Here’s something you probably don’t know. Brooklyn is farm country. No, not like the farms in the Midwest, with hundreds and hundreds of acres of corn and wheat. In the neighborhood I grew up in most of the Jewish and Italian residents had backyard gardens. My grandfather’s had a peach and a fig tree, tomatoes, peppers, lettuce, parsley and basil. All those houses, all those backyards, a lot of produce came out of Brooklyn!
My mother’s parents lived around the block from us. One afternoon, when I was a kid, my mother told me, “Go around to grandma’s garden and pick 10 pieces of basil. I need them for the tomato sauce.” She added, “Don’t bother your grandmother. Just pick the basil and come right back.” Then I asked the “Suppose Question.” “Suppose grandma sees me and I get caught. Won’t she be mad?” My mother looked at me as if I were from another planet. “That’s your grandmother!” As if to say, “Impossible, that would never happen!”
And that is what Jesus was expecting of his hearers when he told them this parable which begins, “Suppose….” As if to say, imagine this: “A friend goes to a friend at midnight and has a need. Another friend has arrived. It is a surprise, no chance to prepare. In fact, the one knocking at the door says, ‘I’m unprepared. I can’t offer the customary hospitality.’” Hospitality was more than a formality, more than customary. It was a way of life, and still is in the Middle East and many parts of the world.
When a guest arrived they would be offered food; hospitality required it. And, a guest must eat, whether hungry or not; hospitality required it. Sharing food is a sign of sharing life. Today people lament about rushed meals, eaten alone or on the run. Back then hospitality required a host must share the best; provide more than a guest could eat. If the host family didn’t have enough, the natural thing to do was to go to a neighbor for help. It was an honor to welcome a guest. It was also an honor for a neighbor, even a whole village, to help in hosting a guest. Anyone who could would rise to help. In a small village everyone would hear the pounding on the door in the middle of the night and the call for help. If that request weren’t responded to, not just a household, but the whole village would be shamed.
That is the atmosphere of the story. It is a world that, in many ways, is so different from ours. People were poor, always on the verge of poverty and starvation. There were exorbitant taxes to the Romans, Herod and to the Temple. Life was precarious. A drought, flood, pestilence or famine could drive a family into poverty, a lifetime of debt, even slavery. You survived because you stuck together. As those migrants packed onto fishing boats on the Mediterranean struggle to do, sharing morsels of food and cups of water.
So when Jesus says, “Suppose, this should happen: a friend turns down a friend’s urgent request for bread for a friend — no matter what the hour….” The parable is a long question: “Which of you would act this way, turn down a request from a friend?” The expected response, without doubt, would have been, “Impossible! None of us!”
A recent scriptural reflection group tried to draw a modern day parallel to this parable. Here is what they came up with. Think of your best friend, knocking on your door in the middle of the night with an urgent request. “My child is having an emergency and my car is not working. Would you drive us to the emergency room?” No one in that scripture group would turn down such a request, no matter how inconvenient.
Did you notice how many times “friend” was mentioned? Three. “Friendship” was used once. The atmosphere of this parable is a world of friendship. The one asking, is a friend. The unexpected guest who came in midnight, is a friend. The one inside, with the much-needed bread, is a friend. Jesus’ listeners expected a favorable response from the person inside: one friend helping another friend to feed a friend who came visiting.
And the implication for us… who turn to God in our need? If a friend would respond favorably, how much more will God favor us? In other words, when we pray out of our need we are knocking on the door of our friend so, expect a friendly response. God is our neighbor with bread who wouldn’t think of not giving nourishment of some kind. As the parable puts it: “He will get up to give him whatever he needs….”
We don’t have to wear God down. The parable urges us to express our constant and daily trust in God. We won’t get discouraged. We won’t give up. We will be constant. There is something in the trustful asking and in the persistence. If it is someone I don’t trust, or who has no feelings towards me, then I soon shrug my shoulders and give up. But, if it is someone well-disposed towards me, I’ll keep asking; I’ll keep the channel of communication open, believing that I am asking someone who has my best interest at heart. In the constancy and reflecting on what’s happening as I wait for a response, I come to grow in trust for my God, my friend inside, who will provide for my real needs, the ones only God can know and will give.
How many times in our lives have we prayed the “Lord’s Prayer,” asking for “daily bread?” That bread is given to us in the ordinary events of our lives. God gives us daily bread when:
∙ a sickness happens and a family member, or friend stops in for a visit, carrying a casserole, picking up the kids from school… Daily bread.
∙ A brother or sister calls, we chat and share our struggles and then retell a family story that gets us both laughing… Daily bread
∙ a co-worker says, “Let me help you with that.”… Daily bread
∙ a teacher asks us to stay after class to give us encouragement and good advice… Daily bread
∙ a scout leader spends weekends teaching our kids camping skills and life lessons… Daily bread
∙ a volunteer works at a food pantry distributing food, with a smile… Daily bread
Jesus says to us today, “Suppose you were hungry and it was late and you were weary of trying on your own, but then decided to hold out a hand to God. Wouldn’t God give you something nourishing? Something you needed and can’t provide for yourself? Of course God would, because God is our friend in the night.” Then Jesus would add: “You go and do likewise.”