SEVENTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

[cappie]

Jesus teaches His disciples to persist in their prayer, as Abraham persisted in begging God's mercy for the innocent of Sodom and Gomorrah.

The disciples had witnessed that whenever their teacher, the one they called “Master,” had exhausted himself doing good, he would withdraw from the crowd in order to pray. And they had seen the results of those prayers in his life-transforming deeds and in his unfathomable peace. “Lord, teach us how to pray!” They too wanted that peace and strength, the utter assurance that Jesus had in doing the will of his Father. “Lord, teach us how to pray.”

The simple and profound words that were the response to that request have become known as “The Lord’s Prayer.” Throughout the centuries countless faithful have uttered them together, are uttering them still. They are words that rise up and blend into an endless prayer of praise, of supplication, of doxology.

Jesus showed them that first they must know whom they are addressing. The Greek word for prayer used in the gospels means “a wish, a request toward” someone. Luke’s version is pared down, simpler than the prayer found in Matthew’s gospel. The familiar one has been developed from Matthew’s version. Yet, the core is the same.

Jesus tells a parable about a man who goes at midnight to the home of a friend to borrow some bread so he can feed an unexpected guest. The man bangs and bangs at the door of his friend's house but he is told, "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."
 
The man banging at the door is told to go away. But eventually that man gets the bread he seeks. He pesters his unwilling friend until he drives the weary man out of bed and into the kitchen. Persistence gets a response. 

In relating that parable, Jesus seems to telling us that we need such persistence when it comes to our prayer, when it comes to bringing our needs and concerns before God.
 
"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."
 
When the door is not opened, when we do not get what we seek, the obvious conclusion is that we have not shown enough persistence. We need to keep banging on the door of heaven until we arouse the attention of God and get God to do something.
 
That conclusion puts God in a very bad light. It also does not fit the first part of the Gospel where Jesus teaches his disciples how to pray. There Jesus simply says we are to tell God what we need. "Give us each day our daily bread and forgive us our sins .... and do not subject us to the final test." He does not tell us to keep repeating those requests again and again.
 
In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus tells us, "In praying, do not babble like the pagans, who think that they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them. Your Father knows what you need before you ask him."
 
We are to be persistent in our prayer not to arouse God, but rather to rouse ourselves out of our sleep of indifference and out of the darkness that blinds us to the presence and will of God. As Blessed Teresa of Calcutta said, "I used to believe that prayer changes things, but now I believe that prayer changes us and we change things." The more we pray, the more God bangs on the doors of our hearts, the more God comes in and transforms us and makes us instruments of his mercy and love.
 
If God seems to be uninvolved and distant, God is not the one asleep we are!