Worship is at the heart of who we are.

Sermon for the 6th Sunday after Pentecost

Text: Genesis 18:20–32, Luke 11:1–13

There’s something undeniably vulnerable about asking for help.

Whether it’s asking to borrow a cup of sugar, or asking for emotional support in a hard

season—there’s risk. Will I be rejected? Will I seem needy? Am I asking for too much?

And yet, that is exactly what our scriptures invite us into today. Both Abraham and Jesus

teach us what it looks like to approach God with honesty, boldness, and persistence. These

aren’t careful or rehearsed prayers. They’re raw. Messy. Audacious. And exactly what we

need right now.

Let’s start with Abraham in Genesis 18.

The scene is intense. God has heard the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah. Their sin is

their inhospitability. God is ready to act. But Abraham steps in—not with a pre-approved

prayer—but with a negotiation. A bold one.

“Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked?”

“What if there are fifty? Forty-five? Forty? Thirty? Twenty? Ten?”

This isn’t Abraham timidly tiptoeing around a holy God. This is Abraham arguing with God

—pleading for mercy, leveraging justice, and getting closer with each ask. And each time,

God responds: Okay. I will not destroy it.

The Hebrew gives this moment texture. When Abraham “comes near” to God in verse 23,

the word is שַׁגִּנ (niggash)—it implies not only physical nearness, but a courageous stepping

forward. Abraham is risking proximity. Risking relationship.

He even says, “I who am but dust and ashes.” He knows he’s small. But that doesn’t stop

him. And that is what prayer looks like sometimes—approaching God not with polish, but

with courage. And maybe even a little desperation.

Then we come to Luke 11, where Jesus teaches his disciples to pray.

It’s a simple prayer—one many of us know by heart. But it’s not simple in the shallow

sense. It’s distilled down to the essentials:

Father. Your kingdom come. Give us. Forgive us. Lead us.

And right after teaching the prayer, Jesus tells a story.

Someone has a guest arrive unexpectedly, and so—without food—they go knocking on a

neighbor’s door at midnight. At first, the friend refuses: “The door’s locked! The kids are

asleep!”

But then Jesus says: he will get up—not because he’s a good friend—but because of the

knocker’s persistence.

The word in Greek is ἀναίδεια (anaideia). It’s often translated “persistence,” but more

accurately, it means shamelessness. Unrelenting boldness. The kind of nerve you have when

you don’t care how you look, only that someone hears you.

Jesus follows with:

“Ask, and it will be given. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and the door will be opened.”

Now here’s what I love: both Abraham’s prayer and Jesus’ parable are not about asking for

things for themselves. Abraham is interceding for a city. The midnight friend is pleading for

someone who just arrived at their door.

Prayer stretches beyond me and into we.

In Luke 11, all the verbs in the Lord’s Prayer are plural.

“Give us this day our daily bread.”

“Forgive us our sins.”

“Lead us not into the time of trial.”

Prayer, in Jesus’ teaching, is never just a personal hotline to heaven. It’s an act of solidarity.

Of intercession. Of seeing someone’s need and saying, “I will knock on heaven’s door for

you.”

In a world that’s unraveling at the seams—where fear runs rampant and scarcity is the norm,

where children are starving to death in Gaza, where medicaid and snap are cut for already

vulnerable families—what does it mean for us to pray this way?

It means we dare to pray not just for our own peace, but for the protection of people we may

never meet. For our neighbors in Gaza. For children in detention centers. For the exhausted

parent in our own pews.

It means we ask God for daily bread—and today that ask means daily housing, daily food,

daily justice, daily safety—not just for our households, but for all God’s children.

Let’s be honest: many of us have complicated relationships with prayer. We’ve asked and

heard nothing. We’ve knocked and felt ignored. We’ve prayed for healing or peace or

change—and wondered if it mattered at all.

But Jesus never says, “Ask once and receive.”

He says: Keep asking. Keep seeking. Keep knocking.

In the Greek, those verbs are in the present active tense (present imperatives).

It’s not a one-time event. It’s practice.

Daily, messy, sometimes frustrating practice.

Prayer isn’t a vending machine. It’s not transactional. It’s relational.

Jesus doesn’t promise you’ll get exactly what you want. But he does promise that God is not

like the reluctant friend behind the door. If even flawed human parents can give good gifts—

how much more will God give the Holy Spirit to those who ask?

That’s the surprise ending of Jesus’ teaching. The answer to prayer isn’t always what we

asked for—it’s the gift of presence. Of God’s breath. Of Spirit that sustains. Bears with.

Holds fast. Never lets us go even when the things of this world do.

So what do we take from these stories?

We learn that God invites our honesty more than our eloquence.

That bold prayer is not irreverent—it’s faithful.

That prayer doesn’t always change worldly outcomes, but it does always changes us.

And that prayer is not about certainty—it’s about connection to the one who gives us life.

We learn that it is holy to keep asking.

Even when you’ve asked before.

Even when your voice is tired.

Even when the door seems closed.

Like Abraham, you can say, “But Lord, what if...?”

Like the midnight friend, you can knock again.

Like Jesus, you can pray, “Give us... Forgive us... Lead us.”

You know all the verbs Jesus uses—ask (αἰτεῖτε) eye-TAY-teh, seek (ζητεῖτε) zay-TAY-

teh, knock (κρούετε) KROO-eh-teh—are present imperatives. They’re not polite requests.

They’re invitations to ongoing trust - the present imperative means continually, over time, as

a pattern of behavior. And if you read this or heard it in biblical Greek - you would know

that Jesus is inviting you to take on a new habit, not for a while — forever.

In these anxious, uncertain days—when democracy feels fragile and truth itself is under

attack... when wildfires rage and floods leave behind barren, broken landscapes... when

wars waged by those in power steal the lives of children who had no choice... when gun

violence, racism, and economic injustice leave our communities raw and weary... when our

relationships feel frayed and even the church struggles to hold space for grief, for questions,

for truth—may we still be a people who ask, shamelessly.

Ask for bread. Ask for mercy. Ask for justice.

Seek God's heart. Seek healing. Seek connection.

Knock on every door until one opens.

Knock for your neighbor. Knock for your children. Knock for yourself.

Because you are not knocking into silence. Because the God we pray to—the God who

taught us to ask, and seek, and knock—is not hiding behind a locked door.

God is not distant. God is already moving toward you—already listening—already

responding—with love and presence—even into the most desperate of situations.

May we be relentless in our knocking, until every door is opened for the sake of God’s love.

Amen.

- Pastor Minna Bothwell