“Open Doors for Troubled Souls” – Luke 11:1-13 – July 29, 2007

Although this passage begins with instructions on prayer, the over arching theme appears to be about being persistent. Jesus’ prayer to God is a petition for our needs. For example, the prayer includes giving us daily bread, forgiving us our sins and not to be put to the test. Apparently Jesus is saying, it’s okay to bother God with our needs. That persistence is expanded upon with the story of a man going to a friend in the middle of the night. The man’s friend had already gone to bed and locked the door. But, since he kept knocking the friend finally gave in.

Jesus further expands the importance of being persistent by telling us to “Ask, search and knock.” In other words he doesn’t want us to give up. By continuing to solicit God, God will eventually open doors for us and give us what we need. God responds, but we may have to wait and be patient for that response.

It might appear as though Jesus is asking us to beg. On the contrary, Jesus wants us to knock on God’s door because it means we are admitting our dependency upon God. We persist because we need God in our daily lives. We need nourishment for the body and we also need forgiveness for the soul.

The neighbor in the parable most likely represents God. God is like a friend who can always be called upon, even in the middle of the night. It may appear that the neighbor didn’t care at first. Have you ever been awakened in the middle of the night?

One time while sleeping I heard a knock at the door. I thought I was dreaming. Eventually the knock woke me up. At first I thought the knock was coming from next door. Then I realized someone was knocking at my door. Since it was in the middle of the night I could either ignore the knock or respond. The knock didn’t quit so I put on my robe and went downstairs to open the door. When I turned on the light there was a police officer standing on the porch. I wondered what the problem was. At the time I was new to the neighborhood. The officer wanted to inform me that my garage door was standing open. I thanked him, closed the garage door and returned to bed.

As you can see it took me awhile to respond to the knock on the door. Sometimes it takes God time to respond to our knocks as well. Like the man in the story, he had a family to protect and care for just as God does. (The whole world) The man didn’t respond immediately but he did respond. Just because God doesn’t respond to us immediately it doesn’t mean God doesn’t care or that God is unaware of our needs.

Since we live in a culture that is influenced heavily by instant gratification, we want everything now. For us the door of life is like the door at WalMart. It opens immediately when you arrive and it is open 24 hours a day. However the door to God is more like the door to a catalog store. You have to wait awhile to receive your purchase. Sometimes we have to wait on God for an answer.

For me this story could be about three different doors. The first door is “the door of time.” God’s time is endless or infinite. God always has the time to listen to us. It is we who keep the doors of God closed because we have timers. The doors don’t open for us because we have conditions, time frames, agendas and deadlines. This door is a door with a timer. It is only open at certain times because we live by the clock.

Dr. C.C. Albertson once wrote this about time: “It might be wise for us to take a little inventory of our resources as to time and review our habits of using it. There are 168 hours in each week. Fifty-six of them we spend in sleep. Of the remaining 112 hours, we devote 48 to labor. This leaves 64 hours, of which we can assign 12 hours for our daily meals. That means we have 52 hours of active life to devote to special purposes. It God deserves a tenth then we only have to give God 5.2 hours. If only one hour is used for worship then we still have 4.2 hours for our spiritual well being. That gives us plenty of time for bible study, reading the scripture and daily prayer. And, we still have 45 hours a week left for chores and personal entertainment.”

When we continue to say, “I’m too busy,” or “I don’t have the time,” the door remains closed and we make no time to listen to God. I am in the habit of taking time for daily devotions. I include everyone in my prayers who need God’s attention. I discovered through my studies of the Lord’s Prayer, that I wasn’t taking any time to listen. Now my daily prayers include a time when I am not petitioning God and God can speak to me. “Ask, and you will receive.”

The second door is “the door of limited resources.” God’s resources are vast in comparison to our own. We lack, but God does not. God wants us to have access to God’s unlimited resources but we want to be in control of what we receive. Somehow we think that we know what we need instead of God knowing what we need. This door is like the door at the local grocery store. All the things we don’t need, like junk food and candy, are just inside the door. But, those things we really need, like meat and milk are in the furthest corner of the store. In other words, we have to be willing to seek and search until we find what we need. But they are on the shelves.

In 1928, a happy, ambitious young nursing student was diagnosed with tuberculosis. Her family sent her to a nursing home in Saranac Lake. She remained there in bed for twenty-one years. Most people would have given up, seeing no possibility of an open door. Isabel Smith did not give up. She was near death on several occasions but she never cased to pursue the art of living. She read voraciously, wrote letters, studied geography and taught other patients to read and write. She walked through one open door after another.

While ill she met a kind, gentleman, who was also a patient at the sanitarium. She dreamed of marrying him and having a little house in the mountains. She kept her dream and in 1948 they were married. She then wrote a book about all the good things of her life. Wish I Might, was published in 1955. Isabel Smith earned enough royalties from her book to buy a mountain retreat. (from God’s Little Devotional Book, Class of 2001, Honor Books)

“Seek, and you will find.” Not all our lives may turn out quite like Isabel Smiths. Hopefully we won’t have to endure years of illness and suffering. But Smith never hesitated to find a door that led to something new. She walked through them and she received the bounty of God’s resources.

The third door is “the door of fear.” God is always ready to forgive us and set us free but we don’t walk through it because we are so ashamed or embarrassed we are afraid to approach God. For a person in that society not to have bread for a visitor was shameful. Hospitality was an important value. The neighbor did not reject his friend but helped him by giving him the bread he needed. Therefore the man was forgiven. He had nothing to fear. He was not turned away and he received the bread as a free gift. Likewise, forgiveness for us is a free gift. This door is like a revolving door. We go around and around and we can’t get off because we are afraid to let God open it for us.

Rabbi Harold Kushner wrote this in his book, When All You’ve Evert Wanted Isn’t Enough. “A business associate of my father’s died under tragic circumstances and I accompanied my father to the funeral. The man’s widow and children were surrounded by clergy and psychiatrists, trying to ease their grief and make them feel better. They knew all the right words, but nothing helped. They were beyond being comforted. The widow kept saying, ‘You’re right, I know you’re right, but I doesn’t make any difference.’

About that time a man walked in, a big burly man in his eighties who was a legend in the toy and game industry. He had come to the US illiterate and penniless but had built up an immensely successful company. He was known as a hard bargainer, and a ruthless competitor. Despite his success, he had never learned to red or write. He had been sick recently and his face showed it. He walked over to the widow and started to cry, and she cried with him. You could feel the atmosphere change in the room. A man who had never read a book in his life spoke the language of the heart and held the key that opened the gates of solace where others could not.” “Knock, and the door will be opened unto you.”

What the disciples were asking, seeking and knocking for was the kingdom of God. When Jesus taught them to pray he included the words, “Your kingdom come.” The kingdom of God is not a far away place. It is just on the other side of these three doors. The doors of “time, limited resources, and fear” stand it our way. By being persistent and knocking on God’s door, it will eventually swing wide open.

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