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“Ask, and it will be given unto you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.” This is the mantra for prosperity gospel enthusiasts everywhere. Just to clarify… “prosperity gospel” is churchy talk for people who think that God gives us health and wealth if we pray hard enough and give enough money to the church… people who think that God rewards good little Christians (good, again, being those who have enough faith, pray hard enough, and give lots of money to the church) God rewards those people with even more money and long lives. Because, they believe, God just wants us to be happy. Rich people should relish in their riches… because, if they are rich… it’s because God wants them to be rich. That is God’s blessing on them. And, if you pray really hard for good health or riches… and you DON’T get it… people who believe this way, those prosperity gospel folks… they have an out… because they can simply say… well, you must just not have enough faith… after all… scripture says, ask and it will be given to you… so if you’re asking, and it’s not being given… it’s your own fault… you must not be a good enough Christian… better give more money to the church… maybe that’ll do the trick. FYI, we Lutherans are NOT prosperity gospel people. Because it’s horrible theology… meaning it’s a horrible way to talk about God. So what do we do with verses like this? “Ask, and it will be given unto you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.” What do WE do with this… because it sounds kinda good, doesn’t it? It sounds like something we want to be true… That we get whatever we want… and all we have to do is ask God. Want to get that job promotion? Just ask God. Want to become rich? Just ask God. Want to feel better and live longer? Just ask God. Want to be successful, win the big game, find the right person, buy a big house, have the life of your dreams? Just ask God. Except… to quote one of my favorite Facebook memes… God is not our fairy godmother and that isn’t how it works. Deep down, we know this… Because we can easily look around us… look at the world in which we live… and know that isn’t how it works. Sometimes people ask… and don’t receive… sometimes they seek and don’t find… sometimes the door stays closed. Sometimes loved ones don’t get better… no matter how much we pray for healing. Sometimes the stress of our day to day lives… money troubles, job loss, relationship struggles… never seem to end… no matter how much we pray to just catch a break.We live in a world where people get sick… really sick… and there’s nothing we can do… we live in a world where people can’t get the treatment they need… where people go hungry, where children are abused, where people are oppressed, victimized, murdered… we live in a world of suicide bombers… a world where people die senselessly… And none of it is because those people didn’t pray enough… it’s not because we don’t have enough faith. My dad isn’t sick because I’m not praying hard enough for him to get better… the victims of terrorism in Nice… Istanbul… Kabul… are not dead because they didn’t pray enough for their safety. And the audacity of saying otherwise is shocking… and wrong. But that’s what is implied in saying that “Ask and you shall receive,” means you can ask God for anything and… with enough faith… you’ll get it. You can’t… you won’t. That isn’t how it works. So what do these words mean for us, as faithful Christians? “Ask, and it will be given unto you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.” What do we do with these words that Jesus speaks? First, we admit going in that we may not come up with any solid answers… we acknowledge that there are really hard things about our faith and about our relationship with God that we don’t completely understand. Next, we look at the context. No verse in all of scripture happens in a vacuum. Jesus says these words to his disciples after they have asked him how to pray… and we get Luke’s version of the Lord’s Prayer. Notice what the very first petition is… after we acknowledge God is holy… the very first thing Jesus says to ask for is, “Your kingdom come.” Holy God, first and foremost, your kingdom come. That sets the stage for everything else that is said. Your kingdom come… so perhaps the best clue to understanding what “ask and you shall receive” means… can be found in “your kingdom come.” First and foremost… we are to seek God’s kingdom… God’s will. //And what does that mean? What does God’s kingdom look like? What is God’s will? Well… we don’t know… not 100%... but, we get a lot of clues in scripture. “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sows good seed…” God’s kingdom is good and full of abundance. “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed…” God’s kingdom may have small beginnings… but it is bigger than we can imagine… “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven…” it permeates everything and everyone and causes change. We have the 10 Commandments that tell us God wants what’s best for us… and we have Christ… who lived, died, and was raised to show us God’s unconditional love and forgiveness… Christ reveals to us that God’s ultimate will is for our good… God’s ultimate will is eternal life with God for all of God’s children. It is this context in which we hear, “Ask and it will be given to you… seek and you will find… knock and the door will be opened to you.” Ask and the kingdom will be given to us. Seek, not our will, but God’s will… and we will find it… knock and the door to eternal life… eternal love… eternal goodness will be opened to us. These words that Jesus speaks don’t mean we get whatever we want… as much as we may wish that were true. We live in a broken world. We are broken people… and not everything happens for a reason. Sometimes… horrible things just happen… and they are just horrible. But it is in the midst of this brokenness that we are offered hope… hope that even though horrible things happen for no good reason… we have a God who loves us… we have a God who wants what’s best for us… we have a God who walks with us in our suffering… we have a God who went to the cross… died and was resurrected to bring us the promise of eternal life… to bring us a sure and certain hope that pain and suffering will come to an end. We, as people of faith, pray for the kingdom of God in the midst of the world’s brokenness… we pray for God’s will in the midst of human selfishness… //which means even when we ask… and don’t receive… even when it feel like our search is in vain and every door is closed… we can still confidently say, “Ask, and it will be given unto you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.” We confidently say, even in the midst of darkness, that God’s kingdom will come… and God’s will be done… Because that is our eternal hope in God who loves us. ................
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