Janis Joplin used to sing a song that went like this: "O Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes-Benz? My friends all drive Porches, I must make amends. Worked hard all my lifetime, no help from my friends. O Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes-Benz?"

That’s a prayer. And, frankly, it’s the kind of prayer we’ve come to expect. Pray when you want something. Mercedes-Benz, job, house, cure. If you want it, pray for it.

That can’t be right, can it? It seems a little self-serving, a little trivial. And if you pray for a clear day for the picnic, what about the farmer who prays for rain for his crops? How does that work?

Well, I have a confession: I don’t know. You’re not going to hear this from the pulpit in lots of churches, but I’m sticking to my preaching professor’s advice not to preach anything I don’t believe and not to pretend in the pulpit. So I’m starting off telling you that I’m not going to pretend that I can explain prayer.

And this morning we deal with the ultimate prayer, the prayer we say at every single worship service in the church. Jesus’ disciples see him praying, and they want him to teach them to pray. They’re in for a surprise. They’ve been raised to revere the unpronounceable name of God. Their prayers begin with salutations like, "Our Father, Our King, O Great and Powerful Creator of the Universe." And Jesus says, "OK, here you go; start like this, "Daddy."

Daddy? The word is Abba. Children use it to refer to their fathers. It’s as informal as you can get. To Jewish ears, starting a prayer with "Daddy" would sound wildly presumptuous, irreverent, and undignified.

And then he goes on. The prayer is short, direct, and packed. There’s no flowery language or long-winded introductions. This is a prayer for people who can call God "Daddy," and still hallow God’s name. This is a prayer for people who long for God’s kingdom, God’s reign. This is a prayer for people who ask for today’s bread, trusting tomorrow to God. This is a prayer for people who know they need forgiveness, but also know that they cannot get it if their own hearts are unforgiving. This is a prayer for people who know that they need help in the time of trial.

And that’s it! It’s over. It’s so short, but we could spend a long time discussing each line.

And that I could do. I think I understand this prayer. But Jesus goes on. He tells this story about a man who goes to his friend’s house at midnight and knocks on the door asking for bread to give to unexpected guests. The man inside says, "It’s too late, beat it." But the first guy won’t go away. He stands out there pounding on the door until the guy inside says, "Alright, alright already, I’m coming. I’ll give you the bread. Just stop making all that racket and go home!" This is where my ability to understand, to explain, breaks down. Jesus says prayer is like that encounter at midnight. Just keep asking and asking, searching and searching, knocking and knocking, and God will answer your prayer, not so much because God is your friend as just to shut you up! (God doesn’t seem very nice, does he?)

Then Jesus says, "For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, a door will be opened." Those are wonderful words, and they’re great fun to sing, and I’m sorely tempted to just be pious sounding and let it go at that, but, remembering my preaching professor, I can’t pretend. I have to say, "You know, it really doesn’t seem like that. Lots of people ask and don’t seem to receive, search and don’t seem to find, knock and don’t seem to be let in." So how does that work? I don’t know.

But I do know that what we’re given is a glimpse of a relationship that allows this asking and (perhaps grudging) giving. We see something of that kind of relationship in our Old Testament reading. God is going to check out the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah for their great sin (which, buy the way, was not homosexuality, but was rape and murder). Abraham bargains with God. It’s a humorous scene, and it is between characters who may get exasperated with each other, but who know each other, and are intimately connected. "What if there are fifty good people, you wouldn’t kill them all if there were fifty good ones, would you? Look, I know I’m just dust and ashes, but you are just, aren’t you? What if there were just five more bad people, you wouldn’t kill them all if there were forty five good ones, would you? How about forty? Don’t be mad, but how about thirty? Look, I know I’m being presumptuous here, but how about twenty? Don’t be mad, but just one more: how about ten?"

This is a real relationship as Abraham bargains God down to ten. Whatever else you can say about this encounter, it is an endearing glimpse into a very real, very earthy, relationship.

When Jesus tells the story about the man who goes to his friends’ house at midnight for bread, it’s also a story about a very real, very earthy relationship between these two friends. It reminds me of my cat, Patches. Patches sleeps with us (between us, actually, she’s very jealous about that), but, being a cat, she likes to wander around a bit in the night. So we have to leave the door ajar. Now, sometimes one of us accidentally closes the door, or, being the fool that she is, she will actually close it herself. And then, of course, she wants out. The way she makes that wish known is to rattle the door, loudly.

So, I wake from a deep sleep to the sound of the bedroom door being pounded by a cat paw. Lots of time, most of the time, my first response is to try to ignore it. Sometimes I pull a pillow over my head. "She’ll give up in a minute," I think. This is an irrational thought because we’ve had her for seventeen years and she has never given up, not in a minute, not in an hour. She will sometimes pause, which will allow me to go back to sleep, but she will always begin again, waking me up all over again. The result is always the same: I get up and let her out. I’m usually not saying loving things to her when I do. She doesn’t care. She’s a cat.

All this takes place within the context of a relationship in which we are living our lives together. There is a connectedness, an earthy intimacy here. And if you think I don’t love my fool of a cat, you’re wrong.

The story Jesus told takes place in the context of a friendship, of lives lived together. One man feels he can go to the other’s house at midnight. The other is brutally honest in a way that shows that these are people who don’t feel their relationship will be threatened if they don’t posture with politeness around each other. "Beat it; it’s too late!" he hollers out the window. "I am not," the first one says. "I’m staying here and pounding on your door till you come out." So the second man comes out with the bread, not saying loving things as he does.

I don’t understand the mechanics of how prayer works, and why sometimes it doesn’t seem to work, and how we connect the dots, or don’t. But I think that Jesus puts it all in the context of lives lived together, of friendship so real and earthy that pleasantries are unnecessary, a hindrance even. This is the kind of relationship that allows Abraham’s humorous, annoying, bargaining, that allows telling your friend that it’s too late because it is too late, that allows staying and pounding on the door because you know your friend will show up, grumpy and grudging, with the bread — and not with a shotgun. It’s about being related in the real, honest stuff of life.

But it turns out, it’s not about necessarily getting what you want. Jesus says, "If you people, who are a mess, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Daddy give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?" What God gives is the Holy Spirit. In the Lord’s Prayer, we ask for four things: God’s reign, our needs for today, forgiveness that mirrors our forgiving, and deliverance from the time of trial. That sounds like Holy Spirit stuff to me. Maybe whether we get what we ask for or not depends on whether it is part of getting the Holy Spirit.

So, I don’t understand prayer as a rational topic that can be explained. If you tell me you do, well, frankly, I’m suspicious. But if you tell me that

because you live your life with God, you need to call God "Daddy," (Or "Mommy"),

if you tell me that because you live your life with God, you just have to exalt God’s name,

if you tell me that because you live your life with God, you long for the reign of God,

if you tell me that because you live your life with God, you trust God to provide for today,

if you tell me that because you live your life with God, you know you need forgiveness and that you need to forgive,

if you tell me that because you live your life with God, you know you need help in the time of trial,

if you tell me these things, then, in ways I’ll probably never be able to explain, I understand. I’m with you. You are in a relationship with God, living the real, earthy, honest, stuff of life with God, and that I get. And I want to pray with you.

You want to pray for a Mercedes-Benz? Go ahead. You probably won’t get it (not because you prayed for it, anyway). For most of us, a Mercedes-Benz is probably not part of getting the Holy Spirit. But go ahead and ask.

I bet God will be glad to hear from you.

The Rev. James H. Pritchett, Jr. St. John’s Episcopal Church, College Park, GA