The Friend at Midnight (Luke 11:5-10)

Jesus told a parable especially to impress on us the need for perseverance in our prayers.  In the East families often sleep together in one room.  They lie on the floor on mattresses, arranged like the spokes of a wheel, with their feet towards a charcoal fire in the middle.

Well, in the parable a man is knocked up in the middle of the night by a friend at whose house a visitor has just arrived, tired and hungry after a long journey.  Unfortunately the householder has run out of bread and the shops, of course, are all shut.  So the only thing he can do is to go and borrow some from his friend nearby.  He hurries along the street and knocks on his friend’s door, and says to him, “Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him” (NRSV, Luke 11:5,6).

Inside the house everyone has settled down for the night.  If his friend is going to get up, and walk over the sleeping figures of his family and find the bread and unlock the door, he will wake up the whole household.  So a very grumpy voice answers him from within, “Do not bother me; the door has already been locked, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything” (NRSV, Luke 11:7).  But, as Jesus pointed out, even though he will not get up and give him the loaves for the sake of their friendship, yet, if his friend pesters him long enough, he will get up and give him as many as he needs.  So we must not be afraid to pester God with our prayers.  As Jesus added, “…Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.  For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened” (NRSV, Luke 11:9,10).

So we must thank God for his goodness, and show our trust in him by giving ourselves to him and by keeping on with our prayers even if he keeps us waiting for an answer.

SUMMARY

1. All through our life we should thank God, call upon him and put our whole trust in him.

2. In particular, we should do this at every Eucharist.  For then

a) we offer to God Our Saviour Jesus Christ as a thank-offering for all he has done for us to bring us to Heaven;
b) we offer our prayers for others as well as ourselves, and join them with Our Lord’s prayers before the Throne of God;
c) we offer ourselves to God in complete trust for him to do with us as he wishes.

Reference

Church of England (1662) The Book of Common Prayer.  Prayers and Thanksgivings.  Available from: http://www.cofe.anglican.org/worship/liturgy/bcp/texts/14-prayersandthanksgivings.html  (Accessed 20 August 2010) (Internet).