TWO-WAY TENACITY

Hosea 11:1-11; Luke 11:1-13

Like last week,

there's another case of physics going on in today's scripture readings.

In our reading from Luke,

Jesus is teaching us how to pray

with words that are very familiar to us.

Then he tells a story

about a friend that comes over atmidnight

to ask his neighbor for some bread.

At first glance,

it sounds like Jesus is saying

that God will wake up and give us what we want,

but we have to beat the door down.

But then you've got Hosea saying

that God is a loving parent -

one who has born and reared a child,

protected it and sacrificed for it,

and isn't about to give up on it

just because the child has misbehaved.

When you put these two readings together,

the physics kick in

and it sounds something like this:

God wants a relationship with us so badly

that God will do whatever it takes to maintain one.

All God asks in return

is that we do whatever it takes to stay in one, too.

In other words,

we can hardly say the word "relationship"

without adding the words "two-way" in front of it.

It takes two parties

who are both willing to commit to a relationship.

God's there -

and God wants us to be there, too.

And since we can't exactly look across the breakfast table

and see God sitting there,

waiting to talk to us,

that means we have to rely on the vehicle of prayer.

So our relationship with God, then,

for everyone concerned,

is about prayer.

It's about faithfulness.

It's about never letting go.

-----------------------------------------

In our internet, microwave,

consumer-driven,

text-messaging society,

we can be drawn into thinking that prayer should be that way too.

Maybe on our better days,

we think that prayer should be like an ATM machine:

we drive up to the right place,

put in our "member in good standing

of First Presbyterian Church" card,

punch in the prayer that we would like to make,

and wait briefly while the answer is dispensed.

No annoying, conversational contact needed.

Then we can drive off and be about the rest of our lives.

Or on our worse days,

prayer might seem to us like superstition

or sleight-of-hand.

Prayer might make us feel better,

like a placebo pill in a drug trial,

but when nothing changes immediately,

in the way that we think it should,

we make the automatic assumption that no one is listening,

and maybe, no one is there.

Neither of those

is anywhere near authentic prayer.

Authentic prayer

is like authentic conversation.

It's carried on with someone with whom you have a relationship,

whether it's someone you've known all your life

or someone who's in your class

or someone in line with you at Brookshire's.

Some kind of relationship is the starting point.

From there,

it's assumed that there will be some give-and-take,

with both parties taking part

and both parties coming away different

because of what they have said to each other.

The art of conversation

is probably as old as the human race.

Cicero came up with rules for conversation

way back in 44BC.

He said:

"Speak clearly.

Speak easily but not too much,

especially when others want their turn.

Do not interrupt.

Be courteous.

Deal seriously with serious matters and gracefully with lighter ones.

Never criticize people behind their backs.

Stick to subjects of general interest.

Do not talk about yourself.

And above all else,

never lose your temper."[i]

Those still hold pretty well today, don't they?

But they are rules for formal conversation

between people who are in formal relationships.

Things get different as relationships get closer.

They get messier.

The better you get to know someone

and the closer you get,

the more likely it is that tempers will get lost!

Topics of conversation will get very specific.

And it's okay to talk about yourself,

as long as you listen well too.

The level of conversation

can shift from "high and mighty"

to "down and dirty" in a heartbeat,

depending on the depth of the relationship.

One of the main purposes of prayer

is to deepen our relationship with God

and take it from being superficial and polite and guarded

to being messier and absolutely real.

Eugene Peterson says it this way:

"God does not make speeches;

he enters conversations,

and we are partners to the conversation."[ii]

When's the last time in your prayer life

that you asked God how God was doing?

When's the last time you told God exactly how you felt,

without trying to look good or put up any walls?

When's the last time you laughed with God
about something that you did,

or something that God did?

Have you asked recently what you can do for God?

Or are your prayers usually "all about me"

or repeating requests over and over again?

If you talked with your best friend like that,

it would look like you thought they were hard of hearing

or not too bright!

"God knows our needs before we speak,

but God wishes to draw us into relationship through prayer."[iii]

Prayer has to be a two-way street.

It has to be conversational,

allowing for give-and-take.

And it has to be built on a relationship,

one that takes time to grow and to deepen.

------------------------------------------

We have the courage to start working on a relationship like that

because we know that God desires

to have that kind of conversation with us,

no matter what.

The story of Hosea is really fascinating.

In order to make a point about the people of Israel,

God instructs Hosea to marry a "woman of the evening,"

a woman with the odd name of Gomer.

It's already assumed

that she will not be exactly faithful to her husband.

But three children are born

during the course of the marriage -

and Hosea gives them even odder names:

God sows, Not Pitied, and Not My People.

God is so mad at the people of Israel for their faithlessness

that he's telling them something new is coming,

God no longer has any pity on them,

and worst of all,

they will no longer be considered God's people.

Who would want to stay in a marriage like that?!

And yet over the course of Hosea's prophecy,

God comes to himself.

God remembers the love he once shared with Israel,

how God raised them up from infancy,

how God fed them and burped them and diapered them

and watched them take their first step

and suffered through their getting their driver's license.

And as those days are recounted,

God is overcome with love

and tells the people that no harm will come to them.

Jesus says the same thing a whole different way.

Good parents know what their children need

and give it to them without question.

Children know that they can ask their parents for anything -

and while they may not always GET the latest video game

or the fastest bicycle,

they trust that their parents will indeed provide for them.

That kind of trust

grows out of the give-and-take of relationship.

Not only does the parent give,

the child asks.

I can say from experience

that parents would roll over and die

without any communication back from their children.

And that's what our readings are saying to us today

as children of a loving and gracious God.

My friends Ellen and Sam

have been married now for almost thirty years.

It's the second marriage for both of them.

One of the things that Ellen in particular brought to their marriage

was her fear of abandonment.

She learned from her first husband

that if there's ever an argument,

the marriage is over.

It took her some years and some therapy,

and lots of tenacity on Sam's part,

to realize that not every argument was going to lead to divorce.

To help her navigate that change,

Ellen and Sam came up with a mantra

that they still use today

every time they need to have an honest discussion

where they know that they will disagree.

One of them will look at the other one and say,

"Honey, I'm not happy and I'm not leaving."

That's their cue

that they need to sit down and work something out together

without the fear that one of them is going to walk out.

Maybe that's something we can incorporate

into our prayer lives.

God may not be happy with us, but God's not leaving.

Our tenacious God's not gonna give us up.

Knowing that,

we are free and clear to be tenacious too:

to ask, to seek and to knock:

to have a healthy and constant conversation with God,

listening as well as speaking,

taking as well as giving,

loving as well as being loved.

We can make that same commitment to God

that even though we're not perfectly happy,

we're not going anywhere until we get it all worked out.

Nothing would please God more.

-------------------------------------------

But there's one thing we haven't talked about today.

Both of these passages

were written to and for people, plural,

not just for individuals

wanting their own private prayer life with God.

There is indeed the sense

that God wants an individual, one-on-one relationship

with each and every one of us.

But Hosea's parable of marriage

was written to the people of Israel.

And Jesus taught the Lord's Prayer

not to one person

but to the disciples as a group.

Friends, God is selfish!

God wants it all - each of us, and all of us.

God wants a relationship with First Presbyterian Church

just as much as God wants a relationship with Susan

and Jordan and Carol and Larry and Gabe and Sharon.

Each of us can have a powerful personal relationship with God.

But there is time and room

for us to have a powerful relationship with God as a church.

Today, when it comes time for the Lord's Prayer during communion,

let's do things a little differently.

I will say each line or phrase one at a time,

then ask you to repeat it after me.

I will also leave time for some silence between each line.

Let's imagine ourselves praying this prayer together -

as a congregation,

as people together on behalf of other people,

in relationship to a God that knows us,

who knows all our shortcomings and our unfaithfulness

and who in spite of it all still loves us anyway,

who hangs on every word we have to say.

God is as eager to have a real conversation with First Presbyterian Church

as God is to have a conversation with each one of us.

Let's think about the words Jesus taught us

and pray like we really mean it,

asking good things of God for ourselves,

for each other,

for this congregation and for the world.

Whether or not we're happy,

let's let God know that we're not leaving.

Let's be just as tenacious in our relationship to God

as God is tenacious in God's relationship to us.

Amen.