Knocking
at a friend’s house at midnight, and asking
For
three loaves of bread to feed a sudden visitor (Lk. 11:5)
The Prayer of
Petition
17th Sunday in Ordinary Time, July 28, 2013
Genesis
18:20-32 Colossians 2:12-14
Luke 11:1-13
Alleluia, alleluia.
A reading from the holy Gospel according to Luke.
Glory to you, Lord.
The Lord’s Prayer
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 put us to the test.”
Persistence in prayer
Then He said to them, “Suppose
one of you should go to a friend’s house at midnight and tell him, `Friend, let
me borrow three loaves of bread. A friend of mine has just arrived for a visit,
and I don’t have anything to give him to eat.’ And suppose your friend should
answer from inside, `Don’t bother me! The door is already locked for the night,
and my kids and I are in bed. I can’t get up to give you anything.’ I tell you
if he doesn’t get up to give the man the loaves he wants because they are friends, he will get up to give him the
bread because of the man’s persistence.
So I tell you, keep on asking and
you will receive. Keep on seeking and you will find. Keep on knocking and the
door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks will receive. And the one who seeks
will find. And for 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 things 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
Tempus fugit!
By week’s end another page will have
fallen off the 2013 calendar. August will soon be upon us, and year 2013 is rolling
on. Tempus fugit!
A
parable about persistence in our Prayer of Petition
The Lord's Prayer, also known as the Our Father, is the best known
prayer in all Christianity. Despite all the differences which divide the many Christian denominations, at
the end of the day we are all united by the prayer of prayers: “Our Father, who
art in heaven.”
After Jesus gives us this prayer of
prayers - the Our Father - He launches off into a parable about persistence in prayer. The parable likens God to a dad who’s snug in bed with his kids, and is
inconveniently awakened at midnight by a friend who keeps on knocking at his
door. A visitor has suddenly dropped in on his friend, and he’s in an
embarrassing situation: he has no bread to feed his hungry friend. Though the
sleepy man is reluctant to get out of his
warm bed in the middle of the night and go downstairs to help his friend out,
he does so not only because he is the man’s friend but also because the man is
persistent as he keeps on knocking at his door. After getting
rid of his good friend by giving him the three loaves he asked for, he bolts
the door, and hurries back up to his warm bed and sleeping kids. It’s a parable
about persistence in our Prayer of Petition – our prayer that begs God for
something.
Another parable about persistence in prayer
Luke likes the theme of persistence in
prayer; it’s found also in the 18th chapter of his gospel. There Luke
has Jesus telling another parable about persistence in prayer.
There was a judge in a certain town who neither feared God
nor respected men. And there was a widow in the same town who kept coming to
the judge, asking him to take her case. He kept putting her off, but he finally
gave in exclaiming, “This woman is driving me crazy! I’ll take her case; if I don’t, she’ll keep
coming back and finally wear me out!” (Lk. 18:1-5)
`Someone’ instead of `something’
There is a notable variance in this
Sunday’s parable as found in Matthew and in Luke. In Matthew the parable ends with
Jesus saying, "If you, bad as you are, know how to give good things to your
children, how much more will the Father in heaven give good things to those who
ask Him!” (Mt. 7:11) In Matthew God is a kind of Santa Claus who gives his
children the good things they ask for.
In Luke,
however, the parable has a
mysterious and unexpected ending as Jesus says, “If
you, bad as you are, know how to give good things to your children, how much
more will the Father in heaven give the Holy
Spirit to those who ask Him!" (Lk. 11:13) There’s no Santa Claus image
of God here; we ask God for a fish or an egg, but He doesn’t give us the fish
or egg we ask for. He gives us, instead, the Holy Spirit whom we didn’t
ask for! We ask for `something’ and instead we get `Someone’- the Holy Spirit!
The problematic Prayer of Petition
The Prayer of Petition
is problematic. Along our journey we’ve earnestly asked God for something, but
it was not granted. We’ve begged God to cure a
loved one, but the loved one wasn’t cured. We’ve pleaded with God to lift a
mountainous problem from our shoulders or from the shoulders of someone we love,
and cast it into the sea, but it’s still weighing heavily upon us or our loved
one. (Lk. 17:6) We’ve beseeched God to
release a loved one from some bondage, but he or she is still in bondage. In
hard economic time we’ve prayed earnestly to God for a job, but we’re still
unemployed, and unemployment in a capitalist society
is a great disaster.
On top of the heap of `unanswered prayers’
stands the Holocaust. We remember (because we can’t forget) that six million
Jews in the concentration camps of Dachau, Auschwitz and Buchenwald earnestly
implored the Lord God of Israel to deliver them from history’s most notorious maniac
and anti-Semite - Adolph Hitler, and they were not delivered!
The Prayer of Petition is
indeed problematic, and most of the time we’re simply `too pious’ to have a
frank and open discussion about it.
A more profound understanding
When Luke has Jesus saying,
“How much more will the Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him” is he perhaps offering
us a more profound understanding of the Prayer of Petition? Could he possibly mean that in response to our
Prayer of Petition the Father in heaven does not give something: a fish, an
egg, a cure, a job, a deliverance, etc. (Those things we must strive as best we
can to give ourselves.) Rather, the Father in heaven gives us Someone - his
Holy Spirit!
A
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 He has nothing to give us but Himself: his Holy
Spirit. And when we receive Him in that poverty, God becomes human and we
become divine. When you speak that way you are leading us
into deep waters and into the darkness of God. You are inviting us to
leave our playgrounds. You are asking us to stop being kids whose God is a
Santa Claus. You are inviting us to follow you into the river of rebirth.
The very power to forgive God’s sins!
To say that heaven perhaps does not give us
something but `only’ Someone (the Holy
Spirit) in our Prayer of Petition should not shock us. To be given `only’ the
Holy Spirit is not to be given nothing or very little. With the Holy Spirit of God, we have whatever
we need for the human journey. With the Holy Spirit we have not only the power
to forgive men’s sins against God (Jn. 20: 23) but we have also the very power
to forgive God’s sins against man!
What
in the world are God’s sins against man? That’s God not opening the door when
we are frantically knocking away at it. That’s God not working the miracle we’re
ardently praying for. That’s God not being a good Santa Claus giving his
children the things they ask for: a fish, an egg, a
cure, a job, a deliverance. That’s God not giving us something but `only’ Someone: his
Holy Spirit.
Conclusion
The power to want the things we get!
At the end of the
day, whatever might be our theology or our feeling about the Prayer of Petition,
we still keep knocking at God’s door when we’re in dire need, because Jesus
said we should. We still keep knocking at God’s door also because in our
frustration or need or anxiety we need to be pounding away at something, and it
might just as well be at God’s door. And if the door is opened, and we’re given
the thing we asked for (the fish, the egg, the cure, the job, the deliverance)
God be praised and thanked.
If, however, when
the door is opened, we are not given
the fish or egg but are given instead `only’ the Holy Spirit, God be praised
and thanked for that too. For though we don’t get the things we want, with the
Holy Spirit we are given the power to want the things we get! And that’s power indeed!
And that’s probably what Luke’s mysterious and unexpected switch from fish and
egg to Holy Spirit is all about.
