Lk 11.1-13

1. Now, it happened that (Jesus) was in a certain place praying, and when he paused, one of his learners said to him: "Lord, instruct us (how) to pray, just as John (the Baptist) instructed his learners." 2. Jesus said to them: "Whenever you pray, say: 'Father, may your name be kept holy; may your kingdom come. Give to us each day sufficient bread for us. Release us from crimes committed against you, for we release anyone who owes us anything. Do not bring us into testing.' 5. Then, he said to them: "Which one of you has a friend who, when you go to him in the middle of the night and say to him: 'Friend, give me three loaves of bread. I need them since a friend of mine who was journeying along this road has turned aside to (stay) with me and I have nothing to feed him.' 7. from within the house, will answer saying: 'Don't ask me to do anything for you now. The door is closed; my children are with me in bed. I cannot get up and give you anything'? I tell you that if (that friend) will not get up and give you (what you ask for) because you are his friend, he will get up and give you what you need because he owes it to you. 9. So I say to you: You ask and it will be given to you; you seek and you will find; you knock and the door will be opened to you, 10. for everyone who asks receives and whoever seeks finds and to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. 11. But, which father among you, when your son asks you for a fish, will give (your son) a snake instead? 12. Or, when your son asks you for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 13. So, if you, who regularly do evil deeds, know enough to give good gifts to your offspring, how much more will your father, who is in heaven, give a holy spirit to those who ask him?

Scholars, especially those engaged in studying philosophy and theology, are often made fun of. ... One of the main reasons that people make fun of us that the kind things we often sit around thinking about and talking about are things like: why is there something rather than nothing? Big questions with seemingly no hope of an answer.

Scholars like me are often asked really tough, practical questions, too, like "what must a person do to be saved?" or "does prayer make any difference?" or "how should I pray?"

When it comes to prayer, scholars like me can easily turn to one of the best examples of prayer that we have, the Lord's Prayer. The prayer that Jesus teaches to those who follow him is perhaps one of the best known prayers in the world. In that prayer, Jesus teaches his followers to pray to God as Father. Jesus depicts God as a father in the same way that Ps 103 does: 8 The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. 9 He will not always chide, nor will he keep his anger for ever. 10 He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor requite us according to our iniquities. 11 For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; 12 as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us. 13 As a father pities his children, so the LORD pities those who fear him. 14 For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust.15 As for man, his days are like grass; he flourishes like a flower of the field; 16 for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more. 17 But the steadfast love of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting upon those who fear him, and his righteousness to children's children, 18 to those who keep his covenant and remember to do his commandments.

Jesus goes on to tell his followers to express their complete dependence on this father who gives us each day a sufficient amount of food for the day -- not a superabundance, not poverty, just enough -- and who saves us from entering into tests or challenges that are too much for us -- as if we were to go into an exam that asked us only material that we had not been prepared for.

But, in both Gospels that include the Lord's Prayer -- Matthew and Luke -- Jesus focuses on the central petition of the prayer. In both Gospels, the focus of Jesus' teaching is on the verse on forgiveness and debts. Why? Because depending on what you do when you are NOT praying this prayer, you may render the whole prayer invalid when you DO pray it. Because, no matter which words you use for the prayer -- traditional or modern --, no matter which posture you use when you pray this prayer -- standing, or sitting or kneeling -- and no matter in which part of the service you pray this prayer -- at the beginning or at the end -- what really matters is whether you forgive those who "owe" you something. That does matter because it will really determine whether you are praying to the father or whether you would like to be free of this father.

Put simply: you can be in a relationship with God that is like the one described in Psalm 103 or you can be in something like a business relationship with God, where you treat God as you would someone in a business relationship.

In Jesus' day, though the networks of exchange were slightly different from those in our day. There were huge numbers of people who owed everything that they had to big landlords and masters. For example, farmers were given seed to plant by their masters and were expected to return not only the seed that they had been given but some of the produce of the land, as well as some of the seed, to the master as interest on what they had been given. They could keep some of the produce and some of the seed for themselves and their family, but basically just enough to keep alive. They couldn't keep enough to get ahead. It felt something like what happens when you become so indebted to your credit card companies that you cannot get ahead but only just hold your own.

Among people who, for whatever reason had a bit more, this kind of give and take also existed, but they also had other relationships. They would lend money and goods to each other as equals, without a lot of conditions, knowing that you could ask for it back as a friend if you needed it. We sometimes do that as neighbours with tools, or books, or food, or whatever. We don't write down how much interest you will owe me after 2 hours of using your lawnmower, but if I give you my lawnmower, I expect you to give it back, or at least to give me back something of equal worth.

Today, we think of people who loan in this way as neighbours. Then, they called these people "friends". A "friend" was someone of your same social class that you could generally trust to give you what you needed without any discussion, THOUGH, if necessary you COULD, in the case of a friend in Jesus' day, REQUIRE that the friend repay what he owed you. That is the difference between Jesus' day and ours: a friend today could not really be required to repay you; then, the definition of friend was such that you would normally NOT have to ask the friend to re-pay you but that you COULD, if NECESSARY, ask him to do so.

And, in the story that Jesus tells, that is exactly what happens. A friend comes to a friend at night: "I need some bread to be hospitable to another friend who has come to spend the night with me. I didn't expect it. I couldn't plan for it. Please help me out. The friend in bed is supposed to help because he's an equal, a friend who might one day find himself in the same situation. But, he says "No: I can't be bothered. I'm tired; my house is sealed tight; my children are asleep. Go away." But, the friend does not go away. Instead, Jesus says, and because his friend won't acknowledge his need, the friend who has been unexpectedly visited pulls his trump card and says: "alright, then, I'm calling due the debt that you owe me." "What? You can't do that! Not at this time of the night." "Oh, yes I can and right now. Look. I don't want to but you leave me no choice since you won't help me as a friend. Get up and pay me what you owe me right now or I'll bring you to court in the morning." "Alright, alright, just a minute. I'm coming." The friend comes downstairs, unbolts the door, gives the petitioner the bread with a scowl, and says, "here's what I owe you". The friend thanks him and says: "why didn't you just do it when I asked you, as a friend?" The man hangs his head and can make no answer because there is none to make.

Jesus goes on to say: that's the way it is in our world and you all know that. We all have people that we can require to pay up. So, when we ask, we will always receive something. If you have a need, you can always go and ask someone who owes you something and you can get it that way.

That is not the way it is with God as a father; God is neither a patron NOR a friend, but someone completely different. In a father's relationship with his children , the father owes the children nothing and the children owe the father nothing. The father gives willingly and freely, without interest or requirement of repayment. The father does not say after years of allowances: "OK, payback time!! With interest!"

Yes, it is true that you can be in a business relationship with someone who is a father to someone else. If I, for example, sought something from ___, it would be as a friend, or business associate, and would have all sorts of implications for friendship and business, but it would be a very different thing from one of ___'s children coming along and saying: "Dad, I need the following." But God is not someone else's father: God is our Father!

So, Jesus says, when we pray to God, we are not to pray to God as a to a patron and master or to a friend with mutual responsibilities, but to one who is as a father to us, who has full care of his children. Jesus adds: that we can only do so, however, if we treat our fellow family members as such, by canceling all outstanding debts that they have with us. If not, Jesus says, you have no reason to call God father.

Why? Because otherwise we treat God, who is also their father, as someone else, a business patron. And in that case we all do owe God so much, in fact much more that we could ever pay him. Some of us foolishly think that we can pay God back for everything that he has given us ... from the creation of the universe to the end of the universe. And we do so by calling the debts of others who owe us a petty amount and trying to make payments on our outstanding debt with God with those amounts. It is similar to owing a vast sum on your credit card and going and combing through your drawers of past debts with friends to get together a pittance to cover a portion of the interest.

We do it all the time. We comb through the past, and dredge up things that people owe us: money, grudges, "you hurt me". We remind people of how far they've fallen in their lives, then we feel better and go and do something nice for God because that's what God wants us to do. The assumption that lies behind what Jesus says in his prayer is this: "As long as you keep holding people to their debts to you, don't expect God NOT to hold you to your debts to him. And as long as that is the case, don't expect to ask God for anything as father, since you really aren't showing that you think of God's other children as your brothers and sisters. Cancel their debts first. Otherwise you're going to have to do an incredible number of nice things for God!":

So, we might paraphrase that crucial verse of Jesus' prayer this way: "As long as I keep forcing people to pay up what they owe me, God will always be justified in asking me to pay him back what I owe him. But, that is futile since I can never, in a million years, pay God back all that I owe him. So, the only way is for me to stop playing God to the people who owe me something and to stop requiring them to pay up a debt that they can never in a million years pay up. I will simply cancel ALL of the debts that people owe me. So, now, God, I want you to be my father, not my creditor: I have NOTHING left to pay you. I ask you simply to make me your own, your child and to provide me with whatever I need in my life as my father."

Boy, does that sound like an easy way out! And a wimpy one at that. Surrender? Giving up? Returning to some sort of state of paternal care?

It's true. It sounds like giving up. But, what you are surrendering is the foolish belief that you can ever be master of this universe in the way that God is. Oh, there are some areas that you can control, but do you think that you can ever master the universe that has God as its creator? That you really do not need God as a father, even when faced with the reality of your own death?

When you surrender, you are also giving up being God to someone that you keep in an impossible situation. You are surrendering not only your ability to pay God back, declaring bankruptcy in the face of God and throwing yourself on the mercy of God, realizing that you cannot pay God even close to what it takes to be in God's favour, you are also freeing others from what what they owe you and allowing them to become your brothers and sisters.

When you do this, suddenly people will ask: why? Why are you not holding what I did against me? Why are you not holding the fact that my people killed your family against me? Why are you not holding the fact that in my drunken state I killed your family? Why are you not holding on to the fact that I left you for a younger woman? Are you saying that I'm not guilty?

No. There are consequences for crimes. But, I realise that there is no way that I can pay God back for what I have done to God and there is no way that you can pay me back. I would love to make the rest of your life miserable. But, what it will do is make my life and the life of those around me here on earth miserable. Is living as a kind of God who holds others debtors so that they "get what's coming to them" the kind of way you want to spend the only life given to you ever to live?

No matter what someone owes you, either materially, or emotionally or in some either way. No matter how much you want to soak someone for their every last penny for what they made you pay or what they did to you, you have the choice of whether you will make them pay it or not. And, if you do, then why should you complain if God makes you pay every penny that you owe him? Fair is fair. But, God will only treat you like tyrant, and require of you every last penny that you owe him until every last penny is paid, IF, and ONLY IF, you treat others this way.

But, if you give up what is owed to you, if, rather than requiring that people return to you WITH INTEREST what you have given them -- for their abuse of you, you require double of them; for their unfairness to you, you require double of them; for the unfairness of life in general, you will make everyone's life around you miserable -- if instead of doing this, you cancel all of your debts, you write off what is owed to you, then, you can say in all honesty to God: I have nothing left to pay you. I relinquish my claim on anything from anyone else that would allow me to pay you back. I throw myself on your mercy, penniless, and bereft of any wealth of my own to pay you all that I owe you for what I have done.

My friends, this is not easy. Surrender never is. Giving up the vast sums that you think you are owed by others appears to let them off the hook. But, if you compare it with what you owe God, if you possibly can even comprehend what you owe God, then you will realise how impossible the task.

Robert E. Lee did just that at the end of the American Civil War. The commander of the armies of the South looked at the destruction that had been caused in the South and wanted to hold on to anger and wage war against the North for as long as it took to pay them back. He could have done so with guerrilla warfare. But, instead, he made the most difficult decision of his life: the decision to surrender. Not to take down to the grave countless more lives but to forgive and to allow life to return to the US. In doing so, Lee, a great general, opened the door to God restoring the land.

My friend, if you put down your weapons of war and the tools by which you go around to people and collect debts from them, God, your Father, will see you coming afar off. And God will not wait when he sees you coming. He will see you coming and he will run to you with open arms and welcome you home and say: This my daughter, this my son, was dead, but now is alive. Let us celebrate. And you will simply faint in your father's arms as you realise all the time you could have been there.

Friends, don't waste anymore of your time on trying to do the impossible. Stop this foolish attempt to make others pay up. Follow Jesus, our friend who rather than calling our debt to him, continues to lead us to his father, where we can rest in the arms of the father, who can only BE our father IF we let go of the debts that others owe us.