Morning Devotion for the Season after Pentecost
July 20, 2022
Feast Day of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, 1902, Amelia Bloomer, 1894, Sojourner Truth, 1883, and Harriet Ross Tubman, 1913
Invitatory
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son: and to the Holy Ghost;
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be: world without end. Amen.
Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness: Come let us adore him.
Reading: Luke 11:5-10
And [Jesus] said to them, “Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.’ And he answers from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door has already been locked, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.’ I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything out of friendship, at least because of his persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs. “So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.
Meditation – Peter Vanderveen
Persistence is a good thing – at least so it seems according to the use to which this passage from Luke has been put. In order to celebrate and honor the extraordinary work of four exemplary women, who persisted at length against formidable opposition, someone selected this text as reflective of their refusal to be quieted on matters of fundamental human truth. Few of us share the same singular commitment to change society for the better, in accord with principles that can only be considered absolutely basic. Conformity to the status quo is a powerful force. In the case of each of these women, however, they chose to persevere in order to prevail. And it would be understandable to laud their dedication as their “knocking until the door opens,” even at long last. Indeed.
But this is to use the text for ulterior purposes – our own – misconstruing what the text was meant to convey. (It’s a common danger in choosing Biblical verses to provide an imprimatur for traits in saints that we’d like to highlight.) The short illustration Jesus provided his disciples does not urge persistence so that, eventually, what is right will be acknowledged and publicly recognized and established within the structures of society. What’s right is of no consequence in Jesus’ story. The neighbor doesn’t get up and help because he’s finally convinced that providing assistance is what’s appropriate as a neighborly thing to do. He simply relents to the aggravation to which he’s been subjected. He can’t abide the irritation of the incessant knocking (it-just-won’t-stop!). So he is provoked into response, not convinced. He acts more out of exasperation and perhaps even fury rather than a shared vision of obligation and responsibility. What’s right doesn’t even come into consideration. What’s right is irrelevant.
What’s most fascinating about this passage – and it’s not the virtue of perseverance – is how it places us before God. Suddenly the most substantial guardrails of our understanding are removed: whatever transpires between God and us, it’s not already predetermined by a commitment that God has to some identified principle. And this goes against almost every impulse we have when thinking about God. For God, by our lights, must be the infinite power who will eventually secure what is right and true and just. God will make everything straight and level and fair. This is often our first presumption in prayer; which makes us feel safe, in the trust that God himself must conform to principles that insure a certain order to life, in which we can find refuge. But Jesus pulls the rug out from under our feet. In facing God the only thing that holds is that we are facing God: we, perhaps, in the mode of persistence; God, perhaps correspondingly, in the mode of wearied annoyance. And the only thing that is guaranteed is that God will respond to our persistence. We’re not told how.
This gives prayer an uncommon and frightening dynamism, which we deaden with the expectation that prayer is, perhaps, the ultimate form of conformity. Jesus wanted to shake us loose from this, so that prayer could be, instead, an amazing exercise of freedom, both God’s and ours – which would certainly revitalize whatever occurs when we enter into prayer. For what might change if we were to approach even the Lord’s Prayer as a form of provocation, knocking at a most unpleasant hour of the night?
The Lord’s Prayer
Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy Name,
thy kingdom come,
thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those
who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory,
for ever and ever. Amen.
