St. John’s Episcopal Church
Tallahassee, FL

Luke 11:1–13
Genesis 18:20–32
Colossians 2:6–19

This sermon was preached during the summer of 2025, when worship at St. John’s was held in the parish hall, Alfriend Hall, while the sanctuary ceiling was being cleaned.

Good morning, St. John’s,
and welcome once again to summer church.

All summer long,
we are asking the same question:
“What does it mean to find the sacred
in the ordinary?”

Each week I bring you 
something ordinary to reflect on,
and today what I wanted to bring you . . .
is a doorknob.

But—full disclosure—
this is one of those “show and tell” weeks
where I do not actually have the object with me.

Honestly, I just didn’t have it in me
to go to Lowe’s or Home Depot
to buy a doorknob
just to have to return it later.

So today, help me out 
and just find the one nearest to you.
They are everywhere.

Doorknobs 
are little things. 
Round. 
Cold.
Often overlooked.
But full of power.

Doorknobs decide 
who gets in and who stays out.
Doorknobs can mean 
welcome or rejection.
Mercy or silence.

That’s because a doorknob means choice.
It means access.
It means control.
It means somebody on the other side 
gets to decide whether you come in or not.

You have to knock.
You have to wait.
You have to hope someone hears.

And I don’t know about you,
but to me,
that is what prayer can often feel like.

You stand there—
bare soul, bare heart—
knocking, 
waiting,  
hoping for the knob to turn, 
wishing you had the master key.

* * *

I think this is something Jesus about us,
which is why when the disciples ask him,
“Lord, teach us to pray,”
he does not give them some secret formula.

Instead, he gives them a relationship.

“When you pray,” he says,
Start with this:
“Our Father.”

Not our boss.
Not our landlord.
Not our gatekeeper.
But our Father.

Now, I know the word Father 
can be complicated.

For some, it is comforting.
For others, it carries pain.
And for many, it simply feels too small
for the full mystery and mercy of God.

But Jesus is not pointing to your earthly father, 
good, bad, or absent.
Jesus is pointing to the One who holds
all strength and all tenderness,
all power and all protection,
all justice and all joy.

Even when we say “Our Father,” 
the God Jesus reveals
is not bound by gender
or limited by human categories.

This is the Parent
whose love made you,
who knows you,
and who opens the door 
before you even knock.

“So start there,”
Jesus seems to say.

Because, according to Jesus, 
the most important thing about prayer
is not how you do it,
or how long you do it,
or how many words you get right.

The most important thing about prayer
is who you think you are praying to
on the other side of the door . . .
and the One you are praying to
is a God who loves you like a Parent, 
more than you can know.

* * *

That’s the first twist of the knob, 
but then Jesus takes it even further.

He tells them this parable:
a midnight knock,
a reluctant friend,
a neighbor who groans in bed
and mutters through the keyhole,
“Man, do not bother me.
The door is closed.
I’ve taken my melatonin, 
I’m in my fuzzies, 
my bed is warm, 
and my children are asleep.
Go away.”

And it’s easy to hear that parable
as a lesson in persistence . . . 
that praying to God is like 
annoying your neighbor at midnight . . .
that if you just bug God long enough,
he will eventually throw you a crust
just to shut you up.

But listen to me, Christian people:
that is not the point of this story.

Jesus is not saying 
that God is like 
your cranky neighbor.

Jesus is saying 
God is nothing like
your cranky neighbor.

Jesus is saying that if even that guy—
as grumpy and reluctant as he is—
will get up just to stop the banging,
how much more will your Father in heaven do,
who never sleeps,
who never grumbles,
who is always ready, 
standing by the door,
waiting for you to knock?

Which means—
and here is the second turn of the knob—
you do not have to beg God to open the door.
You do not have to bribe God 
with good behavior
or fancy words
or spiritual credentials.

As one of my dear friends used to say,
“I ain’t about to be no fatherless child.”

You are not a stranger at the threshold.
You are a child of the house.
You do not need a key
because you have a name.

* * *

But still—
if we are honest—
even when we know all that,
prayer can still feel like
standing in a hallway,
knocking on a door
that does not seem to open.

And that ache—
that raw, aching silence—
is where this becomes more than metaphor.
Because the hallway is real.

Ask Abraham.

He stood in the hallway
and dared to knock
on the door of divine justice:
“Lord, will you spare the city
for fifty righteous?
Forty-five?
Forty?
Thirty?
Twenty?
Ten?”

And every time,
God said yes.
Because the door of mercy
swings wider than we think.

Ask the psalmist.

“When I called,
you answered me,” 
he says.
“You increased my strength within me.”

Ask the Apostle Paul.

That locked door you thought was sealed—
the one that shame bolted,
the one that fear guarded—
Jesus took it off the hinges.

In Colossians today, Paul says:
Christ has “disarmed the rulers and authorities.”
He has “erased the record that stood against us.”
He has opened the way.
He has flung the gates wide.

So even when your prayers 
echo unanswered,
even when the silence 
stretches longer than you hoped,
do not lose heart.

There is grace in the knocking.
There is hope in the asking.
And the door you knock on
is not guarded by a sleeping friend
or a suspicious landlord.

The door you knock on
belongs to your Father, 
and he delights in running down the hall,
in turning the knob,
and in throwing it wide . . . 
though it will always be on his schedule 
and not on yours.

* * *

But here’s the final twist of the knob. 

If this is how God is with us—
if the door of mercy swings open
before we even knock—
then why would we not be the same with others?

Why would we lock 
the door of our compassion?
Why would we ever ration forgiveness,
or put a deadbolt on mercy,
or keep grace behind some 
emotional security system?

If your Father flings open the door to you—
even when you are desperate,
even when you are half-believing,
even when you show up with nothing but need—
then go and do likewise.

Because grace is not just 
something we knock on; 
it is something we pass along.

* * *

So, my friends, 
whatever hallway of life 
you currently find yourself in today, 
go.

Go and keep asking.
Keep seeking.
Keep knocking.

Not because you have to prove something,
but because the One on the other side
is your Parent who loves you 
and knows you by name.

And when you get there—
when that doorknob turns 
and the door creaks open—
you will not find judgment.
You will not find silence.
You will not find a locked gate.

You will find
arms.
A feast.
A Father.
A welcome.

And every time you turn a doorknob this week—
at home, at work, or anywhere in between—
I hope you think about
the promise of prayer
and the God whose door is always open.

Amen.