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S. Pentecost 7.25 Gen. 18; Luke 11:1-13

When you pray say: ‘Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven…’

Be careful what you ask for, especially if you’re asking… God! I would say this is the takeaway from both our OT and Gospel readings. But careful—not for the reasons most people think. I get a lot of questions about prayer and I’ve learned most people think that God will only give us what we want if we live up to the standards he sets in the law—worship him his way, don’t take his name in vain, honor father/mother, don’t kill, don’t commit adultery, don’t steal, don’t lie, don’t covet your neighbor’s people or pets.

But if that were the case, you wouldn’t need to be careful what you ask God for, just careful of how you behave—because if you aren’t well-behaved, you won’t get anything you ask God for, anyway, right? And if you are well-behaved, you’d only be asking for right things anyway, right?

I’d say… No!

Did you hear what Jesus says at the end of our Gospel? “So I say: ask, and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened…” And this is the case… unconditionally! Everyone—good or bad, Xn or pagan, gets whatever they ask from God, regardless of whether what you ask is good for you or bad for you, ultimately…

There are NO strings attached to GOD’S gifts!

This is why I say you need to be CAREFUL! what you ask God for, because, ultimately. he will give it! Now, I will qualify God’s giving in this way: sometimes God will take his sweet time giving the winning lottery ticket, or the ’73 911 Carrera RS, or having the smoking hot babe in the dive-bar answer: ‘sure, why not?’. That delay is God’s way of saying, “Are you really sure that’s what you want? That’s going to make you happy? Really?”

Just like parents don’t (usually—some Russian parents will 😉 give their children a pet bear cub, or a ‘73 911 Carrera RS for their sweet sixteenth! Good parents care about their kids and don’t want to see them get hurt by things that are definitely fun but dangerous and can kill you!

I got a great birthday card this year. There’s a 1930’s looking picture of a man sitting in a lodge with a very large live bear looking at him rather ominously. And it says underneath, “Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” You open the card and read: “Except bears. Bears will kill you.”

But; that lesson, some people never learn! They think bears, ’73 Porsche 911 Carrera RSs, and smoking hot babes met in dive-bars can be tamed—that they’ll never maul you, spin off the road backwards into a tree and burst into flames when you lift in a fast corner, or break your heart into a million little pieces…

This is why I think it’s a little scary—Jesus promising that; whatever we ask WILL! be given to us, whatever we seek, we WILL! find, and whatever door we knock at persistently WILL! open to us! Because… HELL has a door too, that we keep knock, knock, knockin’ at, all the time! Because we’re idiots. Sin has made us this way!

I knew this guy back in grad-school, working at the library one summer, who was fending off the advances of an attractive young heiress, because he planned to marry his college sweetheart, a great girl, someday. He was a car-nut and had a weak moment on his way to lunch when the heiress met him in the parking lot and said, sweetly: “have lunch with me and drive my car”—a ’73 911 Carrera RS which also looked fast and dangerous… 😉

After successfully negotiating the first quick-ish corner, he thought: “these things aren’t nearly so dangerous as everyone says!” And a voice sounded, maybe only in his head: “You are such an IDIOT! This can only end in tears!” And he suddenly remembered his awesome girlfriend, remembered he needed to be back at work, turned around, and never saw the heiress again. I think he still thinks those race-homologated early 911 Carrera RSs are cool—for other people 😉

Be careful what you wish for. Be especially careful what you ask GOD for! Because he will give it to you. And bears will kill you. Just ask the 42 kids’ parents Elisha sent the 2 she-bears to visit!

Abraham apparently didn’t learn this lesson after the Hagar affair. He TELLS God(!!!)—like Martha last week, “You can’t destroy Sodom and Gomorrah!” (his nephew Lot lived there!). There’s gotta be 50 faithful at Sodom Lutheran Church, right? Surely Lot still goes to church?

Remembering it’s an ELCA church, Abraham thinks 50’s a lot bargains God down to 10. I mean it’s ELCA, but surely there’s 10 good Lutherans there? Well; you know how that ended! 😉

Only God knows what’s good, for us. And, sometimes, even his mercy seems… severe. People we think quite decent die horribly and we wonder… why?!!? But those are not questions the faithful ask…

My old friend Jeff Gibbs, NT prof, in his Concordia Commentary on Matthew says the word “kingdom” βασιλειαν in Greek as in “your kingdom come” isn’t a place, a static noun. It’s really a verbal noun, “kinging”—your kinging, your reigning over us, come!

We’re not asking God to take us to some happy place of our own devising or imagining. We’re asking him to subject us to his Glorious Kinging, for him to reign, to run all the verbs, to make all the decisions, to give us only what brings glory to his Kingdom.

“Not my will, but Thine be done…” our Lord prayed in Gethsemane on the way to die horribly on the cross. And you saw what came of that magnificent defeat—the resurrection of the dead, the restoration of Paradise to all his lost and straying sheep. (!!!)

To pray for God’s Kinging means to let go of the steering wheel of your life, to trust fall into the Shepherd’s strong arms. That can be scary—like bears and ’73 911 Carreras. But it’s also… fun! So, ‘let go and let God,’ and, when faith catches you up in the Kinging of Jesus, you’ll know the Peace, surpassing all understanding, that guards your heart and mind in Christ Jesus. Amen.