prayer: 3 characters

Praying can be a challenge. Sometimes my words seem inadequate, limp and deflated as soon as they hit the air, never fully able to carry the whole of my heart and mind and body. This week, I came across a few stories which gave me a fresh outlook on prayer. Maybe they will do the same for you. Here is the first one.

Gregory Boyle, founder of Homeboy Industries, an organization which provides support and training for former gang members, tells the story of Andres, a young man who was abandoned by his mother when he was nine. Andres was homeless for two years and then entered foster care, after which came gang involvement and detention. Finally, Andres showed up at Homeboy Industries and entered their program. Andres began to meet regularly with a therapist and one Monday, the therapist brought in a box of crackers for the young man who was always complaining about being hungry. Andres was stunned.
"You mean ... you think of me ... when you're not here?"
The therapist nodded.
"Wow. I never pictured that anyone would think of me when they're not here." [1]

Boyle notes: "Without optimal care-giving relationships ... there is a chronic fear of both intimacy and being left behind. 'I will never forget you,' Isaiah has God say to us for this exact reason. And truth be told about our God: God thinks of us even when we don't think God's there." [2]

This story about Andres helps to undercut some of the unhelpful narratives which we can have about prayer. And it begins by recognizing the three main characters in the story.
1. The person who needs loves and care.
2. The person who abandons the one who needs love and care.
3. The contrast person who is attentive to the one who needs love and care.

Someone who has been neglected and abandoned develops an internal narrative that people forget about them, and it takes an encounter with a contrasting person, a person who remembers and cares, to challenge that pervasive narrative. When Jesus teaches his disciples about prayer, we find him doing this very thing: offering a contrast to the pervasive narrative about who God is and how God interacts with people.

In Luke 11, a disciple asks Jesus for instruction in prayer. He says, "Lord, teach us to pray." Jesus responds by offering a prayer in which they can join in, what we commonly refer to as the Lord's Prayer. But Jesus doesn't stop there. He proceeds to tell a story about knocking on a friend's house in the middle of the night to ask for bread, because you have just had an unexpected guest arrive and don't have any food to give them. The friend answers, "Don't bother me. The door is already locked, and my children and I are in bed." Jesus observes that even though this man will not get up and help you because you are his friend, he will help you because you won't go away until he gives you what you came for. Jesus continues: "Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened" (Luke 11:9-10, NRSV).

Again, we find three important characters in this story:
1. The person who asks for help in serving others.
2. The person who is reluctant to help/self-interested/otherwise occupied.
3. The contrast person who is willing/responsive/a good friend.

It is common for us to interpret this story as a reminder to be persistent in prayer. While that is certainly one of the lessons we can take from it, I don't believe it is the main point. Here, Jesus is rewriting a narrative for his listeners, upending a common misunderstanding of God as a self-important, reluctant, busy, do not disturb kind of God. Parables are stories which require the listeners to do some work. The meaning is not laid out for them to simply consume. They have to think about the characters, the interactions, and wrestle with the implications. Though it might seem like a story about how we should work harder in prayer, it is actually a story (via negativa) about the nature of God. Jesus reveals a God who is everything this so-called friend is not.

God does not sleep. God does not lock the door. God is not unwilling to help. God is not indifferent to the need of a stranger/foreigner. God does not need to be convinced to show some small gesture of hospitality. God does respond just because we are friends (not because we are persistent). Jesus reassures his hearers that if they knock, the door opens, if they ask, they receive, if they search, they find. Jesus reveals a willing, generous God, not a reluctant, stingy God.

A few chapters later, Jesus tells another parable about prayer. This time there is an unjust judge who neither fears God nor has respect for people (which makes one wonder why this man is a judge). A widow comes to him to ask for justice against an opponent. Remember, in that time and culture, widows had virtually no legal rights. Initially, the judge refuses, but because he wants her to stop pestering him, the judge finally relents and gives the widow justice. Jesus ends the story with these words: "And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?" (Luke 18:7-8).

The list of characters is familiar:
1. The person who needs justice.
2. The person who could give justice but does not.
3. The contrast person who cares/responds/acts/is just.

Once again, we are tempted to make this story about us and our persistent efforts in prayer. Indeed, the story is introduced as "a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart" (Luke 18:1). But why should the hearers not lose heart? Not because dogged determination pays off, but because this is a God committed to justice. Jesus is rewriting the narrative that God cares little about the sufferings of the poor and vulnerable. Jesus encourages his listeners to consistently ask God for justice because here is a God who responds, who hears the cries of the disadvantaged and does something about it. God is not slow. God is not indifferent. God hears and God acts. Justice is on its way. The invitation for the hearers is to trust that God is committed to justice, that the arc of the divine story is heading toward all things being made right.

Back to Luke 11. Jesus finishes off his teaching on prayer with these words: "Which one of you fathers would give your hungry child a snake if the child asked for a fish? Which one of you would give your child a scorpion if the child asked for an egg? As bad as you are, you still know how to give good gifts to your children. But your heavenly Father is even more ready to give the Holy Spirit to anyone who asks" (Luke 11:9-13, CEV).

The three characters are:

1. Hungry children (like Andres) who ask for food.

2. Imperfect fathers who provide for children and do not put them in danger.

3. A heavenly Father who gives the Holy Spirit.

I have heard people say something like this: "I am afraid that if I totally submit myself and my life to God, God will send me to [insert challenging and painful situation] or take away [insert things we love or enjoy]." In this teaching, Jesus is rewriting the narrative that we have a heavenly Father who plays tricks on unsuspecting children. God is not a trickster, not out for a laugh at our expense, not intent on teaching children hard lessons when all they want is a bite to eat. God gives good gifts. God is eager to give the Holy Spirit to all who ask.

So why would Jesus encourage people to ask God for the Holy Spirit? Why is this such a good gift from a heavenly Father? 

The Holy Spirit is Comforter, Advocate, Teacher, Helper, Giver of Life, Truth.

The Holy Spirit helps us grow in love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

The Holy Spirit gives gifts of faith, healing, miracles, prophecy, discernment, communication, and prayer.

The Holy Spirit also gives gifts of wisdom, understanding, counsel, courage, knowledge, humility, wonder, and hope (Isaiah 11). 

I don't' know about you, but I could use all of the above. Asking God for the Holy Spirit is asking God for everything that we need, and more. Asking God for the Holy Spirit is asking God to be present, to be near, to be our constant companion. And God is willing and ready to give God's very self to us. Jesus shows us that.

These stories not only rewrite our skewed narratives about God, they also give us clues about what to ask for when we pray. In the first story, someone asks for help on behalf of another person. In the second, the request is for justice. In this final story, the hearers are encouraged to ask for the Holy Spirit. We would do well to follow their lead.

In the end, Jesus is not telling people to pray harder or longer, but, as Andres might put it, letting people know that, despite our perceptions or experiences, God thinks about us even when we don't think God is there. That is the narrative which Jesus is telling all who will hear.

Lord, teach us to pray...

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1. Gregory Boyle, Barking to the Choir (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2017), 16-17.
2. Ibid., 17.

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