Genesis 18: 20–32 / Psalm 138 / Colossians 2: 6–19 / Luke 11: 1-13
This is the written version of the homily given at Flohr’s Evangelical Lutheran Church (ELCA) in McKnightstown, Pennsylvania on Sunday, July 27, 2025, by Fr. Gene Tucker, Interim Pastor.
“THIS IS A TEST OF OUR PRAYER LIFE AND PRACTICES”
(Homily
texts: Genesis 18: 20–32 & Luke 11: 1–13)
“This is a test. This is really a test,
a test of our relationship with God and our relating to Him in prayer.”
Today’s Old Testament reading, from
Genesis, chapter eighteen, and our Gospel reading, from Luke, chapter eleven,
each have to do with persistence in prayer. These texts challenge us to take a
close look at our own relationship with the Lord, and the ways in which we come
to Him in prayer.
Before we explore these ideas, let’s
look briefly at Luke’s offering of the Lord’s Prayer.
Notice that it follows, generally, the
same pattern as the version given in Matthew’s Gospel account. (This is the
version we use in our liturgy.) But there are differences.
The question naturally arises: “Why is
this version different from Matthew’s?”
Two possibilities present themselves:
1. It’s possible that Luke’s sources remembered what the Lord said differently
than Matthew’s record indicates. Recall that, at the beginning of Luke’s Gospel
account, he tells us that he had diligently checked his sources in order to
compile his account of the Lord’s life, work, death and resurrection. (Remember
that Luke was not an eyewitness of the Lord’s ministry. He was a Gentile and a
later convert to the Christian faith.). 2.
It’s possible that the Lord was asked on more than one occasion how to
pray, and the Lord offered different versions of the prayer. We often overlook
this possibility; it seems to me. It’s natural to think that the Lord offered
His prayer only once, but that may not have been the case. (The same thing could
also be true of other events in the Lord’s ministry.)
Now, let’s turn our attention to the
back-and-forth between Abraham and God, as we find it in Genesis. Then, let’s
take away some lessons from our Lord’s parable of the man who asks for a loaf
of bread at midnight.
In our Genesis reading, Abraham’s
haggling with God is almost comical. Can’t we imagine the back-and-forth? “What
if you find fifty righteous in Sodom, will you destroy it?”, Abraham asks. God
responds, “No, not for fifty.” The Abraham works the number of righteous
downward, and downward again, and again, until he gets to ten righteous persons
in the city. Turns out there aren’t even ten righteous ones in Sodom…it’s a
really wicked place, maybe one like the tent cities that followed the westward
advance of the building of the transcontinental railroad in the 1860s. Those
tent cities, which were freewheeling places, became known as “Hell on Wheels”
towns. Sodom must’ve been something like that.
In the process of working the number of
righteous souls downward and downward, it is Abraham who is changed, not God.
God already knows all about the conditions and the wicked nature of Sodom. But
as the back-and-forth unfolds, it is Abraham who realizes the reality of
conditions in Sodom. As the story unfolds, that wickedness becomes a reality,
as Abraham’s nephew Lot and a small number of his family are the only ones to
escape. Turns out, there aren’t even ten righteous ones in Sodom: Only Lot, his
wife and his two daughters are the only ones to escape.
Now, let’s turn to our Gospel reading.
There, the Lord spins out a tale about
a man who goes to his neighbor at midnight, seeking some bread with which to
feed a guest who’s just arrived.
The Lord’s story continues, as He says
that the man who’s been asked to open up the door and provide the bread, at
first refuses to do so. But when the persistence of the man doing the asking
continues, the man gets up and fulfills the request.
Notice the language that Jesus uses: “How
much more will the Lord give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?”
The Lord uses a rhetorical device known
as “lesser-to-greater”, marked by the words “how much more” to describe God’s
goodness. Jesus says, “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts
to your children, how much more….”
Note also that the Lord is using
hyperbole (exaggerated speech, meant to surprise or shock) in describing His
listeners as being “evil”.
Now, both readings offer us some
insights about our relating to God in prayer.
First of all, a fruitful prayer life
rests on the foundation of relationship. Abraham is only able to haggle over
the fate of Sodom because Abraham is in relationship with God. By the same
vein, the man asking for bread is able to do so only because he is in relationship
with his neighbor.
We cannot expect our prayer life to be
effective if we do not do what we must do to maintain a relationship with the
Lord. We cannot treat God like we do an ATM machine, inserting our special
prayer card, entering our authorization code, expecting to receive exactly what
we want when we want it, and then to go on with life. Prayer doesn’t work that
way.
Secondly, when we bring our needs and
our requests to God, we should expect that our perspectives will change. God
already knows the needs, and the situation, far better than we do. That was
certainly the case with Abraham.
Finally, being persistent is OK. Holy
Scripture seems to endorse the idea that we should be persistent in our prayer
life, bringing before God’s throne of grace our own needs, shortcomings and
failures, and bringing to God the needs and the challenges of others. God seems
to appreciate such a focus.
One final thought might be worth
adding: Prayer works. It always works. How it works is, at times, a mystery. Sometimes,
God’s answer is “Yes”. Sometimes, it is “No”, and sometimes, it’s “Not now”.
One more possible answer needs
acknowledgement: God can say to us, “Your request is outside of my will”. In
such cases, my own life is testament to the reality that what God had in mind
was far better than what I had in mind.
AMEN.
