This past week there was a considerable buzz in the world of technology around the new Apple IPHONE just released, that does everything you could possibly want in the communications department. Instead of multiple devices such as a cell phone, a digital camera, an ipod, a palm pilot or an mp3, now at last, the single IPhone claims to do it all. With just a touch of a finger to the 3 ½ inch screen one can text message, email, connect to the internet, program the rest of your life on a calendar, show videos, play music and call a friend. All this for only $600! (before the monthly fee is activated, that is).

We are living in an ever growing technological world that is capitalizing on the stressful busyness of our lives. Each newly developed piece of equipment is designed to make our lives easier; to do things faster; to streamline our efficiency. The IPhone captured people’s attention enough for them to stand in line for 12 hours to get one, much like a Best Buy’s Christmas sale.

What is the appeal? Beyond all the convenience and capability, it also offers some control in a world that often feels out of control. It promises to give back some power over our lives, by pushing a button to get results. That doesn’t happen in any other part of lives does it? Not with the people in our lives; not on the freeway; not with our investments; not with our health care. Very few places can we affect such a response. No wonder people line up to pay for it.

This device has even made remotes remote! Now we have more control over multiple devices, all at the same time. We are seduced into believing this is true. We push the "on" button and the TV responds. We push play and the CD begins to play. The "send" button delivers an email, and the GPS in our cars, directs us to an address complete with voice commands. We are conditioned to expect a response and we get it.

Without being totally aware of it, such expectations can seep into the other areas of our lives as well. We can surprisingly find ourselves with a remote expectation when we speak with God. We present our shopping list of concerns, needs and hopes. We pray for the sale of a house; we pray that we get good grades on our exams; we pray that the diagnosis is a mistake. We have all kinds of valid, worrisome, pressing prayers on our hearts, depending on where we live and who we are.

I don’t mean to imply that these prayers are wrong; as I believe God wants to know everything on our heart and welcomes our prayers no matter what they are. Sometimes we can’t even put words to our prayers. Anne Lammot, author, sums up these times in her prayer life as "Dear God, help me, help me, help me; "Thank you, thank you, thank you."

Nevertheless, we send up our prayer requests expecting that it will be answered promptly and preferably according to our suggestions. Our attitudes are not always conscious, but be honest now: if we don’t see God’s response, don’t we question? Why won’t God, who is capable of anything, do away with suffering, at our request? Why can’t God step in and fix a marriage when we plead for it? And how many prayers does it take for God to help us get financially solvent or straighten out a wayward child? We send up emergency prayers like traffic flares, frustrated when God doesn’t respond in the ways we ask.

So our frustration mounts when we read what we want to hear in this passage. "Ask and it will be given to you; knock and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks the door will be opened." This passage seems to be saying, ask and you can get whatever you want. If we pray with enough tenacity and intensity, the sky’s the limit

Some TV evangelists have done great damage in misinterpreting this passage. Some have even assured their audience that if you pray for a million dollars you can get it. All you have to do is pray, cooperate with God, have enough faith, and it is yours. As a result when prayer does not result in the million dollars, people have turned away from God. The formula didn’t work. People end up thinking: I guess I don’t measure up; or I didn’t pray the right way; or even, I must not count with God, when nothing could be further from the truth. Such an interpretation makes a sham out of our relationship with God. It causes people to stay away from God instead of draw closer, as this passage intends.

The New Testament makes it clear that our prayer is not meant as tool of manipulation to satisfy our own selfish desires. God is the one who decides when and if a prayer will be answered. In our doubt and discomfort we offer explanations for God, don’t we? As though we knew the mind of God: Maybe God is angry with me. Or, God is punishing me; or perhaps God is trying to teach me something.

Yet nowhere in the text does Jesus say, "If you don’t get a return call when you pray, it means I don’t have time for you." We forget that when our prayers are not answered according to our explicit requests, God may have another answer. We don’t consider that maybe God is choosing not to answer right now. We don’t think that maybe our prayer requests may not be in our best interest or for others. Most of all we forget that whatever God is doing or not doing, it is out of love for us, a love we may not understand; a love that may even involve suffering.

Prayer is not like the various remotes we have in our homes. Press "select" and list of prayer responses appears. Prayer is not about getting control. It is about giving up control. Prayer is not about changing others; it’s about changing ourselves. Prayer can be a transforming experience if we are able to set down the remote; if we can resist operating as a command center, sending out signals to some spiritual robot in the sky.

There is no doubt that our world of instant gratification feeds that behavior. We expect and get fast results in many areas of our lives. But prayer is not one we can control. Prayer is a vehicle of entering a harmonious relationship with God; becoming a partner with the only One who knows what is best for us. We don’t always know what is best for ourselves, let alone know what is best for others. So seeking God’s direction becomes critically important.

However, thinking of ourselves as self sufficient and independent, not asking for help, is more our mind set. From the beginning, we have been asserting our independence, like a toddler. "No, don’t help me. I can put on my boots myself." "Don’t! I want to open the door without you helping."

Not just toddlers claim their independence. I hear adults say "I drove myself to the hospital" or, "Yes, I’m having serious surgery but others have worse things going on. I can handle it." Or "No, I haven’t told anyone about my divorce. Lots of people go through this and survive." These are our toddler responses. Once we disconnect from others it can be pretty easy to disconnect from God. Believing we are in total control of our lives has its price.

Recently, I have been captured with the story of Judge Manzanares in the paper. A popular and well respected judge in Denver for 15 years, Larry Manzanares had exceptional gifts and drive. Soaring through college and Harvard Law School, at the top of his class, he became a judge at 35, and then rose to City Attorney for Denver, in January of this year. He held an impeccable record, helping to found the Hispanic League from which Hispanic leaders sprung, Senator Ken Salazar for one. By all accounts, he was beloved by everyone who knew him. He had worked hard to establish an enviable reputation, his most valuable credential. He was at the top, in control of many others, and was expected to be.

Then his life began to unravel. He stole a lap top; was subsequently charged with 3 felonies that involved pornography. The sentence was not decided but his reputation was, and the reports said he could not live with that. Only hours after the charges were read, he drove to a nearby park and killed himself, leaving his wife and 2 adult children. He was only 50 yrs. old.

The unanswered questions remain. What happened to this devoted father, beloved husband, and long time civic leader that left him so isolated that suicide was his only solution? How did his public image eliminate space for treatment and recovery of depression? How was his reputation more important than his life? It is a story of tragedy when our control needs control us.

Life is often difficult. God knows that. We place unrealistic demands on ourselves and others, when we act as though we can manage life on our own. But those are not God’s expectations.

"Ask and you shall receive; knock and it shall be opened to you", does not necessarily mean we will receive what we pray for and doors will be opened to make that happen. Ask for gentleness, patience, goodness, peace and self control.

We miss the mark of this passage if we expect God to stop suicide bombers, convince Visa to erase our bills, to persuade our children to turn their backs on destructive behavior; or to convince our neighbor, with the barking dog, to move. But when we set our remote mentality down, and pray that we might be changed instead of others, we are more likely to hit the bulls eye with God. When we say, OK, I am ready to work on knowing where my control ends and God’s begins; it is then that we are more in step with God.

I think it is no accident that God speaks to us with confusing and hard to do instructions, throughout the Bible. Like: Don’t worry; be happy; or love the unlovable in your lives; or look at your own deficiencies before someone else’s; and how about treat everyone as you would want to be treated?

For months now we have heard the arguments of the stated threat illegal immigrants pose for us in our country: threats of taking jobs from U.S. citizens; of the infiltration of drugs; of the destruction of society by the uneducated; as though all were criminals out to topple us. But few fit this category. According to statistics, most are fleeing an economically depressed situation in hopes of providing a living for their families. Their working is contributing to our Social Security System a whopping $7 billion year, whose benefits they will never enjoy.

I think you and I are threatened more by turning to the news instead of our faith. Both the Old and the New Testaments require us to love the stranger among us. From Lev.19: 33-34: "When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien. The alien who resides with you shall be to you as a citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God."

Then today’s passage (Mt.7:12,) we hear Jesus say "In everything, do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets."

How do we do this? Jesus says, "Search for me and I will be found. Ask me for help and I will show you the way. Knock on the closed doors of frustration and I will open them. For when you ask for love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, self control, I will answer."

In his book What Good Is Prayer? Rabbi Kushner, who survived the death of this son, writes, "Prayer is not going to God with your shopping list. Save that for Santa Claus. Prayer is talking in the presence of God, not so much talking to God or with God, but talking in God’s presence. Because when you understand that you’re talking in God’s presence, you become different. Even when you leave God’s presence, you’re different because of that experience."

It is in our asking that we invite God into our lives.

It is in our knocking that we say, "Yes, Lord, I believe."

It is in our seeking that we say, "You will be there for me."

Jesus knocks on the doors of our hearts and invites us to knock on his too.

Amen.