GRASPING THE HAND, NOT THE PENNIES
Posted by: bhfbc <bhfbc@...>
December 29, 2002
(evening service)
Text: Luke 11:9-13
The story is told of a child who raised a panicked cry. Parents and
neighbors rushed to his aid and found that he had shoved his hand into
the opening of a vase and couldn't get it out again. The vase was a very
rare and, therefore, expensive Chinese vase. The adults tugged with might
and main on the child's arm, as he continued to howl with pain and
fright. Finally, there was nothing to do but to break the beautiful,
rare, expensive vase. As the adults gazed down upon the broken pieces of
their irreplaceable artifact, it became clear to them why the child had
been so hopelessly stuck. His little fist grasped a meager little penny
which he had found in the bottom of the vase and which he, in his
childish ignorance, would not let go.
We human beings constantly deal with God exactly like that foolish child.
For the sake of a worthless penny in our grasp that we think is so
important to keep, the valuable container of our relationship with God is
smashed. If we want this highest good - if we want to be God's children -
seriously and with all our power, then we would receive the penny, the
healing, the protection in need, and everything else with it. At any
rate, the one who is really cheated is the one who prays only when a
crisis arises and then lets God be some sort of far-away "good guy" the
rest of the time. That person pays too high a price; that person
sacrifices the valuable vase of eternal abundant life for the penny of a
moment's help.
Whoever is determined to pray - really pray - must reach for the hand of
God and not for the pennies in His hand. Whoever is solely interested in
the pennies has no interest in the hand after the "reward" has been
received. Because for the one who prays superficially, the hand was
merely a means to the perceived end, giving out the small change or
pulling the one who prays through a danger. Afterward, the hand can be
pushed away. It is of no more use; it has done its duty and can go away.
But true prayer is a difficult, frightful thing. It is full of
unexplainable mysteries. Why should I pray, for example, if God seems to
more than meet my needs without my prayer? It happens. And why should I
pray when God appears not to answer me when I do? That, too, happens. "So
I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find;
knock and the door will be opened to you." This is what Jesus says, but
there are many people who have difficulty with this promise. Sure, it's
easy for us to theologize - and we should - about the ones who don't
receive the Mercedes Benz they've prayed for. But what about the mother
who prays for food for her starving child one day and buries him the
next? Dare we call her prayer a shallow need, too?
Well, no doubt I've opened up some questions that I'll never be able to
answer. We can go round and round about these. If you don't believe me,
check out a religious library's holdings on the subject of prayer. You'll
get a carload of resources real fast. But not being able to adequately
answer a question is no reason to avoid it. Especially when the question
is driven by a Scriptural truth and promise.
We need to recognize right away the terrible truth that some prayer is
nothing short of blasphemy. In other words, it is offensive to God. What
else can it be but blasphemy when God is only our means to fulfillment of
some selfish end? This type of prayer takes its toll. If we turn God into
a puppet of our desires - even when that happens by the pious route of
prayer - then He will shut up His heaven, and we can find ourselves
thrown back into the silence of our unredeemed life. Perhaps we say, when
it grows so still around us, "God is silent," or even "God isn't there."
He really isn't there anymore, that's true. He really isn't there - not
because He doesn't exist, but, as Leon Bloy once said, because he
"withdrew." For a short-lived success, even perhaps our nerves played
tricks on us, we pushed away the hand of God's blessing and grabbed for
the pennies instead. We may as well make deals with the devil.
Grabbing for the pennies disgusted and pained Jesus. John 6:26 reads, "I
tell you the truth, you are looking for me, not because you saw
miraculous signs but because you ate the loaves and had your fill." Jesus
had miraculously fed the multitude so that they would perceive the true
bread from heaven behind that event, so that they would learn to know the
fatherly hand which led them and cared for them - that hand from which
tenderness and mercy flow. To the multitude, though, that event remained
clouded. It did not become transparent for them. So they overlooked the
Father's hand and yearned only for the "five loaves and the two fish."
Had they glimpsed the giver behind the gift and the Savior behind the
bread, this experience would have stayed with them throughout their life.
Then they would have known this from then on: we drag ourselves along the
thirsty miles of desert, but our Father is with us. He can provide oases
of fresh water for us. And even when we must go on and thirst again, he
can embrace us with his peace, so that the thirst does not incapacitate
us. Yet they, and others, declined this gift offered them in a miracle.
Once their cry for bread was answered, they did not say, "To God alone be
the glory," or "Glory to God in the highest"; instead, they rubbed their
overstuffed stomachs. Then they got up to go on and forgot the whole
thing.
What is involved in real, genuine prayer? Our text illustrates the idea
with the image of a son who asks his father for something. This is the
presupposition of prayer: that we are dealing with our Father, and that
we are His children. Without this presupposition none of it makes much
sense. And, since Jesus Christ shows us the Father, he is also involved
in our prayer, so we pray "in his name."
We are told, in no uncertain terms, "ask and it will be given to you;
seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened... Which of you
fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or
if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion?... how much more will
your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!"
But this still leaves us with questions. How often have we begged for
something and not gotten it? Don't we all know of bitter disappointments
and moments when there was neither speech nor answer as we fervently
prayed, so that we remained in emptiness, disappointed and alone?
In order to find answers to these pressing questions, we must first
ponder the very fine distinction between "asking" and "wishing." Let's
not be fooled. Sometimes pious sounding prayers are nothing more than
sentimental wishes. But Jesus never promised the Holy Spirit to those who
wished for something; the promise is to those who prayed earnestly and
sought purposefully. Many teachers on prayer remind us to be expectant in
prayer. Expect God to answer our prayers. Stories have been told and
embellished about prayer services held to ask for rain during drought,
but no one thinks to bring an umbrella. The stories are amusing, but they
do make a point: why pray for something if we're not willing to act like
we expect an answer? Why pray for an end to poverty if we're not willing
to help put an end to it? Why pray for children and teenagers to come to
know the Lord when we don't volunteer to help with Vacation Bible School,
camps, Sunday School, and other outreach ministries? Why pray for our
attendance to grow when we don't reach our community on behalf of Jesus
Christ who died on the cross? We don't expect God to answer these prayers
because we're not prepared for the results when He does! The first secret
of vital prayer is to be expectant.
A second secret about vital prayer is the recognition of who receives our
prayers. When the Berlin wall was dismantled, my family and I lived near
Fairfield, Iowa. In Fairfield, Iowa, a Christian school had gone bankrupt
some years before. In its place now stands the Maharishi International
University. The primary teaching at this institution is Transcendental
Meditation, which relates to Eastern religious mysticism. It was
popularized in the West by the Beatles and has been perpetuated by many
other popular actors and actresses since then.
Anyway, back to the Berlin wall. When it came down, Maharishi meditators
took credit for its destruction. Their claim, after all, is that world
peace is one of their central prayers and meditations. At the same time,
faithful, praying Christians took similar credit for the walls
destruction. After all, faithful Christians pray for world peace, too.
What's the difference? Who's right? Much of the world, I'm sorry to say,
doesn't recognize any difference. It's not completely the world's fault.
The ignorant can't be blamed for what they don't know, and many who have
been led astray are ignorant about who receives our prayers. But we who
do know are very much to blame for not teaching the difference - and
sometimes not even knowing the difference ourselves!
The difference is this: Christian prayer is specifically addressed and
knocks on a specific door. Hindu meditators, Eastern mystics, and New Age
spiritists have no idea who they are contacting. They'll just grab the
nearest spirit. Or perhaps of even greater danger, the spirit that they
think is most like them.
Christians had better know to whom their prayers are addressed. If they
don't, then their prayers had better include something like, "Lord, make
Yourself more known to me." And then those same Christians had better get
themselves off to Bible study, Christian fellowship groups, and other
avenues of learning about the faith they tag themselves with.
Christians pray to God, the Father, Creator of the heavens and the earth.
We pray to the Holy, Almighty God who loved and cherished His children so
much that He did whatever was necessary to redeem them. We address the
God who has the power to intercede in worldly affairs; indeed, the God
who has interceded in world affairs on behalf of His children. We pray to
the God who sends His Spirit to convict us of sin and to show us the way
of repentance, salvation, and new birth. When we seek to knock upon the
door of God, we get an exact address.
Of course, I, too, have had the common experience of every other person
who prays - God has not given me exactly what I asked for from Him. But
notice carefully something about this often abused passage. Jesus did not
say at all that those who asked their Father for bread would, under every
circumstance, receive that bread. He says that under no circumstance
would we receive a stone or a scorpion; in other words, something
harmful. Maybe I have prayed to God for something other than I need
spiritually. Maybe we looked for more prestige, while God knew better
that we need modesty or a curb on ambition. The comforting and beautiful
part of prayer is that I can ask even for "foolish" things; I don't have
to try to figure out what God will grant and not grant; I don't have to
act like a precocious child using stilted words that are much too mature
for me. When I pray, I can be myself. And during prayer, God can change
me and show me the better way of His will.
I think the greatest thing that the Bible teaches about prayer is that we
come into the presence of our Father through conversation. We taste His
peace in the midst of unrest. We attain a place to stand against
everything that presses in upon us and threatens to get the best of us.
When God lets our prayer succeed, and His face shines upon us, by the
time we get to the "Amen" we have sometimes forgotten the wish that
originally drove us to pray. Sometimes, it becomes unimportant because we
are overwhelmed to discover that in any case we will receive whatever
will serve us best. I am reminded of the woman who washed Jesus' feet
with her tears and hair as told in Luke 7. In the movie, Jesus of
Nazareth, this woman is portrayed as a prostitute who hears the words of
Jesus and then has them working in her until the point where she breaks
into the Pharisee's house and washes His feet. Her prayer became a
seeking driving her to a point that she could only throw herself at
Jesus' feet and upon His mercy. And Jesus said to her, "Your sins are
forgiven... Your faith has saved you; go in peace."
So it is not important whether or not misfortune befalls us, but whether
we know the place of refuge and the space under the shadow of his wings.
"Have mercy on me, O God, have mercy on me, for in you my soul takes
refuge. I will take refuge in the shadow of your wings until the disaster
has passed." (Psalm 57:1) It is not important whether we think we are
being persecuted or that everyone is against us, but only whether the
Father is our friend, and that we are beloved by God.
There were many European churches and cathedrals which were damaged
during World War II. There was one in which the tower beams were burned
from the bombings and collapsed. To the members of that church, their
church building was marred and its architectural beauty lost beyond hope.
However, there came an artist who took a badly scarred and charred beam
and carved out an angel with a comforting and unspeakably peaceful face.
God, too, is an artist. Even when much that we hold dear in this life is
shattered, despite our pleas, the artist creates a new thing out of that
which remains. God's thoughts are higher than our thoughts. He is still
able to take the rubble of our life and build bridges and stepping-stones
out of them, by which He leads us over all the valleys. And no depth may
swallow us.
To us, it was an extremely costly lesson to learn that an expensive vase
was ruined forever because of a childs grasp of a meager penny, and his
stubborn refusal to let it go. Yet we all know the importance of rescuing
a child from a dangerous predicament, even if he caused it.
God is the same way with us. We hold ourselves from Him because we have
our grasp on some measly thing that is only worth a penny in the scheme
of Gods Kingdom. We place ourselves into a dangerous fix because we do
not release our grasp on the pennies of mortal life: greed, envy,
power, and the like. Yet, God comes to us nevertheless. He creates with
His own hands the irreplaceable vase, Jesus Christ, which He then breaks
on our behalf to free us from that deadly predicament of sin we have
entangled our lives in.
When we think of God in this way, then our prayers will surely become the
kind of blessings that He wants us to have and enjoy. And we will know
that our every prayer is truly answered by the God who wants us to grasp
His hand, not the pennies.
Rev. Charles A. Layne, pastor, First Baptist Church, Bunker Hill, IN
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