This morning I want to compare a comment from the wintry knight with the way all too many people approach the text. For we read “ask and it will be given” and we think of what will make us happy. Many things do, and the vary. An example. My Dad grew up in a family that had horses, and he loves watching racing. He would have the TV glued to the TAB (the state off course betting agency) channel. He hates formula one and high tech bikes, or yacht racing. I will happily watch the latter, but horses leave me cold. (No, I am quite good with stock: I just prefer to deal with cows or better still, geese and chickens). And on these things there is no law.
But where there is a law we need to obey it. Even though we may not like it. Because God is not that interested in happiness. He plays for higher stakes.
So you can see here where people have this expectation that it is God’s job to give them good health. But is that anywhere in the Bible? Is it God’s job to make us healthy so that we can have a happy life, even if we are busy spending that happy life ignoring him and not knowing his character. When you ask a serious Christian what it is like to be a Christian, we will tell you that what God is about is NOT making us healthy or happy, but instead giving us time and peace to study him, to make plans to serve him, to execute those plans, and to have (sometimes unhappy) experiences that cause our sympathies to change as we feel what God feels. In short, life is about getting closer to him, and suffering and sickness is one of the tools God uses in order to get us to know him as he is and to participate in the relationship.
And yet we are told that we will ask for anything, and it will be given to us. And this is a great promise of salvation. But that does not mean that we get everything we pray for. Particularly if we pray that the consequences of our actions are taken away: those parking tickets, those speed camera fines, those doctors visits, those bills… And the hint is in the next verse. I am a father and I do not give my children everything they wish, for I do not want them spoiled. I am a grandfather and I check with my daughter before promising things to the grandkids, so they are not spoiled. All good fathers do this. We give children what they need: Bread meat and love, not McDonalds, Cola and Time in front of a screen.
Yes, I am aware that some as fuming, for Christ said something complementary about fathers. And implied they are needed. But that is a sign of the decline.
“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!
“So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.
“Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.
We are told that the way of Christ is not easy: the way to death is smooth and well trodden. We have chosen the narrower path, and we need to accept that we will be misunderstood, that it will take effort, and that there will be pain. There will be a fair bit of simply plodding on: getting up, doing what is needed, repeating the next day. I guess in church language that is called a cross because it sounds a lot more noble than being on call and getting up when needed, or folding the washing, or doing the kid run. But of this routine a life is made, and when that time is gone you will realize that living in righteousness is its own reward, for you will see the joy you had in obedience.
And by that love and joy people will see the light of God in this world. That light which an elaborate education system is designed to keep people from seeing. And from that light we can see the beauty and truth and honour that remains in this shattered world, praise God for these remaining blessings, and move towards making our life one of them.
