The more I read about Jesus the more I find myself thinking about what it would have been like to hang out with Him when He was on earth. I imagine everyday would have been filled with a lot of interesting moments, at least that is how it feels as I read the gospels. The passage I read today was one of the moments I wish I had been there for, so I could ask Him what He meant. It comes after He has taught them how to pray (in Lukes account). I’ll let you read it along with my own underline.

Then Jesus said to them, “Suppose you have a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have no food to offer him.’ And suppose the one inside answers, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is already locked, and my children and I are in bed. I can’t get up and give you anything.’ I tell you, even though he will not get up and give you the bread because of friendship, yet because of your shameless audacity he will surely get up and give you as much as you need.

If I didn’t know this was in the Scripture, and was in a situation where someone asked me to read it, and then asked me whether this was something that Jesus had said, my answer would be NO! I just can’t imagine Jesus encouraging behaviour that is so bold it feels cheeky. Just me?

From some reading around this we find out that culturally the practise of asking a neighbour for food when a traveller had arrived in the night was not totally uncommon. Often travellers might arrive late in someones home, because they would travel at cooler times of day, and if they are visiting a poorer family there would be a chance they would have no leftovers to feed them. The natural course of action would be to check if their neighbours had anything. Neighbours would then be caught in a tension. On one hand getting up, probably with their family all in the same room, potentially disturbing the animals downstairs while they were undoing the door bolt, was not something they wanted to do. However the desire to be a good neighbour, helping others in need and not wanting a visitor to their village to go without (potentially bringing shame on that village) was also something they would want to avoid. Jesus is suggesting even if the friend chooses to ignore the request, if you keep going at some point they would have to answer and grant your request! This sounds so harsh……but very funny.

Of course with any parable this wasn’t just a lesson for life, there was a reason He was sharing it and it was linked to how He taught them to pray. Jesus continues;

“So I say to you: 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; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.“ Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 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 the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” Luke 11:5-13

From what we can read Jesus is telling us to ask, seek, and knock when it comes to our communication with the Father. He is suggesting that persistence, even shameless audacity, is a good strategy when it comes to prayer. It seems funny to hear Him talk about this and if I’m being honest my conservative Christian cultural background makes this hard to fully comprehend. Everything within me wants to make this piece of Scripture much more sanitary and clean but this isn’t want He is saying in this context.

I know at times I can be passive in my prayer life. Sometimes I forget how much prayer truly changes things, and often instead of believing that there is a power to change circumstances and situations I can settle into thinking that prayer is saying some nice words to let God know that we’re ok with however things work out. Of course we know that He is God and we are not, but passages like this challenge me to wrestle more in prayer when it comes to the things that I want to see ‘bound and loosed’ in my community.

I definitely would like to ask Jesus more about this one.