Wanting the Things We Get
(The Prayer of Petition)
July 29, 2007: 17th Sunday of Ordinary Time
Genesis 18:20-32 Colossians 2:12-14 Luke 11:1-13
To the church in the diaspora[1]
& to the church of the unchurched[2]
Alleluia, alleluia.
A reading from the holy Gospel according to Luke.
Glory to you, Lord.
Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray just as John taught his disciples.” He said to them, “When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread and forgive us our sins for we ourselves forgive everyone in debt to us, and do not subject us to the final test.”And he said to them, “Suppose one of you has a friend to whom he goes at midnight and says, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, for a friend of mine has arrived at my house from a journey and I have nothing to offer him,’ and he says in reply from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door has already been locked and my children and I are already in bed. I cannot get up to give you anything.’ I tell you, if he does not get up to give the visitor the loaves because of their friendship, he will get up to give him whatever he needs because of his persistence.“And I tell you, ask and you will receive; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. What father among you would hand his son a snake when he asks for a fish? Or hand him a scorpion when he asks for an egg? If you then, who are wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?”
The Gospel of the Lord.
Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.
Introduction
Bold images of God
Through the ages humans have used various images for God. Some of them are bold. In his poem The Hound of Heaven, Francis Thompson (a recovered alcoholic) boldly likens God to a hound dog in loving pursuit of a wayward human being. God cries out to him, “Whom wilt thou find to love ignoble thee, save me, save only me?” The imagery wishes to console the wayward; they should wildly trust in God who relentlessly pursues them with forgiveness.
In one of his parables Jesus boldly likens God to a corrupt judge in town “who fears neither God nor man.” A little old lady wants the judge to plead her case. She knocks persistently at his door. He finally agrees to take her case and give judgment in her favor, if for no other reason than to shut her up, because, he says, “she is wearing me down.” Jesus’ imagery wishes to console us. “ If an evil judge can be worn down like that, don’t you think that God will surely give justice to His people who plead with Him day and night.” We are enjoined to keep knocking at God’s door (Lk 18:1-8).
A quaint and humorous image
In today’s parable Jesus uses an image for God which is humorous and quaint. He likens God to a dad all snuggled upstairs in bed with his kids. Suddenly there’s loud knocking at the door below. A neighbor outside looks up and pleads for three loaves of bread, because a visitor has suddenly come upon him, and he wants to offer him the hospitality of food. The night air is cold and the dad is half-awake. He doesn’t want to come down, but the neighbor keeps knocking. The man finally gives in. He descends to unlock the door and hand his neighbor the three loaves. He does so to quiet his friend and send him on his way. Jesus enjoins us saying, “Ask and you will receive, seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you” (Lk 11: 1-13).
The Prayer of Petition
Our Catholic catechism lines up four kinds of prayer. There is the Prayer of Adoration: the prayer of one who profoundly feels the mystery of God. There is the Prayer of Thanksgiving: the prayer of one who is deeply grateful for his blessings in a world filled with so much want and misery. There is the Prayer of Forgiveness: the prayer of one who painfully feels his waywardness. Then there is the Prayer of Petition: the prayer of one who begs for something (for a judge to plead a case or for three loaves of bread to feed an unexpected guest). It’s the prayer of beggars. It’s the prayer of all of us who, sooner or later, become beggars in desperate need of something.
The problem with the Prayer of Petition
The Prayer of Petition is problematic. Somewhere along our journey we’ve all begged God for some thing, and that some thing wasn’t given. We’ve all begged earnestly for the cure of a loved one seriously ill, but the cure was never granted. Or we begged God to lift a mountainous problem from us and cast it into the sea, but it wasn’t cast into the sea (Lk 17:6). Or we begged God to release someone we love from bondage or addiction, but they weren’t released. We remember (because we can never forget) that the six million petitions from six million Jews of the Holocaust begged God for deliverance from the concentration camps of Auschwitz, Dachau and Buchenwald, but those six million petitions weren’t granted. The Prayer of Petition is problematic, and most of the time we are simply “too pious” to deal with it honestly.
Being honest about the Prayer of Petition
Recently a friend with his wife and daughter together with some others dropped in the day before he was going to undergo a quadruple bypass heart surgery. They even brought their (and my) lunch along. (We all like such guests!) The lunch, I guess, was meant to lighten up the somber occasion. The day before heart surgery, you know, always needs some lightening up. But the gravitas of such a moment inevitably broke through, and soon we found ourselves not very “pious” at all. Soon we found ourselves asking an honest question about the Prayer of Petition. An honest question about begging God for a happy outcome to a heart surgery soon to take place. An honest question like do we really think that when we earnestly pray for something very important that we can actually influence God to change his immutable mind?
Some thing or some One?
Perhaps the answer to such a question is found in the very interesting variation with which Matthew and Luke end this parable which likens God to a dad who is in bed with his kids, and who is being persistently beseeched to lend a neighbor three loaves of bread. Matthew ends the parable by having Jesus say, "If you, bad as you are, know how to give your children good things, how much more will the Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him" (Mt 7:11)? The image here is almost that of a Santa Claus--one who gives us the good things we ask for.
Luke, however, ends the parable by having Jesus say, “If you, bad as you are, know how to give your children good things, how much more will the Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him" (Lk 11:13)? No Santa Claus image here. You ask for a loaf or a fish or an egg, and you don’t get the loaf or the fish or the egg which you asked for. You get, instead, the Holy Spirit! You ask for some thing, and instead you get some One--the Holy Spirit.
Does Luke offer a more profound idea of the Prayer of Petition? Could he possibly mean that when we beg heaven for some thing, heaven does not give us some thing, i.e., a fish, a loaf, an egg. (That we must give ourselves!) But heaven does give us some One--the Holy Spirit!
One response to being honest
Here as I try to speak honestly, I must also speak tentatively and cautiously, for it is, indeed, pretentious to claim to know what heaven gives us or does not give us. One woman angrily wrote: "When you speak that way [that heaven perhaps gives us not some thing but only some One, and that everything which earth needs it must give itself], you speak dangerously Marxist. You speak also rather shockingly. And besides, it's all very depressing!"
Another response to be honest
While one woman writes, “You speak shockingly and dangerously Marxist,” a mystic friend writes, "When you speak that way, you are really speaking to us about the poverty of God, who comes to us so poor that all God has to give us is God’s Self—the Holy Spirit. And when we receive God in that poverty, God becomes human and we become divine. I am reminded of a quote of unknown source which I wrote into my Bible several years ago:
I tell you nothing for your comfort
nor yet for your desire, save that the sky
grows darker still and the sea rises higher.”
She ends saying, "You are leading us into deep waters and into the Darkness of God. You invite us when we pray to leave our playgrounds and follow you into the river of rebirth."
The power to forgive God
To say that maybe heaven gives us not some thing but only some One -– the Holy Spirit -- is not shocking or dangerously Marxist. To be left with only the Holy Spirit is not to be left with nothing. With the Holy Spirit of God, we have whatever we need. We have especially the power to forgive. ("Receive, ye, the Holy Spirit; receive, ye, the power to forgive sin"{ Jn 20: 22-23}). With the Holy Spirit, we have especially the power to forgive God’s sin! God’s sin! What could that possibly mean? That’s the sin of God who didn’t work a miracle for us. That’s the sin of God who didn’t open the door when we bang against it. That’s the sin of God who didn’t become our Santa Claus. That’s the sin of God who didn’t give us the thing we ask for. That’s the sin of God who gives us not some thing but only some One—the Holy Spirit.
Conclusion
Wanting the things we get
At the end of the day, whatever might be our honest thoughts about the Prayer of Petition, we keep on knocking at the door anyway, and we keep on asking for things, because Jesus says we should. "Ask and you shall receive. Seek and you shall find. Knock and it shall be opened unto you." And if, when the door is opened, we are, indeed, given the thing we asked for, i.e., the fish or the egg or the loaf, that's fine. Praised be God! If, however, when the door is opened, we are given not some thing but only some One (Luke's Holy Spirit) that's better still. For though we don’t get the thing we want, with the Holy Spirit we get the power to want the things we get! With that there’s nothing more we need for the journey ahead.
[1] Diaspora is a Greek word meaning dispersion. Originally it referred to the settling of scattered colonies of Jews outside Palestine after the Babylonian exile. It’s now come to mean the migration or scattering of a people away from an established or ancestral homeland or parish!
[2] By “the unchurched” is especially meant not those who have left the church but those whom the church has left!
