Knock, Knock, Knockin' at Heaven's Door

by Chris Reynolds
July 29, 2007

When I was younger I used to really enjoy silly, pointless jokes... okay, I guess I still do. One of my favorite jokes goes like this:

A man hears a knock at his door, but doesn't see anything out his peephole. He opens the door to find a duck sitting outside on his porch. The duck waddles up to the man and says, "Have you got any duck food?" The man, bewildered to find a talking duck, but not knowing what duck food is, said "No, sorry." So the duck waddled off into the night.

The very next evening at the very same time, there's another knock at the door. The man opens it up to find the duck standing there again. "Have you got any duck food?" says the duck. "No, the man says, I just told you yesterday I don't have any duck food. You'd better ask someone else." So the duck waddles off.

Next day, same time, the duck is back again, knocking on the door. "Have you got any duck food?" the duck asks expectantly. "No!" the man says, getting irritated. "I've already told you I don't have any duck food. I don't even know what duck food is! But I'll tell you what I do know! I know that if you come back here one more time asking for duck food, I'll nail your little webbed feet above my doorframe!" At this, the duck, very calmly waddles off into the night.

Now the next day, at the same time, there's a familiar knock on the man's door. The man looks down to see the duck there, once again. The duck, looks up at the man, and asks, "Have you got any nails?" Bewildered, the man says, "No, I haven't got any nails." To which the duck replies, without hesitation, "Then have you got any duck food?"

In today's scripture lesson, Luke 11: 1 - 13, we heard a parable about a guy knocking on his neighbor's door. We learned about his persistence and earnestness, and how, in the end, it would certainly pay off.
I'd like to take some time to really look at this story in several different ways:
When I first read this story, several thoughts jumped into my head about who these characters might be in our world. As an economist, I can't help but think in slightly economic terms, so bear with me.

There is a sleeper. This is the person who has everything he needs, and more to spare. He sleeps well at night knowing that his children are well-provided for. In the normal course of things, the sleeper would be the person with all of the power in a society.

There is also a knocker. This is the person who desires the resources held and controlled by the sleeper. The knocker is up late at night, desperately looking for something to feed his guest. This person, in the normal course of things, would be a more marginal element of society.

The real surprise of this parable then, is the power shift that it illustrates. No matter how much power the sleeper may hold over the knocker during the day, the knocker, through his persistence becomes the one in power. The knocker is the squeaky wheel who gets the grease, he is the thorn in the lion's paw; he is, in effect, really, really, annoying.

In a way, this is the perfect example of a Christ-like revolution. The weak are put on equal footing with the strong by force of will, rather than force of arms.

It's easy to come up with examples of figures like that of the knocker. The first one that comes to mind is another guy who pounded on a door a long time ago, Martin Luther. A few centuries later, you've got another guy with a similar name, Martin Luther King, who led a civil revolution by his persistence. A more literal revolution was led by Gandhi, whose peaceful resistance continues to be a model for change. Many members of this very congregation have participated in acts of peaceful resistance or even led groups and causes and movements by exerting a persistent peaceful pressure.

To borrow these revolutionary terms, the knocker is like any person who seeks change, and the sleeper is any person who has love for the status quo. The sleeper isn't actively repressing the knocker, he just likes things the way they are, in his comfy bed, cuddling with his kids. The sleeper doesn't want to see anyone rocking the boat. "Why would anyone want to change what has worked so well for so long?" "What about my kids?" "If I relent to this request, will he just be back knocking tomorrow for something else?"

I picture the sleeper as a person who's not necessarily greedy or ill-tempered. I see him as someone who really wouldn't mind giving the knocker a piece of bread. It's not really that big a deal. But then the sleeper gets caught up in all of these abstractions. "If I give you a piece of bread, what will the ripple-effects of that be? Does that mean that I'll have to get up earlier and start making all new bread from scratch? If I give you bread now, will you just want more bread later? Sure, maybe I can afford to give you the bread, but what if next time you ask for bread from someone who can't afford to give away any? Is that poor person going to feel obliged to follow my lead? I can't make this decision for others! Wouldn't it just be easier for both of us if I gave you money to go down to the store and buy some bread?"

Meanwhile the knocker is standing around outside thinking to himself, "Come on, buddy! The only thing at issue here is a tiny, little piece of bread! This is ridiculous! I'm not even asking it for myself, I'm only here asking you for this on account of my guest!"

In the telling of this parable, Jesus optimistically teaches that the knocker should prevail over the sleeper. For me that's almost too optimistic. One need only look at the reelection rate of members of Congress, or the extreme difficulty in altering the farm bill, or the refusal to talk about withdrawing troops from Iraq until September as examples of the power of the status quo, no matter how broken it may be!

Hmmm... well, look at me, I've gone and picked three examples all having to do with Congress. That doesn't make them any less true, but Congress is awfully far away from here--several miles. I'll have to let each of you come up with examples a little bit closer to this church.
And what of this church?

There is an additional lesson to be learned in the Luke passage by examining the juxtaposition of the parable we've been discussing with the passage we pretty much all know, the Lord's Prayer.
The Lord 's Prayer is one of the cases in which I really wish Jesus had recorded an audio book of the Bible. There are no hints in the prayer itself of what our attitude should be as we pray it.
Maybe this is just me, but I've always read it as a very humble and passive prayer. The words that I say are always the same but you could probably rewrite it to better match my tone in this way, "Oh God, you are truly the most awesome and supreme power in the universe. I have trust that you will eventually bring about your kingdom, please help me not to get in the way of that. I ask only the bare necessities for life from you; I need only bread and water, but if you'd rather me not have them that's okay too. I'm doing my best to forgive those around me, and I only hope and pray that you will forgive the mean and nasty things that I've done. But honestly, if you could just take away the temptation to do those mean and nasty things that would really be ideal. Amen."

As it turns out, that's a really, really wrong way to pray. Jesus is telling us that when we pray, we should be like the guy pounding on the door. To paraphrase Walter Wink: "Hey God, I know you're in there! Get off your lazy bum and be God for a while! We need you down here! It's about time we saw some of that domination-free order you've been talking about for the last few thousand years! There are hungry people down here, too! How about helping them get their daily bread?!? We insist that we be forgiven and we demand that you shield us from temptation! Have you got that, or do I have to pray it again?"

We are called to play this way repeatedly (though maybe not in these words), so that even if God doesn't answer the prayer the first time, or the second or the third. He may eventually. Jesus notes that we ought not be upset in the way that God answers us either. In all likelihood, he's not doing it because he's our friend. He's doing it because he's sick of being bothered about it.

In my mind that's not the way that I would like to think of God or how he operates, but it is an interesting way. You might say it's something to think on or maybe it's something to pray on.
God may be slow in answering our knocks, but what if that's only because we're even slower responding to those who knock on our doors? Keep some duck food handy.