Shameless Audacity: A Parable on Prayer
Sunday, March 15, 2026
Scriptures: Luke 11:1-8
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Summary: In the fourth sermon of our series, Parables of Grace, Jeremy reflects on the story Jesus’ offers about prayer in Luke 11. Jeremy suggests that while we often crave predictable systems or formulas that guarantee results with God, Jesus resists reducing prayer to technique. Instead, he offers a parable that reframes prayer as approaching God with shameless audacity—the willingness to ask for help without embarrassment or self-justification. We can trust that we can show up honestly before a gracious God.
The allure of predictability: Jeremy begins by exploring why the disciples ask Jesus how to pray, noting that people naturally long for rhythms and structures that make life—and faith—feel predictable. Practices like liturgy or routine prayer can reduce the mental load of uncertainty and give us a sense of stability with God. Yet Jesus offers a story along with his prayer to further illustrate why formulas are not everything.
Friends and neighbours: The parable introduces a man who asks a neighbour for bread in the middle of the night. Jeremy highlights how uncomfortable the man must be asking for help. He reflects on how our culture prizes independence, making vulnerability and dependence on others feel embarrassing. This discomfort mirrors how many people approach God cautiously, worried about whether they have the right standing to ask.
Persistence: Jeremy shows that a common interpretation of this parable emphasizes persistence. But, he points out that prayer isn’t a mechanism for guarantees outcomes.
Audacity: Jeremy argues that the key phrase in the story is “shameless audacity,” suggesting the man receives help not because he keeps knocking but because he asks without shame. Prayer, then, is not a negotiation with a reluctant neighbour but a posture of honest dependence before a generous God. We are encouraged to approach God freely and openly, trusting that we don’t need to justify our need in order to ask. -
Community is shaped by the conversations we share. These questions and reflections are a tool to help you meaningfully engage with the themes of this week's teaching.
Connect: Routines and rituals help us feel grounded by adding some predictability to our lives. Things like maintaining a regular schedule, participating in a liturgy, wearing the same clothes, can all reduce our mental load.
Q: What routines do you implement in your life to help reduce life’s unpredictability?
Share: Share your thoughts about the nature of asking for help from your friends and neighbours. In the story that Jesus tells, a man comes to his neighbour asking for bread in the middle of the night, something we might find embarrassing and hard to do.
Q: Why might you find it hard to ask for help from your friends or neighbours shamelessly? What feelings or hinderances are there that sometimes make asking for help difficult?
Reflect: Reflect on how your audacity to approach and ask God anything is one of the reasons Jesus’ told this parable to his disciples. Consider this quote from Jeremy,
“The real beauty of grace is that if we can come to terms with the fact that there is no technique to bend God to our will.
That all we are left with is the invitation to stand
naked and unashamed before God,
and trust that maybe this is enough.This story isn’t about how to get your prayers answered.
It’s about three loaves of bread for goodness sake, who cares.
This story is about the posture we are invited to take before the divine
trusting that God isn’t like a neighbour we have to win over
but something far more graceful,
and something far less tame.”
Q: What thoughts do you have about this quote?Engage: Engage with the idea of the non-answer. What about those times when you pray and ask for something but get no response.
Q: What do you think the parable of the unhelpful friend has to say about this topic?
Take away: Taking Jeremy’s lead about approaching God with shameless audacity, consider the posture or assumptions that you have when praying this week. Try to reflect on what your prayers might look like if you approached God knowing that there is grace (and expectation) for you to stand before the divine in all earnestness and confidence.
Prayer from the sermon:
God of grace,
As we come to this moment, we quiet our hearts before you.
In the middle of busy weeks, unfinished thoughts, and all the things we carried in with us today,
we pause.
And we ask that you might teach us to pray anew
Not just with words we have memorized, but with the honesty of people who know we need your help.
Give us the courage to stand before you without pretending
without rehearsing our arguments,
without trying to prove ourselves worthy of grace.
But instead remind us that you meets us even in the middle of the night,
even when we feel unprepared,
and even when all we have to offer is our ask.And so, we ask,
that would you open our hearts today
and our imaginations to these strange and beautiful stories Jesus tells.
In the strong name of the risen christ we pray,
Amen. -
CALL TO WORSHIP Psalm 104
MUSIC Curated by Kevin & Alyssa Borst
Mission House - Good God
Hillsong Worship - Never Walk Alone Brooke Ligertwood - Greatness
Bethel Music - Heaven Come
PRAYER FOR GENEROUS PRESENCE
Written by Yelena Pakhomova
As we gather on the fourth Sunday of Lent, our very presence here, with our minds and bodies filling this space, is a tangible reminder that Lent is not a solo journey. Similarly, the traditional Lenten practices of prayer, fasting and generosity were never intended for personal self-improvement, but for turning us towards each other on a deeper level.This deeper connection often begins with generous presence, when we open ourselves to the stories of people around us and the burdens they carry. If we let it, Lent will expand our capacity for community by gently nudging us to be here for one another.
In a moment I will invite you to join me in a prayer of generous presence. As we pray, I encourage you to listen to the Spirit and think of people in your life. Who has made you feel seen recently? Who could use your presence this week?
Let us pray.
Loving God
We live in a fractured world,
where words are used to inflame, separate, and divide,
where isolation is so common that we do not even notice it anymore,
where truthfulness is scary and suppressing our feelings comes easily.
This Lent, help us use our words to connect, support and repair,
to open up a conversation instead of shutting it down,
and give us the courage not to pull away from vulnerability and pain
but stay close and listen.
May the ways we are present to each other bring healing to us all.
Patient Christ,
We live in a time where screens both connect and disconnect us,
where it is equally easy to witness suffering and to scroll past it.
With this in mind, we lift up those in our community
who are grieving, who are going through a difficult time,
we pray for those struggling with a diagnosis, navigating a hard transition,
those who are at the end of their strength, who feel afraid and alone.
This Lent, help us use our time to connect, support and repair,
Give us the courage to offer peace in places of complexity and pain.
May the ways we are present to each other bring healing to us all.
Spirit of Hope,
We inhabit spaces where hope is often drowned out by anxiety,
So we want to celebrate the glimpses of resilient joy around us:
Curious faces of little children, new opportunities, hard-won accomplishments,
Friendships and conversations where we can be seen,
Faith that can both challenge and sustain us,
And small acts of kindness that give us strength to press on.
This Lent, remind us that we have enough love and wisdom to share,
And train our hearts not to skip over joy in the twists and turns of our lives.
May the ways we are present to each other bring healing to us all.
In the name of Christ, we pray. Amen.
SERIES BUMPER
Parables of Grace
