the victims of the Holocaust.  So what are they doing with their arms and their heads raised?  They’re praying.  How many times do suppose they prayed for deliverance from that nightmare of brutality and death?  In this painting, they’re prayers haven’t been answered, they’re still suffering and yet they’re still praying. 

Please remember that the Holocaust began in 1933 when Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany.  It lasted until 1945 when Nazi Germany was defeated in World War II.  We know the horrors of the camps.  Eleven million people were killed including six million Jews.

Elie Wiesel survived the Holocaust.  He was a Jewish teenager when he endured the unspeakable horrors of Auschwitz and Buchenwald.  The experience shattered his faith in God.  In his book, Night, Wiesel writes: “For the first time, I felt revolt rise up in me.  Why should I bless [God’s] name?  The Eternal, Lord of the Universe, the All-Powerful and Terrible, was silent.  What had I to thank [God] for...Never shall I forget these moments which murdered my God and my soul, and turned my dreams to dust.” 

Nevertheless, Wiesel continued to pray: “And in spite of myself,” he says, “a prayer rose in my heart, to that God whom I no longer believed.”  That’s persistence![4]

Another victim of the Holocaust named Abraham Sutzkever, wrote this prayer from the Jewish ghetto in Vilna, Lithuania: “Under your white stars I stretch to You my white hand.  My words are tears that want to rest in Your hand…. And I want so much, loyal God, to entrust my wealth to You, because a fire burns within me, and in the fire, my days.  But in cellars and holes cries the murderous silence.  I run higher, over rooftops, and I search, where are You, where?”[5]

    When I see this picture and hear these stories, my determination is renewed to keep praying—to keep bothering God—to keep asking, looking, knocking—even when it seems that my prayer are meaningless—even when it seems that God is silent or absent altogether.  And when I’m done praying what’s in my heart, I’ll leave the rest to God.

This brings us back to Barbara Brown Taylor.  She ends the story about her granddaughter’s birthday in this way: “One day, when Madeline asks me outright whether prayer really works, I am going to say, ‘Oh, sweetie, of course it does.  It keeps our hearts chasing after God’s heart.  It’s how we bother God, and it’s how God bothers us back.  There’s nothing that works any better than that.”[6]  Thanks be to God.  Amen.