Ask, Search, Knock

Last week, we looked at Jesus’ teaching against anxiety, which is grounded in seeing God’s providence for all creation. Today we have the flip-side of that teaching: Confidence in asking for what we need. It’s a beautiful and comforting teaching, but one that isn’t without its own challenges.

Jesus says:

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. Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for bread, will give a stone? Or if the child asks for a fish, will give a snake? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him! (Matthew 7.7-11)

This ties in beautifully to that earlier section against anxiety, in which Jesus said:

Therefore do not worry, saying, “What will we eat?” or “What will we drink?” or “What will we wear?” For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But first pursue the Kingdom of God and God’s righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. (6.31-33)

More than being a teaching about petitionary prayer, this is really a teaching about the nature of God. It paints a picture of a God who is, above all else, benevolent and generous, so that blessings overflow from heaven to earth, such that not even the smallest sparrow or humblest wildflower is outside of God’s provision. Because of this, in God’s Kingdom, all who ask receive, all who search will find, and all who knock will have the door opened.

This is good theology and yet it has spurred a lot of bad theology. The problem comes when this teaching bumps up against the tens, if not hundreds, of millions of people whose basic needs aren’t met. Sadly, there are many Christians — particularly among those who are comfortable and wealthy — who resolve this problem by saying that the poor, hungry, unhoused, sick, or desperate in the world simply haven’t asked God, or haven’t had enough faith in asking. But this is not the Gospel, and certainly not the ethic or theology of the Sermon on the Mount! Let’s remember the Beatitudes, which state that in God’s kingdom, it’s this world’s ‘losers’ who are the ones who are blessed!

The problem comes, of course, not from a lack of faith on the part of the poor, or from stinginess on God’s part, but because we have to live our lives, not in God’s kingdom, but within the kingdoms of this world, which are stingy, unjust, and reward those who make the rich richer and powerful more powerful. It’s once again an issue of the ‘now but not yet’ of Christian life. We are citizens of a kingdom that is not of this world and that plays by very different rules.

The fact is, God is pouring out abundance on the world. There is more than enough to go around for everyone. But sin, which breaks faithfulness in our relationships with each other, gets in the way. Particularly greed and callous indifference.

And the same time, the Sermon on the Mount also reminds us that these material concerns aren’t all that life is about, and that we must “first pursue the kingdom of God and its righteousness.” And these are heavenly gifts that no human has the power to intercept.

The point here is again that God is generous; God’s very nature is to pour out gifts for all of creation. The question for us is whether we participate in God’s economy, which shares what we have received in a generous and gracious flow, so that we ensure everyone has what they need, or whether we retreat into the ways of this world, which are stingy and withholding, and which block God’s economy of flow through our own greed or anxiety.