“Asking from a Friend: The Language of the Kingdom” (Luke 11:1-13)

Stories of the Kingdom, Part 3

This is the third of a nine-part series of mini-sermons designed to help students reflect upon Jesus’ parables, the kingdom of God, and living as kingdom people.

Kingdoms are typically defined by a series of features. A kingdom has a leader–the king–and his subjects. A kingdom has boundaries. It has laws. It has customs and culture. It has a language. In our first two lessons in this series, we asked two vitally important questions: 1) What do you want? and 2) To whom will you be a neighbor? Today we ask a third question: What is the language of the kingdom? Or to ask the question in another way, how do we speak to the king? But let me ask one more question: How do we speak to a friend? What do we expect from a friend? How are the answers to these questions different than if we were talking to a stranger or an “enemy”? Or to a king? Or to God? What do we expect when we talk to God? I fear that for many Christians, they expect to receive a response from God more like that of an enemy or stranger than that of a friend. Perhaps this is because God feels like a stranger to them. Perhaps it is because they have grown up in a context in which they were (and still are) filled with shame and think God is disappointed with them. Regardless, our expectations when approaching God mirror in many ways how we approach any person—our expectations likely determine the language we use, the boldness with which we make requests, or how confident we are we will receive a favorable answer.

Today’s gospel passage has three distinct movements that help us understand a vitally important part of our life: prayer, or conversation with God. The first movement is Luke’s recording of the Lord’s prayer. Here we see that the disciples are asking Jesus to teach them to pray. Surprisingly, this is the only place in the gospels where the disciples ask Jesus to teach them. He teaches them all the time, but only here do they directly ask for it, and this asking is indeed part of the lesson of this section. We will immediately notice that Luke’s account is shorter than Matthew’s leaving out things like the “our” in our Father, the line about the will of God being done “on earth as it is in heaven,” and a couple other differences. We will save a detailed look at the Lord’s prayer for a later week, so I won’t say much more about it here. Nevertheless, the context is of immense importance in understanding the meaning of verses 5-13. In asking Jesus to teach them to pray, Jesus only gives them a short prayer as a model. But He does go on and tell them a story, a parable of sorts, that speaks to an important aspect of prayer.

In this story, a man comes to his friend in the middle of the night to ask for three loaves of bread to feed another friend who has arrived seeking hospitality. At first, the friend seems to reject the request—”it’s late, my family’s in bed, the door’s locked, come again another time.” Yet the first man persists and the second friend, whether out of rethinking the situation and desiring to help or fearing the shame of rejecting a request for hospitality, relents. We will come back to this in a moment.

In the third section, we learn that this story serves as an illustration of prayer, of how we approach God. Immediately Jesus transitions the story to say, “ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you…” (v. 9). The story involves knocking on a door and asking for bread; Jesus says knock and ask. So far, the parallels are pretty clear. Jesus continues, however, to speak about a father giving gifts to his children. Matthew’s account of this saying expresses how God delights in giving good gifts to His children. Though we are sinful, we still in most cases aim to give good things to our kids; how much more, then, would a good and gracious and loving Heavenly Father give good gifts? The logic of this passage is the same and helps interpret verses 5-8. If your friend will grant your late night, impudent, and persistent request, how much more will God grant your request, since He is the supreme friend? Jesus’ point is that God, more than any earthly friend we have, will open the door to our knock, find and provide what we seek, and give to those who ask.

We return, then, to verses 5-8, to explore what this short story tells us about prayer. First, I don’t think this passage intends to teach us about the persistence in prayer. Some people come to that conclusion here, and I understand why. Moreover, I think in general we should be persistent in prayer—the psalmists were, the prophets were. So, maybe this passage does teach us to be persistent in prayer; but I fear that we may stop there, and that certainly isn’t Jesus’ point. The context suggests to me three primary points to this teaching on prayer.

First, we can and should address God as a friend, though not in such a way as we forget that He is Father and Lord. Nevertheless, through the redeeming work of Jesus Christ, we can be friends with God. Jesus models this truth as he invites person after person into friendship with Himself in His incarnation. I think the most beautiful explanation I have found of our friendship with God is expressed in Frederick Christian Bauerschmidt’s words in chapter three of his book, The Love That Is God. I don’t have time to explore it in full, so I encourage you to read it on your own (in fact, read the whole book!). One of the key insights in his chapter, however, is the recognition that “friendship entails conversation. And if we are called to friendship with God through the risen Jesus, then we are called to a life of conversation with God. Which is another way of saying that we are called to pray.” I mentioned earlier that one hindrance that some people have to addressing God in prayer is feelings of shame, thinking God is disappointed in them. Bauerschmidt addresses this wonderfully when he writes, “To become God’s friend is to step out in hope into an eternal moment, to be freed from regret and guilt, dread and anxiety, to gain some brief glimpse of our lives as God knows them.” To address God as Father and Friend in the name of Jesus is to be truly free.

Second, this freedom in relationship allows us, like the friend in the story, to be direct. We should not be impertinent with God, but neither do we need to beat around the bush. As Eugene Peterson says so well in the Message, “this is not a cat-and-mouse, hide-and-seek game we’re in.” Go to the door seeking what you need, knock, then ask directly. “Father, Friend, here is what I need.” Unlike the second friend in the story, God does not make excuses about the late hour; He rather hears and responds.

Finally, this passage teaches us to be expectant. We should expect provision from our friend. Admittedly, sometimes His response is not what we expect, often because we are in reality asking for what we do not need. As James writes in his epistle, we often ask for the wrong things. Regardless, we can approach God and ask directly as we would a friend, and we should expect Him to respond with provision. Remember, if you who are evil try to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask? And if a friend will respond to your need with provision, albeit sometimes with frustration at the inconvenience of the ask, how much more will your Heavenly Friend respond by providing what you need?

We can say much more about prayer. But at present, we see prayer and parable come together in this story to work upon our hearts and minds to remind us that God delights in giving good gifts to us. He is our Truest Friend. He is a gracious and loving Father. When we have need, go to Him in the name of Jesus. And lest we miss one more important point in this passage, look at what the promised gift is: the Holy Spirit (v. 13). Ask the Father in the name of the Son and He will give you the Holy Spirit. This is the language and lesson of the kingdom.