A Good Father, "good things," and a good prayer ~ Matthew 7:7-11 (Snapshots of the Sermon on the Mount series)

 

In the movie Bruce Almighty, Bruce Nolan (Jim Carrey) feels like God has turned his back on him, and he decides that God must be either non-existent or evil, because he refuses to answer Bruce’s prayers. In order to teach him a lesson (or several), God (Morgan Freeman) gives Bruce a unique opportunity: he allows him to temporarily have all of God's powers!

At first, Bruce has a great time and uses them to get revenge, to have a bit of fun, and to get the big promotion he always wanted at work. But then, in his head, he begins to hear a loud and confusing sound of several people talking at once. He can't figure out what it is until God shows up again and explains that these are prayers, and if Bruce has all that power, he needs to use it to help others instead of just being selfish.

Bruce tries several ways to organize prayers so he can handle them (you can watch the hilarity by clicking HERE). He finally organizes them in the form of e-mails, but after spending all night trying to answer prayers at break-neck speed, he realizes that there are more prayers than he can handle, so he decides just, "Reply Yes to All". Suddenly, thousands of people win the lottery all at once which results in a riot, and Bruce can't figure out why everyone's upset. After all, he gave them everything they wanted! God's reply is insightful:

"Since when does anyone have a clue about what they want?"

 
Now – I know that Morgan Freeman is not God, that this is a movie and not Scripture, and yet I can’t think of a more true statement about us. I honestly rarely have a clue about what I want. How about you? And into that truth about our often misguided wants and desires – swaggers Jesus who beckons us to “ask, seek, and knock.” What do we do with that? How should we respond? How might we pray? I won’t be able to answer all your questions but I’d like to offer a few hunches as to how to understand Jesus’ words about prayer in a healing way.

One of the hunches that seems really important to Jesus’ point about prayer is . . .

Who you believe God to be will affect how you pray.

The truth is we often don't know what we really want, and if God gave us everything we asked for, we’d be in real trouble. A God that gave us everything we wanted wouldn’t be good God in the same way that a parent who gave us everything we wanted wouldn’t be a good parent. But it’s also true that a God that demanded that we beg, bow, barter, cajole, convince, wouldn’t be good either. But here’s the thing – we don’t actually have to know exactly what we want, be properly spiritual even, to pray. We can pray persistently Jesus says, because God is good.

Jesus invites us to pray because God wants nothing more than good things for us, even when we might not know what that good thing is.

God tells Bruce in the movie...

"Remember, everything I do, I do because I love you."

That’s close but to what Jesus says but not quite. I don’t believe that we have to understand everything that happens to us as God’s “doing.” Jesus says something different. We should pray, Jesus says, because God always loves you and because God is always good. So you don’t have to worry about whether you’re always praying for the right thing. Because you won’t always pray for the right thing. But – never fear – God is always good.

And that brings me to my second hunch . . .

How you pray will affect who you become.

We’ve already acknowledged that we are terrible knowing what is good for us – what we want – even what we always need. But God is always good.

A person prays, says Augustine, “that he himself may be constructed, not that God may be instructed.” And in Jesus’ words there is a sense of persistence in which we become involved with God in our own transformation.

There's a wonderful illustration of this in the sequel to Bruce Almighty called Evan Almighty. There, God (Morgan Freeman again) puts it this way:

"Let me ask you something. If someone prays for patience, you think God gives them patience? Or does he give them the opportunity to be patient? If he prayed for courage, does God give him courage, or does he give him opportunities to be courageous? If someone prayed for the family to be closer, do you think God zaps them with warm fuzzy feelings, or does he give them opportunities to love each other?"

And this truth takes back to what Jesus possibly means by stating that our heavenly Father will give us “good things.” What does that mean? Does that mean that we should spend our time praying to win the lottery, or for a parking space at the mall, or for the weather to change? Well, of course you can pray for anything, right? But specifically what does it mean to pray for “good things”? Well, here’s where a tried and true method of Bible reading can help us. The Gospel writer Lukes also records Jesus’ teachings from the sermon on the mount but places them in a different setting and with a few helpful interpretive differences which can help us perhaps understand them better.  And Luke helps us interpret Jesus’ meaning of “good things.”

Here's what Jesus, according to Luke, says, “¹³ 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!”

There you go. So according to Luke Jesus isn’t promising that anything asked with a certain perseverance will be received but that the “good things” are, well, God.

I’d like to make the point by stealing and altering a quote from Patch Adams, the activist and physician who made great strides in greater patient care. He’s known for saying, “You treat a disease, you win, you lose. You treat a person, I guarantee you, you’ll win, no matter what the outcome. 

Friends, I think that Jesus’ whole point, with the help of Patch Adams, could be said like this: "You pray for “things,” you win, you lose. You pray for the Spirit, for more of God, I guarantee you, you’ll win, no matter what the outcome.” 

The prayer that God will always answer “yes” to, more and more and in greater measure, is the gift of God’s own self – the Spirit. God is the One who is the source of all “good things.” Do you want a life full of good things? Ask, seek, and knock for God. Do you want a more just world? Ask, seek, and knock for God. Do you want the weather to change or would you rather be at peace no matter what the weather is? Ask, seek, and knock for God.

There’s nothing wrong in asking for things. Nothing. Provided that you know that Jesus’ isn’t speaking about anything and everything that you might ask for. But I want to encourage you. God is good. God will give in abundance that which God can never say “no” to – God’s own self, your own transformation, to become more like Jesus in the world. So stop spending time on the parking space and ask for that “good thing” which will change the world.