Knocking on heaven's door (without the password)

Readings:  Isaiah 55.6-9 and Matthew 7.7-12 (Seeking the Lord)

There is a version of Christianity — we’ve met it — where prayer is essentially a customer feedback form sent to heaven.

“Dear God, I note that my current circumstances are suboptimal.
Please amend.
In Jeeeesus’ name.”

And if nothing changes, we assume either a technical glitch or insufficient spiritual enthusiasm.

But then Jesus says something that sounds beautifully simple:

If your child asks for bread, will you give them a stone?

It’s a tender image. God as Father. You as child. Bread, not gravel.

And let’s just pause there — because that image has done enormous good in the world.

For many people, the idea that ultimate reality is not indifferent, not mechanical, not cold — but somehow personal and good — has been life-saving. In its day, this was a radically different picture of God than one who brooded on a mountain, or dwelt in a Holy of Holies, presumably peering out from behind the Temple curtain to check on humanity once in a while.

But — and here’s where we go gently — it is still an image.

Jesus did not hand out a metaphysics textbook. He told stories.

When he says “Father,” he is not offering a biological description of God. He is offering relational language. Poetry. Analogy.

Because how exactly do you describe the source and sustainer of all being?

“Ground of Being” doesn’t quite work in the Lord’s Prayer.

“Our Ground of Being, who art…”

It lacks… warmth.

And yet, theologians like Paul Tillich have been absolutely right to say that God is not a large invisible man in the sky rearranging parking spaces for the benefit of the faithful.

And thinkers like John D. Caputo remind us that God may be less a cosmic puppeteer and more an insistent call — a deep, instinctive summons toward justice, mercy, love.

Which sounds terribly abstract — until you realise you’ve felt it.

That tug toward forgiveness you didn’t want to offer.
That nudge toward generosity that made no financial sense.
That uncomfortable pull toward truth.

If that is “God,” then God is not pushing pieces around a chessboard. God – or what we mean when we speak of God - is drawing something out of you.

Now — before anyone’s pulse quickens — this does not mean Jesus was wrong.

It means he was speaking in the only language human beings can understand instinctively: the language of relationship. He speaks of Father not because God has elbows and a beard, but because love is the closest word we have to what God may actually be like.

And here’s the key: whether you imagine God as loving Father… or as Ground of Being… or an ethical insistence pressing on the edges of your conscience… the vending machine model of God still doesn’t work. Because in none of those visions is God a mechanism. In none of them is prayer a lever you pull to release snacks. That was what the Greek and Roman gods were like. You had to appease them, impress them, sacrifice to them, beg them. And if you were lucky, they might deign to answer your request with a wave of a divine digit.

Ask. Seek. Knock.

In a “Father” framework, that is the child learning trust.

In a “Ground of Being” framework, that is the creature aligning with reality.

In a Caputo-style framework, that is the human heart responding to the insistence of love.

Different metaphors. Same surrender. And this, perhaps, is the real shift.

The question is not, “Can I get God to do what I want?” The question is, “What is God doing in me?” Because if God is a loving Father, then perhaps unanswered prayer is not neglect but formation.

If God is the Ground of Being, then perhaps prayer is not persuasion but participation in deeper reality.

If God is ethical, holy insistence within us all, then perhaps prayer is how we become more fully human.

And suddenly “in the name of Jesus” (or, as it is often pronounced, desperately, passionately, “Jeeesus”), well that becomes less a password, less of a magic word, a divine abracadabra… and more a direction.

The direction towards self-giving love.
The direction of trust.
The direction that says, “Not my will” — not because I am crushed, but because I am being widened.

Now, I realise these are big thoughts. Some of you are thinking, “I only came for bread and wine, not metaphysics.”

Fair enough.

But even if you hold tightly to the image of God as Father who knows your needs — and many of you do — notice what Jesus actually emphasises.

Not control.
Not technique.
But trust.

Ask.

Which means you are not self-sufficient. You need others, you need God. God and neighbour are both essential for us.

Seek.

Which means you have not arrived. You’re still looking, still on a journey, never quite ‘there’.

Knock.

Which means the door is not yours to command. However we conceive of God — Father, Ground, Insistence — prayer is not about getting the universe to rearrange itself on our timetable. It is about becoming people who can live within - and live with - a love deeper than our preferences.

And that, frankly, is far more radical than getting the job, the healing, or the parking space.

Though I still pray about parking spaces.

In the name of Jeeeesus.

Amen.