The Impudent Friend.
I just had a neighbor drop by with her two dogs. She threw their poop in my toilet and didn't flush. That felt impudent. Seriously. It felt impudent that she let her dogs jump on the couch. I washed the pillows.
Here in Luke Eleven we have an impudent friend. One whose asking stretched across the line of decorum. In South Asia there is little you cannot ask your neighbor for. The communal living extends to many parts of your life. Time you thought you owned becomes communal. Food is for sharing. Ownership of some gadget means loaning that item out.
However Jesus here states some obvious cultural line. A line that everyone knew. A time after which friends don't knock on doors. A question that friends don't ask other friends. And then Jesus says that kind of asking is how we are to pray. Ask.
What impudent thing are you asking Your Loving Father for this season. Something spectacular. Something desperate. Something......as the story tells us, that is for a third party, another person. Perhaps you are asking for a friend's health, for fertility, for a marriage, for a wayward child. Ask! Ask! Ask! Ask at four in the morning when you are up because you drank caffeinated coffee too late. Ask when you are trying to fall asleep and your toddler is snoring in the SAME room as you. Ask!
I just had a neighbor drop by with her two dogs. She threw their poop in my toilet and didn't flush. That felt impudent. Seriously. It felt impudent that she let her dogs jump on the couch. I washed the pillows.
Here in Luke Eleven we have an impudent friend. One whose asking stretched across the line of decorum. In South Asia there is little you cannot ask your neighbor for. The communal living extends to many parts of your life. Time you thought you owned becomes communal. Food is for sharing. Ownership of some gadget means loaning that item out.
However Jesus here states some obvious cultural line. A line that everyone knew. A time after which friends don't knock on doors. A question that friends don't ask other friends. And then Jesus says that kind of asking is how we are to pray. Ask.
What impudent thing are you asking Your Loving Father for this season. Something spectacular. Something desperate. Something......as the story tells us, that is for a third party, another person. Perhaps you are asking for a friend's health, for fertility, for a marriage, for a wayward child. Ask! Ask! Ask! Ask at four in the morning when you are up because you drank caffeinated coffee too late. Ask when you are trying to fall asleep and your toddler is snoring in the SAME room as you. Ask!
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