[Propertalk] Persistence, and prayer?

[Joe Parrish]

"As I have reflected on this story, it has raised genuine questions in my mind about what Jesus was really suggesting as to the essence of prayer. Is persistence the highest virtue? Is Jesus suggesting that God really is indifferent and that we have to wear down the Holy until finally out of exasperation, God gives us what we're requesting even though this is not part of his heart of hearts? Frankly, for years I had trouble understanding how this particular story that Jesus constructed gave insight into how we Christians are supposed to pray. And then many years ago, a biblical scholar gave me a whole new way of understanding this image of the reluctant neighbor. He pointed out that in the Greek language from which our Scriptures are translated, there is a tiny conjunction pronounced kai. It can be translated either and or but considering the context. For example, if it's linking together two things that are similar, then it can be translated and. For example, it began to rain, and I opened an umbrella. However, if this conjunction is connecting things that are in contrast to each other, it is appropriate to translate it as but. I was going to see a friend, but that one did not show up. And then he suggested that the whole hinge of meaning in this passage lies in translating the conjunction after the story of the neighbor with a but instead of an and. And then it dawned on me that this image of an indifferent, reluctant neighbor is not the true image of God that Jesus came to embody. It rather represents the kind of fearfulness that the serpent in the Book of Genesis injected into the human consciousness. Centuries before, the serpent had suggested that God was really not for humanity but, actually, was against the human species, that God had no interest whatsoever in the fulfillment of the human race, but that God actually had nothing but indifference and sometimes even contempt for our particular species. And that suspicion of God's character is at the root of all human sinfulness. And it was to correct this mistaken assumption that the whole biblical story has begun to unfold. Someone has suggested that both the Old and New Testament(s) are God's answer to a bad reputation. And once I realized that this story of the reluctant neighbor was not the image of the one to whom we pray, but that the essence of it lies in what follows after having described the indifference of the one next door. Jesus said, "But I say to you, 'Ask and it will be given. Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened.'" And then Jesus gives us the true image that ought to shape our understanding of God; that is, one of a caring, loving parent, who when a child asks for something honestly, the response is not indifference or reluctance but the spirit of one who cares deeply for the welfare of the child and gives not only what the child may want but gives that which in the eyes of the heavenly parent is the absolute best for the child."

By the late Rev. Dr. John R. Claypool, well known and much loved as a minister, preacher, theologian, author, and teacher.

http://day1.org/454-to_whom_do_we_pray
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