Earlier this month I was traveling to see family and friends, and I had the privilege of spending a Sunday afternoon with my brother James and his tribe. My niece and her husband have adopted a boy and a girl, who are now ages two and a half and seven months.  While I was getting my baby fix by rocking the little girl to sleep, my brother was down on the floor playing tractors with his grandson.  He was oblivious to all of us – to our mother who was sitting on the sofa, to his wife and his son-in-law, and to his daughter who was taking pictures of him.   

            Later we went for a walk and my brother told me, “Anything Ethan wants, I’ll get it for him.”  I personally think my brother should not by-pass Ethan’s parents, but he is firm in his conviction that if Ethan asks for it, Ethan will get it.  We did not discuss whether the gifts would be within the bounds of reason, but I trust my brother to be as wise as a grandfather can be.   

            How would you like to be Ethan and have someone whom you could ask for anything your heart desires?  Here’s good news:  you don’t have to be Ethan have such a person in your life. By virtue of your baptism you already have someone you can ask.  That Someone is God.  Here’s even better news: if you get to know God, eventually your heart will desire what God desires for you.   

            Our Gospel for today outlines the ways in which we can ask God for anything.  First of all, we get to curl up in God’s lap and call God “Father.”  God is “our” father, the father of all of us, because Jesus says so.  Jesus’ example of calling God “father” is intimate and we are invited into that intimacy.  The very act of praying is intimate because when we pray we reveal our souls.   

In God’s family, as in every family, there are standards of behavior that are set before us.  Jesus knows we are not always going to meet those standards, so Jesus says we can ask forgiveness for our sins.  If we are so disposed to ask forgiveness for our sins, chances are good that we will realize that other people also need forgiveness.  But if we are not inclined to forgive others, we might start thinking that we are perfect, and God knows that is just not so.  The Lord’s Prayer as outlined in Luke’s Gospel shows us how to recognize that we are all in the human race together.   

            So before we get around to specific requests, Jesus gives us ways to soften up our hearts to think and to pray like Jesus.  In thinking like Jesus, we learn first of all that God is God and we are not.  In hallowing God’s name, or holding God’s name as holy, we think about the otherness of God.  We can ponder the creative powers of God.  Did you ever watch a storm at sea from the shore? The lightening can go in all directions, and sometimes the clouds glow from within and flashes of light come from where we do not know.  But we do know there is no way we could duplicate such a light show.   

            In hallowing God’s name we can ponder the wisdom of God, and think about how God knows our coming in and our going out, our rising up and our sitting down, and knows our every thought from afar off.  God knows our needs before we ask and waits patiently for us to communicate with God. If we meditate on all this we might never get around to asking for anything, yet Jesus instructs his disciples to ask.   

I recently saw the film Evan Almighty.  In it Evan the rather naïve young congressman goes to Washington.  His wife and three sons arrive with him and when they get to their new house, his wife and children decide to pray.  Evan’s wife tells Evan what they had prayed for.  One of the boys had prayed for a dog, but by then we all knew that a stray Boxer had shown up at the house that day and he wanted to keep it.  Evan’s wife shared that she had prayed that their family would get closer together.  Evan’s campaign promise had been that his goal was to change the world, so he got down on his knees and had a timely discussion with God. I won’t give away the ending, but each one who had prayed got his or her prayers answered.  But the answers did not come in the way they expected and as a result they all got to know God and each other better.   

In Jesus’ story about the man who goes to his friend at midnight and asks for loaves of bread, we might think these two people knew each other well.  If you had such an emergency at midnight, do you have a good friend whom you could awaken and ask to raid their refrigerator?  Are you comfortable enough with praying that you can wake up in the middle of the night and call on God?  

In Jesus’ story, persistence pays off and the man gets “whatever he needs.”  Maybe he wasn’t asking for enough.  Maybe he got some hummus to go with the bread. Jesus adds that if any of us will ask, search, and knock, we will be rewarded for our efforts.   It’s starting to sound almost like my brother and his grandson Ethan.  Whatever Ethan asks for, he will get it.  But if we ask God for a fish, we might be thinking salmon, and God might be thinking we would better off with mahi-mahi.  God knows what we need and God gives good gifts.   

In the category of Ask, Seek, and Knock, if you are worried about making a difficult decision, let me challenge you to do this:  for the next five days, ask God this question:  “What do you want me to do?”  You might have to ask that more than one time a day, but ask in sincerity, “What do you want me to do?”  The answer might surprise you, because what we are really looking for is God, and the wisdom that comes from God.  God will help us with that.  Maybe in order to find God we need to see a miracle such as having our daily needs met.  But prayer puts us into relationship with God, and that means we would be praying like Jesus.  Jesus wants our prayers to be as natural as breathing.    

Most of all God gives the Holy Spirit to those who ask.  I think this passage is more about God giving God’s Holy Spirit than it is about receiving worldly goods.  If we have the spirit of God we have the spirit of wisdom.  We will be more in touch with God and more in touch with ourselves, and therefore more able to ask for the right things, if we need things.  We will be in a daily walk with God knowing that God will never leave us nor forsake us.  We will be in relationship with God and our lives will take on a quality and a glow that we never knew was possible because God will give us God’s Holy Spirit.  Who could ask for more? 

Today we come to baptize Sarah Garrett.  We will pray that she will be filled with God’s holy and life-giving Spirit, because Jesus said if we know how to give good gifts to our children, how much more will God give the Holy Spirit to those who ask.  Sara will never be the same after today, and someday she will understand why.  Someday, she will be able to ask, seek, and knock, and to pray like Jesus.   

Amen.