An Excellent Adventure

Proper 12, Year C

“I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, at least because of his persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs.”  From the Gospel according to St. Luke.  In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Prayer is one of those things that when you look at it presents a bit of a paradox.  On one hand we believe that we have a God who is completely in control.  We have a God who knows what is best for us and has a divine plan.  He is all knowing, all powerful, and most importantly for this discussion, unchanging.  On the other hand we are commanded to pray, to come before God asking for those things which we desire.  We are given the Lord’s prayer as a model, followed by the friend who comes at midnight as an example.  From this example we see that we are to be bold, even a bit shameless in our petitioning as well as persistent.  Then it is related that God is more loving, more giving, more perfect, than any human friend or even father, so how much more will he give us what we ask for.  So which is it, does God know what is best, and act accordingly, or does he listen to us and act based on our petitions.  Either God is sovereign and unchanging, rendering our prayers useless or he is changeable and can be swayed by our prayers, which kind of weakens the case for his divinity.

One explanation that attempts to reconcile these two seemingly contradictory realities is that prayer is intended, not to change God, but to change us, so that we can be the agents of change in the world.  The idea is that when we are in communication with God, we can more easily see his will, he lets us in on the plan.  We obtain a different perspective and we can more closely align our human will with his divine will.  I like this and there is much truth to it.  In any relationship, communication is key to understanding the wants and desires of the other person.  When we know what God wants we can get on board, understanding that he really does know best.  But I just can’t believe that this is the whole story.  This attitude of prayer, while maintaining God’s sovereignty, diminishes his generosity.  It completely leaves out room for God to respond to his people and destroys the interactve aspect of our relationship with God.  But thankfully, we don’t have to reconcile these two realities.  While logically it might seem that they are in contradiction, that contradiction is based upon a logic that doesn’t account for another aspect of God’s being.

Let me take you all on a rabbit trail for a moment.  Now, when I was younger there was a really cool movie that was pretty popular; Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.  I’m going to assume that some of you here haven’t actually seen this cinematic masterpiece, starring a young Keanu Reeves and some other guy.  So, here is the basic premise; Bill and Ted, two high school students and best friends, must pull off a perfect grade on their final history project in order to pass their class and avoid Ted being sent off to military school.  Well, it turns out that they are destined to be the catalysts, via their rock band Wyld Stallyns, of an age of worldwide peace and their separation would put that in jeopardy.  So, George Carlin is sent back from the future to help them essentially kidnap various historical figures to give presentations for their final project.  They grab Socrates, Billy the Kid, Abraham Lincoln, Joan of Arc, Genghis Khan, Napoleon, Sigmund Freud, and Beethoven and bring them to modern day San Dimas, California.

Naturally, hi-jinks and hilarity ensue.  Just stay with me, I promise this is relevant.  One aspect of their time traveling shenanigans is that they can cause objects to be available or certain events to take place at opportune times.  For instance, in one scene, they need to get their historical figures out of jail where Ted’s dad has them locked up.  They then realize that if they go back in time, they can steal the keys and hide them nearby, so that they will be there at that moment.  But, at that point they don’t have time, so they just have to remember to do it after their presentation.  And they look and voila, there are the keys.  They can essentially work outside of the flow of time, enacting a present reality, by past action, accomplished in the future.  Incredibly confusing stuff but it illustrates, albeit in a very limited way, how God exists in relation to time.  He exists outside of it.  So, there is no reason why, in his unfathomable eternal nature he couldn’t weave our prayers into his divine plan from before the existence of time as we know it.  Now, am I sure that this is how it happens, of course not, but it seems contrary to God’s character to tell us to pray for the things that we want or want to see happen only to say, “that’s nice, but here’s what is best for you.”  That is like asking someone what they want for their birthday, then getting them something completely different and explaining to them why what you got is better.  Your present may be better than what they asked for, but if you knew from the start what you were going to get them, why even ask in the first place.  God asks us what we want and tells us to make our petitions known in prayer, so I have to believe that he takes them into account while maintaining his sovereignty and changelessness and this is one way of looking at things that allows for that possibility.

Jesus tells us to pray and not only does he tell us what to pray with the words of the Lord’s Prayer, he tells us how to pray, following the example of the friend who comes at midnight, with boldness and persistence.  And while we may not understand how it works, we know that God is listening and so we go before him to ask for everything we need and give thanks for everything we have.

In the name…