3/10/68

Scripture: Luke 11: 1-13.

Last Wednesday evening there were quite a few of us present at the Union Lenten meeting in the Moravian Church. There we saw a simple, powerfully moving motion picture version of “the Gospel according to Saint Matthew.” One could almost feel the spray in one’s face as we watched Peter, Andrew, James and John at work with their fish nets along the shore of the lake where Jesus called on them to follow him. And these first disciples were so human! No one in this room looks like any of those four; for we differ from them just as they differed from one another. And yet we can almost feel ourselves in their place at times. Perhaps we see and hear ourselves each time one of the Lord’s disciples says something.

When we see them pictured as we saw them last Wednesday, or when we re-read the written account of them --- their comments, their questions, their assertions, their actions --- we begin to feel at home with them. We can understand their anxieties, their doubts, their ardent hopes, their quiet despair. And I suspect that we can also appreciate their confusion about the meaning and the practice of prayer. Quite probably they prayed daily, like a good Jew should and did. But it may have been a routine habit for them more than any spring of living waters bringing peace and power and joy to them.

They were not too long with Jesus before they became keenly aware of how much prayer meant to him, and how much they wished it could mean to them. For prayer was the most vitalizing part of Jesus’ day. The more tired he was, the longer he seemed to pray. The more difficult the day’s work, the more certainly he sought out a place where he could commune with his Father in an intense, personal way unheard by man. And this relationship between his prayers and the way he lived was not lost upon his disciples. That is why, one day as they were journeying toward Jerusalem, they waited until he had finished a period of prayer; and then one of them, bolder than the rest -- and perhaps needier than the rest -- said, “Lord, teach us to pray.” This he did -- both with a pattern of prayer which we confidently use to this day in what we call “The Lord’s Prayer;” and with a parable stressing the need of persistence --- of staying with it --- in prayer.

It was as though he not only said, “There is a form of prayer for you to use,” but that he also wished his disciples to know that it will mean little more than a form “unless you stay with it in mind and spirit. Do not separate the prayer from your persistence in its issues.” And so we read that once, in a certain place, Jesus was at prayer. When he ceased, one of his disciples said, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.” And he answered, “When you pray, say ‘Father, thy name be hallowed; Thy kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins, For we, too, forgive all who have done us wrong. And lead us not into temptation’ --- that is: ‘do not bring us to the test.’

And then he added this pointed parable: “Suppose one of you goes to a friend in the middle of the night and says, ‘My friend, lend me three loaves of bread; for a friend of mine is on a journey and has turned up at my house, and I have nothing to offer him;’ and he replies to you from the inside, ‘Do not bother me. The door is shut and locked for the night; my children and I have gone to bed and to sleep; and I can not get up to give you what you want!’ I tell you that even if he will not provide for you out of friendship, the very shameless persistence of your request will make him get up and give you all you need. And so I say to you, ask, and you will receive; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened. For everyone who asks, receives; he who seeks, finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.

“Is there a father among you who will offer his son a snake when he asks for a fish, or a scorpion when he asks for an egg? If you then, bad as you are, know how to give your children what is good for them, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him.” [see New English Bible.]

Jesus drew his parables out of the common experiences of people with their sheep-tending, their fishing, their vineyard and orchard-cultivating, their grain farming, their house-keeping. This parable must have leaped right out of his own experience around the house of his youth, and as a guest in the houses of others. And should guests come at night, the crisis would be especially acute. Hospitality was the custom. Travelers were welcome. And a night time arrival should make the host all the more anxious to make the traveler welcome and comfortable. The sleeping children might have to be shifted. Food must be provided for refreshment -- even if it meant a quick trip to the neighbor’s house. If the neighbor and his family were asleep, too bad; but no matter, he must be raised by continuous knocking. Even if the neighbor tells the caller to be quiet and go away, one must persist. Again and again one must knock until his neighbor is thoroughly awake, and is finally overwhelmed by such persistence. Then he will get up, give him bread, and perhaps a bit of friendly, heartfelt advice on one or two related matters!

“Now,” said Jesus, probably with a twinkle in his eye, “if persistence is the clue to success in hospitality, surely it will help in prayer. The man who needs bread has a right to persist in asking, in searching for, until he gets it. We who need things much more important than bread must be ready to stay with it in our search for them until we get them.” So Jesus, in this parable, makes this simple penetrating point: “The earnestness which we praise elsewhere in life is essential to creative prayer.” That is what he seemed to say to his inquiring disciples. And probably they did not need to learn that lesson any more than we need to learn it today. We find it fairly easy to recognize the need for persistence elsewhere, and even to praise it; but we may be reluctant to practice it is our religion. Yet, if experience is any indication for our living at all, it is essential to our religious experience and especially to our prayer life. If we want our prayer life to be creative, rich, refreshing --- if we want our participation in the life of the church to be strong and vibrant with hope and conviction, then we will want to give some renewed consideration to this virtue of staying with it. The need for persistence is widely recognized and acknowledged in all creative endeavors from kindergarten to the research laboratory -- from athletics to art.

Every parent, every teacher, knows that a real secret in the learning process is a concern, an interest, a determination to know. We say that the child, like the adult, must be “motivated;” he must be interested in what he is doing. If not, he will go about it with all the zest of a quarry slave being flogged to his work. Creative learning depends on the kind of interest and concern which makes the child want to stick to it until he actually succeeds.

When our children have been going through school, we parents have realized how deeply we are indebted to those teachers who could awaken the kind of interest and concern that caused our boy or girl to keep themselves at a job of learning until it was well done. This kind of persistence is born from within, though it can be nurtured from without. Education becomes a winning cause when parent and teacher can combine to encourage interest and tenacity in a child. It never hurts to know a lot about the subject one is teaching. But the best teachers are the ones who make us want to find out more for ourselves.

Every athlete appreciates the need for persistence in training, practice and performance. And we read, repeatedly, of those skaters, swimmers, ball players who literally slave at their chosen task until they master it. One’s whole life is organized around the undertaking --- food, rest, play, sleep --- everything the athlete does must fit into a pattern of successful discipline. He persists in it until the job is done. And that is both the making and the meaning of a champion.

Those who have read the biography of Thomas Edison will recall the phenomenal persistence of that man when he worked at any problem. Each problem was a vital, personal challenge to him ---a challenge which he must meet, and could meet only by complete concentration on it. Can anyone who has read of it forget the patient persistence with which he and his assistants searched for the right material to use as a filament in the new electric light bulb? For months, they trembled on the verge of success, only to be disappointed in one material after another. For all of that time, everything they could think of they tried --- until, finally, they found in tungsten that for which they had been searching so steadily.

It is hardly necessary to multiply illustrations of the meaning of persistence to success in life. But may I call your attention to one more, as it may be seen in the window designed of colored facet glass in the wall behind me in this church sanctuary. The architect’s first drawing of plans for this room did not include the window. The committee on worship and the fine arts came to feel a great desire for a window. And so, after some meditation, and thinking and re-designing, the architect came up with the suggestion of a window reaching from the floor to the top of the wall in the slender lines that would harmonize with the rest of the building’s architecture. He corresponded with an Indian artist in the field of church window designing. The artist pondered the commission for a time and them submitted an abstract design of striking beauty in form and color. His “miniature window” was studied by architect and committee; mounted where church members and friends could see it; it was pondered for quite a long while. It “grew” on us. Then it was agreed to accept it. Craftsmen in Menominee Falls were commissioned to execute the design and facet glass, in the appropriate shapes and colors, was ordered from the south. When the glass was assembled, but before it was cemented in place, pastor and committee went 165 miles to Menominee Falls to see it. Then the glass was set in the cemented pattern in which we now see it. When all was ready, the window was transported in three sections to the site of this building and was expertly installed in the space provided by architect and builders.

It was many months from the first concept of this window until the fulfillment of its promise could be seen when afternoon sun floods the room with glory made possible out of the patient perseverance of architect, artist, skilled craftsmen and devoted committee members. The patient nurture of creative insight finally became incarnate in a piece of art work that can lift the souls of people gathered here for generations yet to come.

The need for persistence in religion was no new theme in Jewish thought when Jesus raised it with his disciples in this parable. The high points in Israel’s heritage were so many mountain peaks of persistence. When God wanted to prepare the Israelites for a promised land, He had them spend some 40 years in a wilderness. Generation after generation came and passed away before the promised land was safely theirs. When carelessness and sin struck them with a spiritual blindness once more, they were exiled again and Jerusalem and the temple destroyed. Hard living in a foreign country became the lot of most of them. Faith was hard -- but they were equal to the test. They persevered in faith until, 150 years later, their children’s children went back to try it again in the homeland. They were marvels of faithful persistence. Some of their prophets, Hosea, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, were equally faithful over long periods of time even though things were going from bad to worse in the life of their people.

Through it all, Israel learned something of the patience and persistence of God. When God wants something accomplished, He sticks to it until it is done. When He wants something said, He raises up a prophet, or prophets, to say it. When he wants a people purified of sin, he causes a wilderness or exile to come. He who is so persistent, whose will never falters, requires of His people loyalty, faithful persistence, no matter where He leads them. And time seems to be on His side. No wonder the psalmist cried out that a thousand years in God’s sight were but as yesterday when it is passed, and as a watch in the night.

[Psalm 90: 4].

When Jesus recommended persistence, he was standing on hard-won ground, ground that he had tested himself, and was to test again in the garden of Gethsemene and on Calvary hill. He could look back on his long wrestle with the testing of temptation in the wilderness; he had had many an all-night vigil in prayer; he had left the crowds repeatedly in order to find the time to keep in close communion with his Father. His whole life and ministry were dependent now on the sustaining power and presence of God. It was far more important to him to be right with God than with man; more important to be close to God than to man; more important to be loyal to God than to man. His prayer was no idle piety; it was no after-thought. It was purpose, strength, life -- it was a turning of the best that he had, and all that he was, toward God: his fears, his hopes, his dreams and plans. Not for one moment did he believe that his prayer was a form of magic. It was his deepest, most determined, most completely conscious effort to break through all barriers and to keep in close personal touch with God.

The more we know of our own psychology, and the physiology of our own makeup, the better we can appreciate the value of persistence. We are wholly alive only when we apply ourselves to something. It is amazing how many things we do “half consciously,” as we say. And that is about the way we do it, too --- half conscious, half awake, half aware! There may be some things we can do that way: walk when we are half asleep; picking up and putting down our feet automatically. When we are dead tired we only half hear what someone may be saying to us. When we are unable to concentrate on a problem, its solution eludes us continually.

Jesus seems to say, “If you are ever going to learn to pray, you must concentrate on it, be deeply alive to it, concerned about it, aware of its enormous importance, and you must stay with it until you get an answer.” It was his follower, Paul, who wrote to the Thessalonians, “Pray without ceasing.” [I Thessalonians 5: 17]. That is -- make it a whole-of-life habit and attitude. Jesus was certain that God heard, heeded, and answered prayer --- not always the way he wanted it answered: but that God gave his own answer and Jesus was willing to accept. The discipline by which he learned to listen to God led into the discipline by which he was able to follow where God led. No one ever handled prayer with more firmness, and greater appreciation of the right and wrong ways to use it --- and the need for persistence in it.

True prayer is an exploration in the vastness of the will of God in search of meanings by which to live and companionship with Whom to live. If it took persistence for Columbus to discover a new world; for Polynesians to sail to Hawaii; for missionaries to come to remote places and stay; how much more persistence should it take to explore the meaning of God’s will for mankind. There is a sort of cumulative intensity in Jesus’ word: You must ask, you must seek, you must knock with increasing earnestness --- and you must stay with it --- keep at it --- until you get an answer.

A lot of this rebukes the way we think about prayer, and what we usually call praying, when we spend a few fugitive moments in half-dubious efforts, either whispering a few words learned in childhood or none at all. Is this in any way comparable to the earnest, determined, tenacious, persistent wrestling before God in prayer which we see in Christ and hear commended by Jesus to his disciples?

In his day, John Knox was a spiritual tower in Scotland. He was close to the heart of prayer when he used it as a way of winning the heart of his country to God. It is said that he was interrupted by his wife in the midst of a midnight prayer in behalf of his beloved land. She pleaded with him to go to bed and seek rest from “the terrible agony of intercession.” Knox rebuked his wife with the reply that through his prayer he had already won half of Scotland, and that if she had not broken in upon him, he would have won all of it by daybreak!

To our usual complaints about prayer, Jesus would seem to have a firm answer. To those of us who say, or think, “I don’t pray because I don’t believe in it,” he would answer: “If you truly believe in God, you will both believe in prayer and will pray.” He was, at their request, teaching his disciples how to pray: in what manner, in what attitude, and with what determination and trust.

To the objection: “I just can’t believe that God answers prayer,” he might answer: “Is God any more than a word to you? If He is to become a fact to you, you must take him with utter earnestness --- with utmost seriousness. The God who caused your creation into a being can hear, know and love you; and is able to do --not only as well as, but far more than -- His creatures. The cumulative experiences of mankind point to this conclusion.”

To those who say, “Well, I’ve tried it and I got nothing out of it,” he would say, “How hard, how insistently, how wholeheartedly, have you tried reaching God through prayer? Why did you quit trying? Did you quit believing in God? Was that why you quit praying to Him? You must put everything into it, or you get nothing out of it.”

To those of us who say, “Well, I’ve tried prayer and it doesn’t do any good; it doesn’t help a bit. I didn’t get what I wanted and I got what I tried to avoid,” Christ would answer, “I did not get what I first wanted, either, though I asked for it. But I did get what I most wanted: a knowledge of God’s will and the strength to follow it. What more can you ask than that? But don’t ask for it unless you really mean it. For me it meant a cross,” says Christ. Assuming that you are sincere, then ask it with all your soul, and keep on asking until you get it. That lesson is worth learning, from a teacher worth hearing, and a leader worth following.

Let us pray:

Father, thy name be holy to us. Thy kingdom come within us and around us. Give us each day the bread that nourishes us --- body mind and spirit. Forgive our sins of commission, of omission and neglect; for we, too, forgive those who have done us wrong. And do not lead us to testing more than we can bear. Thine is the power, the whole realm, the glory, the will by which we are to live in Jesus’ name and spirit.

Amen.

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Delivered in Wisconsin Rapids, March 10, 1968.

Kalahikiola Church, March 2, 1969.

Waioli Hui’ia Church, March 5, 1972.