"A Child-Like Trust" - Luke 11:1-13 - July 29, 2001

Recently my wife and I had relatives from Florida staying at our home for my daughter’s wedding. We didn’t have enough room for everyone and several folks offered room in their homes to accommodate our guests. A very good friend offered his RV. We decided that it would work best and so we parked it in our driveway. That enabled everyone in the family to be in the same place. It made our transportation and communication needs much simpler.

It’s not unusual for friends to come to our aid when we need help. We often depend upon our friends in circumstances which go beyond our own resources. The offers of hospitality by our friends were a Godsend since all the motel rooms in Sidney were booked, due to the Dayton Air Show. As you recall it was also very hot last weekend and my friend’s RV included air-conditioning.

In this passage from Luke, Jesus interprets prayer as "friendship." In other words it is not just asking God to do things for us or petitioning God to rescue us. It is having a relationship with God, trusting that God will respond.

I believe that God always responds to us. However, at the real heart of having a prayerful relationship with God is to be like a child who trusts that he/she will be taken care of. Just as we can rely on a neighbor in the middle of the night, we can rely on God in any situation. Just as we can rely on a friend to help in time of need, we can rely on God.

Children, unlike we adults, are very trusting. As long as they have a bed to sleep in, food on the table and clothes to wear and they are loved, they have nothing to fear. They don’t worry about who is paying the bills, where the resources come from, or how it is all made possible. They simply trust that those who love them will take care of them.

I was driving to the church one afternoon when I saw a woman, walking with 10 young toddlers. They were holding hands and they were all connected with a rope. I was amazed how they seemed to follow her without any fear. They trusted her, in this case, a daycare worker, who would watch out for them.

Prayer is relational. Jesus prayed to "The Father." He trusted completely in God to provide for all his needs. It was a total surrender, like the children following the daycare worker. Just as they trusted in their leader, Jesus wants us to trust in God’s leadership for us.

Prayer is also reliable. Just as I could count on my friends to help me out with my room needs last weekend, we can count on God to respond to our needs as well. Of course this is where it gets a little tricky. When God doesn’t respond in the way that we want, we think that God has ignored us.

I was talking with a copier salesman last week and he was asking questions about our current copier. He asked, "When your machine breaks down, how is the response time?" I said, "It varies, but they always come." Sometimes there is a cost. Sometimes the problem takes only a few seconds. Sometimes they have to order parts. And sometimes we have to live with a problem because the machine has limitations.

I believe God works much the same. God’s response time varies and the outcome is not always to our liking. One thing we can always be sure of is that God is available. So when we pray to God we can be assured that God is accessible and hears our prayer.

Prayer is ultimately worship. It is an expression of our devotion to God, the One who provides for us. Prayer is relational, God is available and we can be trust that God will respond.

One other thing needs to be said about prayer. Prayer is corporate or social. Notice that when Jesus prays he says, "Us". Give Us, forgive Us, lead Us. To quote William Willimon (Pulpit Resource, July 2001), "Christianity is inherently communal, a matter of life in the body, the church. Jesus did not call isolated individuals to follow him. He called a group of disciples. He gathered a crowd."

Our faith has everything to do with friendship and relationships. Our faith is social. A variety of people over the years have contributed to our growth. Some have encouraged us. Some have taught us, and still others have led us. We say "Our" Father because we are the church, and Luke uses "Us" because we are a spiritual family bonded together through relationships, relying on one another and accessible as we open our lives to all who have need.

The most confronting aspect of the prayer Jesus teaches us is to pray is when he includes the phrase, "Thy kingdom come." That means to pray, not what we want, but what God wants. Jesus is teaching us to go wherever God leads. "If this prayer is to be believed, Christians are bound by cords of grace to all persons who profess faith in Jesus as the Christ, for in God’s kingdom there are no boundaries." (Homiletics, July, 1998, C. David Yeager)

Children, like those who were tied to the daycare worker with rope, go wherever they are led. They don't resist, they don’t go off on their own. They stay with the group. As I watched the little pre-school children, strolling along the sidewalk, I noticed they were all different. Some were different in color. You could tell by their dress they came from different socio-economic classes. Hand in hand they strolled, as if they were living in a world, unlike the one we know. All were equal and they were all connected and they walked with total trust in their leader.

To pray is to let God lead, to accept God’s answers, to be recipients of God’s gifts. "For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds and to him who knocks it will be opened."

Dr. Keith Wagner, St. Paul’s United Church of Christ, Sidney, Ohio