Luke 11:1-13
“Don’t Wake My Sleeping Children”
Preached Sunday, July 27, 2025
When my oldest was born I developed a new pet peeve. Maybe not so much a pet peeve as a button that - if you push it - I will get very angry. The button is the door bell. When my children are sleeping.
At the last parsonage, I hung a piece of paper over the doorbell. DO NOT RING. SLEEPING BABY. SLEEP DEPRIVED PARENTS.
I will admit, with the second child, having an older child in the house who makes noise, we’ve loosened up a little on the noise in the house while the baby is sleeping. It’s part of the background “ambiance”. But I still highly value sleep, for me and my children, and when they are awoken early…I am not happy. And normally, neither are they.
So cue the story Jesus tells in this week’s Gospel lesson….But before we get to that. I want to comment that there are four things happening in this week’s Scripture. For 13 verses, that’s quite a bit.
There are the disciples saying, “Teach us how to pray” and Jesus giving them a version of the Lord’s Prayer.
There is this story of two friends, the need for loaves of bread, and sleeping children. (As you can probably guess from my sermon intro, we’re going to come back around to these sleeping children)
There is the famous “Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.” line from scripture - echoed in our opening hymn today, “Seek Ye First” - a favorite of many.
And then there is the bit about parents giving good gifts to their children.
At first glance, this Scripture may seem all over the place - branching off in four different directions. And a preacher could - and I have multiple times - preach a sermon that just focuses on one-fourth of this passage. Although - all four of parts of this Scripture do work together to make a whole. There is a thread that weaves them together. And that thread is that God is our heavenly parent who loves us as God’s children.
Let’s go through this Scripture together, looking for that thread, seeing how in this passage, God is depicting love for us as beloved children of God and how that affects how we relate, talk, and pray to God, our Divine parent.
First, I want to start with this strange story of the father and his children, trying to sleep.
“‘Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.’ And he answers 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.’ I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything out of friendship, at least because of his persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs.’”
When I read this I think: knocking on my door at midnight? When my kids are trying to sleep!? Aw heck no. That’s a good way to no longer be my friend and catch my ire. If you’re persistant, of course I will get up and go to the door and give you what you want - JUST TO MAKE YOU GO AWAY AND NO LONGER MAKE NOISE AND LET ME AND MY CHILDREN SLEEP. But really, this story sounds a little strange to us because there’s a lot happening here that doesn’t fit our modern day experiences. There are some ancient understandings of hospitality at play that we don’t really adhere to today and also…
1. For starters, if you have guests at midnight and don’t have food - grocery stores are open or Doordash can deliver late night fast food right to your door.
2. Normally families don’t often sleep all together in one room or bed. And
3. unannounced knocking on doors is really a thing of the past. For Gen X and younger, this is just something we don’t do. If you are going over someone’s house, you check with them first. Even if you’re expected, you might not knock on the door. You may call or text, “I’m outside” because God forbid we actually have to knock on a door. And if someone I don’t know knocks on my door in the middle of the day, there is a good chance I am not answering. You are either a roofer trying to sell your services to me or canvassing for a political candidate and I am not interested in either. Knock in the middle of the night? And no way am I answering! I think many of us have heard horror stories of robberies happening this way.
4. Also, it’s not safe for the knocker to knock randomly on a house either. There are too many stories of people who are lost knocking on a random door for directions and instead of getting the help they need, looking down the barrel of a gun.
So yes. For all of the above reasons - the story sounds weird to us.
But I think it’s important to not get too bogged down in the differences between 2000 years ago and today, and instead ask: who is Jesus, who is God, in this parable? In the Lord’s Prayer and in the heavenly father giving the children good gifts, God is the Father. God is the Father here as well. We are the ones knocking at the door, praying, and making requests of Jesus. But we aren’t only the friend asking for bread here…If God is our heavenly parent and we are God’s children…then we are also the children tucked into bed, safe and snug for the night with a parent who loves us very much.
I wrote this sermon - or at least this part of the sermon - on Thursday morning. The night before, neither Zach nor I slept very well. One child needed tucked back in twice. One needed fed twice and rocked once - and was up for a good bit in between those things. While every night we expect to be up once or twice between the two kids, this was a more demanding night than average and thus resulted in significantly less sleep than usual. It’s hard going without sleep. It’s literally a primary need. We need sleep to live. To function. To keep our sanity. I know I was so sleep deprived after my first was born that I felt like my sanity was slipping…And yet, as a parent, when the child cries, I wake. I go to them. I make them feel safe and loved. I sacrifice my own needs and desires for that of my child. And I will do it again and again and again.
Which brings us to another part of this Scripture:
“‘Is there anyone among you who, if your child asked for a fish, would give a snake instead of a fish? Or if the child asked for an egg, would give a scorpion? If you, then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!’”
Don’t get thrown off by the “you, then, who are evil” line. Elsewhere in Scripture Jesus says that it is God alone who is Good, all of us in comparison, fall short. We all who are human are evil in comparison to the God who is Goodness itself. We also know that, as humans, we are less than perfect. And for anyone who has ever raised children, or even cared for aging parents or a spouse, we know we don’t always live up to our ideals. At times we have all the patience and understanding in the world - and at other times…well… We also know that there are parents and caregivers who do not parent with love, compassion, and care. Abuse and unsafe homes for children and the vulnerable is the very definition of evil. Yet, for the vast majority of us, we will not give a child a snake instead of a fish, a scorpion instead of an egg. We do our best to raise them to both meet their needs, keep them safe, and to let them know, unequivocally, that they are loved.
If we will go to our crying children in the middle of the night to help them feel safe and loved…God, our heavenly parent, will go to even farther lengths to help us feel loved. We are tucked in tight, secure in God’s arms, held and loved.
I just love this imagery, we are the little children in bed, God our Parent, is watching over us to help us sleep. Rested and loved. I want to just savor this image for a moment longer…
And so, that accounts for two of the four things happening in our short thirteen verses. And they are about how God views us - as God’s beloved children. The other two segments of this passage are about how we relate to - and pray to - this Divine parent who loves us.
Let’s start with, “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.”
I want to be clear as to what this is not. This is the not heresy known as the Proserpity Gospel that espouses if we just ask right, are good enough, do the right things, pray the right way that we will automatically be rewarded with exactly what we pray for including good health, good relationships, and monetary wealth. That is not how God or our world works.
And yet, God still wants us to talk to God. What loving and caring parent doesn’t want their child to come to them. To ask for what they need, to search for a relationship with God, to search for answers about what God is like, to knock on the door - shamelessly coming to God with all that we are and all that we need.
If a child asks for a good gift and a parent gives it to them; if even a reluctant, tired, duty bound friend answers the door - then how much more is God, our loving Parent, willing to listen to us, to hear our prayers, and to give good gifts.
The disconnect here sometimes comes from what we call good and what God calls Good. After all, no one is Good but God. And we, we are evil in comparison to God’s great Goodness. My kid thinks a new toy every time we go to the store and as much tv she wants is good. I know that new toys and screen time are good…in moderation. I would not be good if I gave my kid everything she thinks she wants in the moment. It is in the first part of the Scripture passage, where the disciples ask Jesus to teach them how to pray, in which Jesus tells them what Good gifts he longs to give us…
“One of his disciples said to him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.’ So he said to them, ‘When you pray, say:
Father, may your name be revered as holy.
May your kingdom come.
Give us each day our daily bread.
And forgive us our sins,
for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.
And do not bring us to the time of trial.’”
Take away some of the flowery language and here is how I might phrase this prayer for a child today:
Father, may I know you.
May the world be as it should be.
Give us food.
Forgive us for when we mess up.
Lead us through the hard times and deliver us into your safe arms.
At the heart of this prayer that Jesus taught us are our very real needs: physical, emotional, and spiritual.
Prayers for food; for forgiveness which is necessary for relationships, and for safety and security.
In this prayer is everything that is Good and Right that our heavenly parent wants to give us:
Right relationship with God. Right relationship with neighbor.
These are the good gifts that God longs to give us.
And if we ask for these Good gifts, if we seek out what God deems right and good, if we seek out how we can make this world more Good, more Right as God desires it to be... then we will find it. God will come to the door and answer it for us.
For me, the take away from these four segments in this passage of Scripture isn’t even really about how to pray. It’s not a checklist of the right things to say. Or even the right things to ask for. It’s, at its heart, a beautiful depiction of how Jesus sees our relationship with the Divine:
We are beloved children - God wants to be our heavenly father who gives us good gifts and loves us.
And in return, God wants us to be God’s children, who come to Jesus with our needs and our thoughts and trusts that, our holy, heavenly Good Father, can help make this world right. We come to God with the blind faith and love of a child who is tucked into bed by their loving parent.
May it be so. Amen.
So yes. For all of the above reasons - the story sounds weird to us.
But I think it’s important to not get too bogged down in the differences between 2000 years ago and today, and instead ask: who is Jesus, who is God, in this parable? In the Lord’s Prayer and in the heavenly father giving the children good gifts, God is the Father. God is the Father here as well. We are the ones knocking at the door, praying, and making requests of Jesus. But we aren’t only the friend asking for bread here…If God is our heavenly parent and we are God’s children…then we are also the children tucked into bed, safe and snug for the night with a parent who loves us very much.
I wrote this sermon - or at least this part of the sermon - on Thursday morning. The night before, neither Zach nor I slept very well. One child needed tucked back in twice. One needed fed twice and rocked once - and was up for a good bit in between those things. While every night we expect to be up once or twice between the two kids, this was a more demanding night than average and thus resulted in significantly less sleep than usual. It’s hard going without sleep. It’s literally a primary need. We need sleep to live. To function. To keep our sanity. I know I was so sleep deprived after my first was born that I felt like my sanity was slipping…And yet, as a parent, when the child cries, I wake. I go to them. I make them feel safe and loved. I sacrifice my own needs and desires for that of my child. And I will do it again and again and again.
Which brings us to another part of this Scripture:
“‘Is there anyone among you who, if your child asked for a fish, would give a snake instead of a fish? Or if the child asked for an egg, would give a scorpion? If you, then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!’”
Don’t get thrown off by the “you, then, who are evil” line. Elsewhere in Scripture Jesus says that it is God alone who is Good, all of us in comparison, fall short. We all who are human are evil in comparison to the God who is Goodness itself. We also know that, as humans, we are less than perfect. And for anyone who has ever raised children, or even cared for aging parents or a spouse, we know we don’t always live up to our ideals. At times we have all the patience and understanding in the world - and at other times…well… We also know that there are parents and caregivers who do not parent with love, compassion, and care. Abuse and unsafe homes for children and the vulnerable is the very definition of evil. Yet, for the vast majority of us, we will not give a child a snake instead of a fish, a scorpion instead of an egg. We do our best to raise them to both meet their needs, keep them safe, and to let them know, unequivocally, that they are loved.
If we will go to our crying children in the middle of the night to help them feel safe and loved…God, our heavenly parent, will go to even farther lengths to help us feel loved. We are tucked in tight, secure in God’s arms, held and loved.
I just love this imagery, we are the little children in bed, God our Parent, is watching over us to help us sleep. Rested and loved. I want to just savor this image for a moment longer…
And so, that accounts for two of the four things happening in our short thirteen verses. And they are about how God views us - as God’s beloved children. The other two segments of this passage are about how we relate to - and pray to - this Divine parent who loves us.
Let’s start with, “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.”
I want to be clear as to what this is not. This is the not heresy known as the Proserpity Gospel that espouses if we just ask right, are good enough, do the right things, pray the right way that we will automatically be rewarded with exactly what we pray for including good health, good relationships, and monetary wealth. That is not how God or our world works.
And yet, God still wants us to talk to God. What loving and caring parent doesn’t want their child to come to them. To ask for what they need, to search for a relationship with God, to search for answers about what God is like, to knock on the door - shamelessly coming to God with all that we are and all that we need.
If a child asks for a good gift and a parent gives it to them; if even a reluctant, tired, duty bound friend answers the door - then how much more is God, our loving Parent, willing to listen to us, to hear our prayers, and to give good gifts.
The disconnect here sometimes comes from what we call good and what God calls Good. After all, no one is Good but God. And we, we are evil in comparison to God’s great Goodness. My kid thinks a new toy every time we go to the store and as much tv she wants is good. I know that new toys and screen time are good…in moderation. I would not be good if I gave my kid everything she thinks she wants in the moment. It is in the first part of the Scripture passage, where the disciples ask Jesus to teach them how to pray, in which Jesus tells them what Good gifts he longs to give us…
“One of his disciples said to him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.’ So he said to them, ‘When you pray, say:
Father, may your name be revered as holy.
May your kingdom come.
Give us each day our daily bread.
And forgive us our sins,
for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.
And do not bring us to the time of trial.’”
Take away some of the flowery language and here is how I might phrase this prayer for a child today:
Father, may I know you.
May the world be as it should be.
Give us food.
Forgive us for when we mess up.
Lead us through the hard times and deliver us into your safe arms.
At the heart of this prayer that Jesus taught us are our very real needs: physical, emotional, and spiritual.
Prayers for food; for forgiveness which is necessary for relationships, and for safety and security.
In this prayer is everything that is Good and Right that our heavenly parent wants to give us:
Right relationship with God. Right relationship with neighbor.
These are the good gifts that God longs to give us.
And if we ask for these Good gifts, if we seek out what God deems right and good, if we seek out how we can make this world more Good, more Right as God desires it to be... then we will find it. God will come to the door and answer it for us.
For me, the take away from these four segments in this passage of Scripture isn’t even really about how to pray. It’s not a checklist of the right things to say. Or even the right things to ask for. It’s, at its heart, a beautiful depiction of how Jesus sees our relationship with the Divine:
We are beloved children - God wants to be our heavenly father who gives us good gifts and loves us.
And in return, God wants us to be God’s children, who come to Jesus with our needs and our thoughts and trusts that, our holy, heavenly Good Father, can help make this world right. We come to God with the blind faith and love of a child who is tucked into bed by their loving parent.
May it be so. Amen.
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