Daily Reflection Thursday of the First Week of Lent

It now seems so innocent, so quaint – a memory of my mother sending my sister and me out of the house around 10-ish each summer morning to “knock on a door and find someone to play with.” (No cell phones then, of course – just lots of trust in us and our neighbors.) Fast forward: even as adults we rarely risk walking up to a door and knocking without an appointment, or answering a knock without checking our Ring cameras first.



But Jesus in today’s teaching from his Sermon on the Mount calls us again to that decades-ago same sense of trust. Be bold, he says, in your seeking and knocking. Waiting for us is the God who is for us, who stands at the ready, who beautifully knows us by name, who wants what is best for us, yearns to give us a flourishing life filled with ‘fish and bread.’



In confidence, we bring our whole selves to this knocking. Our deepest longings and ardent hopes, everything it means to be a human person – each finds their place beyond the open door. Joy, celebration, the deep sighs of suffering, the moans of pain and disappointment – all of it places us somewhere near the heart of God, our host. Our prayer languages of beseeching and confessing, of praising, lamenting, and thanking, become sacraments of a relationship of intimacy and trust. Even when we have no words to speak, no words to write, God is with us, hears us, loves us. 



Our Gospel passage ends with Jesus’ reiteration of the Golden Rule. How humbling to be reminded that we might be the answer to another’s knocking, the answer to a fervent prayer. Praying for others – friends, strangers, enemies, victims and aggressors, people far and near – creates pliable pathways of connection in our widening hearts of compassion and our open hands to help.



We’ve been invited to the neighborhood party. We give a rap or two, push down the latch, and come on in.