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Midnight is not the best time to go knocking on your neighbor's door for a cup of sugar, is it? You would really have to swallow your pride, wouldn't you, to wake up your neighbor at midnight and ask for his help? It would require a fair amount of shamelessness.

Jesus tells the story of a man who has an unexpected midnight guest, and he has no bread to serve him, no way for the host to be hospitable to his guest. He is helpless. He must swallow his pride and make his way through the dark to his neighbor next door and bang on his door asking to borrow three loaves of bread.

His neighbor, of course, is already in bed. It's a one-room house, you see, the whole family is sleeping there, on the floor, in that same room. To respond to his friend's request for bread, the neighbor will have to make his way to the door, being careful not to step on any of his family who are sprawled all over the room. Now even if the neighbor has managed to avoid disturbing his family in getting to the door, once he gets there he's going to have to unbolt it, and that will create even more of a racket.

But Jesus says, even if that neighbor won't go to the trouble to loan some bread out of a concern to be hospitable and friendly, he will at least do it because of the bold shamelessness, the stark helplessness, of his neighbor. And implied in all that is this argument from the lesser to the greater: if a human neighbor will thus respond to the shameless, helpless need of a friend, how much more so will our loving God respond to us, in our helplessness, in our shamelessness.

Now you may have noticed that I reinterpreted a key word in Jesus' story. The New Revised Standard Version speaks of the persistence of the door-knocker. An equally valid translation of that Greek word is shamelessness. And that, I think, is the better translation.

What compels the sleeping neighbor to respond is not the repeated, persistent asking for bread, but rather it is the shamelessness of the very act of asking. He comes as a beggar, stripping away his pride, and in humility and helplessness he presumes upon his neighbor's friendship.

No, this story is not about persistence in prayer. It's not about "knock, knock, knocking on heaven's door" over and over again until finally we wear down God's resistance with our much asking, and finally God grants what we want just in order to get rid of us. No, no.

If that were the case, that prayer is all about persistence, why, then I would have been the proud owner of a horse at the age of ten. Where could there be more persistence than in the prayers of a ten-year-old boy for a pony? So don't say that it all depends upon persistence. Don't say that to the mother whose knuckles are bleeding from "knock, knock, knocking on heaven's door" for her missing child, who is eventually found dead on the forest floor.

Rather, prayer is about our helplessness, about our utter shamelessness in asking. Many congregations across the United States have small group programs where that kind of helplessness and shamelessness is encouraged. One of the things that small groups are asked to consider, as they put together their covenant, is this: that anyone in their group could call any other group member in the middle of the night, asking for their help. Quite bold, wouldn't you say? You swallow a lot of pride, don't you, a lot of self-sufficiency, when you call up a friend and say, "Please, I need to talk."

That's the kind of boldness, that's the kind of utter shamelessness, with which we approach God in prayer. Timid prayers are silly. Timid prayers are a sign that we don't trust in God's ability to answer, that we are not really sure that God can do anything about our helplessness. It's almost as if we want to protect God from the terrible burden of our needs.

Prayer, people, is something more than just self-therapy. It's a lot more than just us getting our heads straight about what we ought to want or ought to do. Prayer like that has nothing to do with God; it's just you and I talking to ourselves.

But neither is prayer a technique for getting what we want. Some of you parents may be familiar with the Berenstain Bear's children's book, The Galloping Gimmies. Brother and Sister Bear turn every trip to the grocery store, every trip to the mall, into a chorus of "gimmie, gimmie, gimmie."

Lest we think "gimmie, gimmie, gimmie" is just a child's refrain, we Baby-Boomers need to recall Janis Joplin's song from the '70s:


Oh, Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes-Benz?
My friends all drive Porsches, I must make amends.
Worked hard all my life, no help from my friends.
Oh, Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes-Benz?


Prayer is not a technique for getting what we want. No, it's for getting what God wants to give. It is coming to God in bold shamelessness, laying out our needs, admitting our own helplessness. It may start out as "give me, give me, give me," but at some point prayer becomes "change me, change me, change me."

The movie Shadowlands is the story of the late-in-life friendship and eventual marriage of C. S. Lewis to Joy Gresham. When Joy is dying with cancer, Lewis talks to his friend, Harry, about prayer: "I pray," Lewis says, "because I can't help myself. I pray because I'm helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping. It doesn't change God, it changes me."

I pray because I'm helpless. It doesn't change God, it changes me. What might such a prayer look like, if one of us prayed out of shameless helplessness, out of a willingness to be changed?

O God, O God, I am at my rope's end! My pain is so great I wonder how much longer I can bear it. I am married to a man who doesn't love me, and I love him so desperately. It is so painful not to have my love returned. Would you work your miracle, O God? Heal our marriage! Haven't you given marriage to your people, this faithful commitment between husband and wife, haven't you given that gift to your people as a sign of your faithfulness to all of us? Why is that gift of yours absent in our marriage?

I know, God, I know that I have not been the perfect wife -- far from it. Change me, O God, open me up, so that I can become the person you have made me to be. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.


Do you remember the way Jesus' mind is working in these two stories that he tells? That he is moving from the lesser to the greater. "How much more so, God." That is especially clear in the second of his stories:

"Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish? Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!"


Moving from the lesser to the greater. You and I are the lesser. You and I are the ones who approach God in complete helplessness, out of utter shamelessness. We are the lesser, and we approach God who is the greater. This whole section in Luke's Gospel is all about our great God who is the giver of all good gifts. God gives daily bread; God gives forgiveness to those who ask; God gives to those who search; God reveals the gift of himself to those who knock; God opens the door; God gives the gift of the Holy Spirit. This whole passage is about our great God who is the giver of all good gifts.

When we the lesser come in prayer to God the greater, you and I are changed. We, in receiving God's good gifts in our lives -- the gift of daily bread, the gift of the eucharistic bread in this meal, the gift of forgiveness, the gift of the Holy Spirit -- in receiving those gifts you and I become greater. We are changed. We become more and more what God has already made us to be in his Son, Jesus.

Will you pray with me? Lord God, Giver of all good gifts, hear our prayer. The needs, the helplessness, the shamelessness in this worship room are staggering. Let us not be timid in our prayers. May we lay before your throne all of our needs. Then open us up, Lord God, to hear your answer, to receive your gifts for our lives, to be changed. In the name of Jesus we pray. Amen.