Rev Patrick Van der Vorst
n the Gospel reading for this Sunday, Jesus is teaching his disciples how to pray. It is a very intimate and beautiful reading. It talks about one of the most important aspects of the spiritual life: prayer!
To help us understand prayer, Jesus uses the image on a door: Knock and the door will be opened for you. I am sharing with you an image of a door by British contemporary artist Gavin Turk. With its paint seemingly peeling away, it appears to have been left to the elements of nature for some years. In fact, this is not an original wooden door. It is a bronze sculpture, imitating a weathered door. Made from bronze, it has a permanent quality to it. The door can’t be destroyed by rain or adverse weather.
Jesus knew the symbolism that doors hold. Doors open and close, depending on which side you look at the door. A door is both an entrance and an exit, but doors are first and foremost an entrance. Doors symbolise the transition and passageway from one place to another. Jesus uses the image of the door in exactly this way. He shows us that when we open the doors of our souls even just a little to Jesus, he will show us the way. Doors in that sense hold an element of mystery, separating two distinct areas, keeping things apart. We know the space we are in, but not yet the space that lies ahead behind the door. The mystery beyond is hidden from sight by the closed door.
Jesus uses the image of the door when his disciples ask him how to pray. He tells us not to put a ‘do not disturb’ sign on our door, but to persist in prayer. We have to keep knocking on the door, asking, searching so that God can open that door, in his own time. Therefore this door is loaded with hope of a new life, new opportunities, new horizons, leaving the ‘now’ behind to a better ‘next’… hidden behind that door.