Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost

23:30 Friends, won't you pray with me? Good and gracious God, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable, perhaps even pleasing, in your sight. Great God, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

23:50 Our text this morning is the parable of the friend at midnight. And if you were to look up this parable in your pew Bible, you would see that it is sandwiched between two of Jesus' most well-known teachings about prayer. On the one side, you have Luke 11 verses 1 to 4, which is the Lucan version of the Lord's Prayer. And on the other side, starting with verse 9, ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and the door will be opened unto you. However, all of these words did not necessarily come out of the Savior's mouth at the same time. The author or the community that gave us our modern gospel of Luke compiled things in a way that made sense. In this case, a chapter about prayer.

24:45 Now many scholars surmise that this parable we're going to look at today actually came from a different source than the surrounding material. And it's likely that this parable was based on a common folk tale that would have been told at the time. So as we continue our summer sermon series at Christ's Table, I want us to look at this parable of the friend at midnight on its own terms. not as a bridge between well-known passages or as part of a longer sermon about prayer, but as a teaching of Jesus in its own right about friendship and feeding. Listen now for what the Spirit might have to say to all of us through these ancient words.

26:20 This is the word of God for all of us, the people of God. Thanks be to God. 100 years ago, in 1926, the world was introduced to the great theologian Edward Bear. For those who are unfamiliar with Edward Bear, there is conveniently a picture of him on the front cover of your bulletin, looking pensively toward the sky. Edward Bear is better known to his friends as Winnie the Pooh, or Pooh for short. For those who don't know, Winnie the Pooh is a bear of very little brain, but very generous heart who lives in the Hundred Acre Wood. In A.A. Milne's 1926 book, Pooh goes on adventures with a human friend, a young boy named Christopher Robin, and his other animal friends, Piglet and Eeyore and Owl and my favorite, Tigger.

27:30 Pooh encounters terrifying creatures like Heffalumps and Woozles. Christopher Robin leads Pooh and his friends on an expedition to the North Pole. In one story, Eeyore loses his tail and they have to band together to find it. But perhaps the most famous story about Winnie the Pooh is the one in which Pooh goes visiting and finds himself in a tight place.

27:59 Pooh was walking through the forest one day, humming to himself and doing his exercises. As he was walking, he came upon his friend Rabbit's house. a hole in a sandy bank. Enticed by the prospect of food and company, Pooh squeezes himself down into the hole, and after eating all of the honey and condensed milk in Rabbit's house, Pooh decides to leave. Well, goodbye. I must be going on. So he started to climb out of the hole. He pulled with his front paws and pushed with his back paws. And in a little while, Pooh's nose was out in the open again. And then his ears, and then his front paws, and then his shoulders, and then... Oh, help, said Pooh.

28:56 I'd better go back. Oh, bother, said Pooh. I shall have to go on. I can't do either, said Pooh. Oh, help. And oh, bother. oh bother oh help what a prayer i i haven't been caught climbing out of a rabbit hole recently but i have been stuck i know and i suspect you do too what it is like to be unable to move forward or backward, unable to do either of two options. Maybe you know the direction that you want to go, but something is holding you back. People's opinions, our fear of offending or inconveniencing someone else, things just being too hard. There are plenty of ways we find ourselves stuck.

29:58 Maybe you have a friend who is struggling and you know you should reach out. You have the words sitting right there. Maybe the text is drafted. Are you okay? But you hesitate because you don't want to intrude. You don't want to make things awkward. You don't want to say the wrong thing. We have great ideas about how to help our vulnerable neighbors and then the inconveniences pile up. how will this impact our other programming? Won't it be messy? You're being presented with two different alternatives for how to spend your weekend. Either direction you choose is going to hurt someone's feelings. Maybe there's someone in your life who has hurt you and you know you need to have an honest conversation, but what if they get angry? What if they misunderstand? understand what if saying what is true for you makes them think less of you. We wait for the perfect words. We wait until we are certain. We wait until we know exactly what to do and how to do it in a way that nobody will be bothered. And while we're waiting, we stay stuck.

31:12 And the stakes here are bigger than our individual lives when we are so afraid of getting it wrong of making someone uncomfortable or making the wrong choice, we can become stuck as a society, leaving harmful isms and theologies unchallenged, allowing things to persist simply because speaking up or taking a stand feels too difficult. I don't like this, but I can't challenge it because of how this person will react. I feel stuck. Oh bother. Oh help. The more time I spend with this morning's parable, the more convinced I am that it has something to say for those of us who feel stuck. Jesus sets up the hypothetical with two people, you and your neighbor.

32:10 We don't get a lot of the scene, but it's safe to assume we are in tight quarters. a small ancient village. You know your neighbor. You live next door to one another. You're probably friends. And then, in the middle of the night, a traveler shows up at your door. That was not necessarily an unusual thing. A traveler moving by night to avoid the heat of the day would arrive at the home of a friend around midnight. And if a traveler arrived at your home, there were expectations about hospitality. You were supposed to offer food. You were supposed to take care of the person who had arrived. This traveler's late arrival is unexpected, and you discover, much to your dismay, that the cupboard is bare.

33:11 There are no shops open, bread is not going to be baked until the morning, and you're stuck. You have two choices, and neither one is particularly good. You can leave the traveler hungry, but that means failing in your obligations of hospitality. Someone has arrived at your door, and you have nothing to give them. Or you can go next door and bug your neighbor. Bug your neighbor and his family. They are already asleep. The door is shut and locked. The household is in bed. To wake your neighbor up in the middle of the night is also not a great option. And it would have been dangerous. This is midnight. The house is locked for a reason. There are thieves in the ancient world. So you're stuck between two competing inconveniences, two competing rudenesses, no easy way forward or back. Oh bother, oh help.

34:17 Of course, in the world of the parable, you do make the choice to go and knock on your friend's door. And the friend does grumble, I'm already asleep, stop. But notice what Jesus does with the story at this point. Jesus doesn't actually tell us what happens. We don't hear the door open, We don't have the friend getting up out of bed grumpily. We don't see the bread being handed over. Instead, Jesus tells us what will happen and why. He will give him whatever he needs because of the seeking man's anadonia. And here we have to do a little bit of a word study. The NRSV translates that word as persistence. But that's probably not quite right.

35:15 Persistence implies that you're knocking multiple times, that you have to make many asks, that you have to keep going. But that's not in this parable. This word actually only occurs once in the New Testament. Its opposite actually occurs a few more times, the opposite being modesty. So this word really has more to do with shamelessness. audacity, a willingness to set aside the normal concerns about what is proper or appropriate. Tom Long said it's better translated as having no proper sense of shame. Fred Craddock would emphasize it's the willingness of the man to disregard the social expectations of the moment. So the point of the parable is that the choice to go and knock disregards social expectations and niceties. And for that reason, because you made, took the risk and woke the friend up, risked inconveniencing him, for that reason, you will get the bread and the traveler will not have to go hungry. That willingness to inconvenience the friend, wake him and his family up in the middle of the night, that is born out of the friendship and familiarity that they have.

36:44 In the hypothetical, in the parable, you know your neighbor. You know that you can ask. You know that it's going to be an inconvenience, but you trust the relationship to do it anyway. And the friend answers not just because of the friendship, but because the friendship has created a safe space for the kind of defiance of social norms and politeness that this ask requires.

37:14 It's built into the structure of the parable. The whole thing is one long rhetorical question. Which of you having this friend, having this situation would not get up? Of course you're going to get up and give the bread. That's what people do. That said, I fear we've lost a little bit of that culture of hospitality and the intimacy of friendship that's required to allow the kind of shamelessness we're talking about in this parable. It was only the other day that I realized that both of the stories we've looked at today, Winnie the Pooh and the parable of the friend at midnight rely on a friend showing up unexpectedly looking for food. A traveler to a home in the middle of the night and Winnie the Pooh stumbling into Rabbit's house while doing his exercises.

38:17 A few months ago, I read an article about modern friendship and particularly modern friendship in the city. Unfortunately, I was unable to find it again as I was writing this sermon, so I can't give proper credit. But one of the pieces of advice that the author gave was to build intimacy and friendship by letting your friends know that they can come over unannounced. In an over-scheduled world where we're looking at our calendars and we realize that you can't get together for lunch or coffee or dinner until sometime in late October, maybe, give your friends permission to stop by and say hello when they're in the neighborhood. I read this article and I looked around my apartment at the clutter on the dining room table, the unfolded laundry in the hall, and I thought that is just not going to work. That would be extremely inconvenient. And please do not take this as an invitation to just show up.

39:24 But I think about that article all the time. The shamelessness that is key to the point of this parable is born out of familiarity, familiarity that allows the inconvenience in order to feed someone in the moment. I worry that if we have to be reminded that it's okay for people to drop by when the dishes aren't done, we may have lost some of that familiarity. Building friendships such that the little inconvenience of someone showing up when the dishes are in the sink doesn't matter leads to friendships that can stand up to bigger inconveniences. Talking about divergent political views without risking the friendship. Having hard conversations asking for what you and others need openly and directly. Friendship is key to this parable of course but I think there's another point about being stuck that these ancient words can teach us. Sometimes when we're stuck the way is clear but sometimes it's not. Sometimes the inconveniences or fears are so bothersome so big that inconvenience and fear are too small of words to describe them. But the parable doesn't simply say, don't worry, it's all going to be fine because you have friends. The parable works because the person in the hypothetical makes a decision. He has two competing obligations, two competing inconveniences, two ways of being rude, and he has to decide which one matters.

41:18 And God sits with us when we're stuck in those moments, but God is not neutral about what we do next. God nudges. Throughout Scripture, God has been revealed to have a particular concern for people who are hungry, vulnerable, excluded, or pushed to the margins. God hears the cry of the enslaved in Egypt. God commands us to care for the widow and the orphan. Jesus feeds hungry crowds. Jesus eats with people who have been told that they do not belong at the table.

41:58 So when the choice is between keeping things comfortable and clean and feeding someone who is hungry, we should at least be asking whether God is nudging us towards the hungry person. When the choice is between maintaining our own convenience and making room for someone who has been left out, perhaps God is nudging us towards making room. When the choice is between avoiding an awkward conversation and reaching out to someone who is hurting, perhaps God is nudging us towards the person who needs to be seen. When we are stuck and praying, oh bother, oh help, I can't move forward or backward, the question is not how do I avoid inconveniencing anyone. Because in this life, someone is always going to be inconvenienced.

42:54 The question is which is the faithful inconvenience. The person in Jesus' story chooses to knock on the door and wake up his friend and his household because someone is hungry. Feeding people is important. Inviting more people to the table is important. Hospitality is important enough that all of us, myself included, could stand to be a little more shameless about it. One final point. Edward Bear illuminates one more aspect of God that I think we should remember as we examine this parable about being stuck. When we last left our friend Winnie the Pooh, he was stuck in Rabbit's Door.

43:51 Oh bother, oh help. Well Pooh hangs out stuck for about a week in the door to Rabbit's house. And Christopher Robin sits with him, reads with him, keeps him company until they think they might be able to finally get Pooh unstuck. So, Christopher Robin took hold of Pooh's front paws, and Rabbit took hold of Christopher Robin, and all of Rabbit's friends and relations took hold of Rabbit, and they all pulled together. And for a long time, Pooh only said, Ow! And Oh! And then, all of a sudden, he said, Pop! just as if a cork were coming out of the bottle. And Christopher Robin and Rabbit and all of Rabbit's friends and relations went head over heels backwards and on top of them came Winnie the Pooh, free.

44:57 So with a nod of thanks to his friends, he went on with his walk through the forest, humming proudly to himself. But Christopher Robin looked after him lovingly and said to himself, Silly old bear. One theological issue I have with this parable is that sometimes it is read to mean that you need to cajole or force God into something. In that reading, God is the neighbor, and so if you are persistent enough and just keep asking, you'll get what you need. But as early as 411, Saint Augustine realized that that doesn't quite work. God isn't reluctant to give to us, and as British theologian G.B. Caird put it, God doesn't need to be woken up in order to provide. God gives plenty to those who don't ask. So if not the neighbor with the bread, then where is God in our parable this morning. Well, I think God's fingerprints are all over this hypothetical. I think sometimes God is the one who gives us the courage to knock. I think sometimes God gives us the people who open the door. Sometimes God nudges us towards the person who needs something from us, and sometimes God gives us the patience and the generosity just to be there.

46:32 In our stuck moments, and there are many, and when we are able to break through them with our friends and do the work that we are called to do, I think God is everywhere. Watching us and cheering us along as we feebly struggle and often get it wrong. pulling us out of the tight spot, looking on us lovingly, and saying to God's self, silly old bear. In the name of the God who created us, redeemed us daily, and sustains us now and forevermore. Amen. Having heard the word read and proclaimed, I invite you now to stand in body or spirit as you are able and join me in saying what the church believes using the words from the Confession of Belhar printed in your bulletin or on your screen.

47:28 We believe that God has revealed God's self as the one who wishes to bring about justice and true peace among people. We believe that God in a world full of injustice and enmity is in a special way the God of the destitute, the poor, and the wronged. We believe that God calls the church to follow God in this, for God brings justice to the oppressed and gives bread to the hungry. Amen.