SEVENTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

[cappie]

In today's Gospel reading, from the beginning of Chapter 11 Luke presents the core of Jesus' teaching on prayer. The disciples notice Jesus praying “in a certain place.” They ask him to teach them to pray just as John the Baptist had taught his disciples. Jesus teaches them a simple version of the most famous Christian prayer, the Our Father, or the Lord's Prayer. 

 Having taught his disciples a simple, daily prayer, Jesus goes on to reassure them that God answers prayers. First, he tells a parable about a persistent neighbour who asks a friend for bread at midnight, because the neighbour is persistent, the sleeping man gets up and gives him all that he needs.  
This teaching concludes with the reminder that if we seek, we will get a response. The parable and the concluding teaching in this section Jesus teaches prayer consists in recognizing God's holiness and his rule over all things.

So, why do we pray? How does Jesus want us to pray? How can Jesus promise us that God will hear and respond to our prayers—that we will receive what we ask for, that doors once locked shut will be opened?

When Martin Luther King, Jr., was living and working in Montgomery, Alabama, he came home late one night, and the phone rang. He picked up and, on the line, there was a man threatening to kill King and his family if he didn’t stop leading in the struggle for civil rights.   He couldn’t get back to sleep. So, he went into the kitchen to make a cup of coffee and he began to pray. He describes this moment as a moment of reckoning with his faith. He had never questioned before; he had never doubted.  In this moment, he knew that he would either need to put his trust in God wholeheartedly, or he would be consumed by fear and despair.  He prayed all night and eventually the spirit of God overwhelmed him, and he was filled with deep peace and conviction. Days later, his house was bombed.  

If we can think of an example of someone for whom prayer informed his living, Martin Luther King is certainly among the most powerful. For him, prayer was not just a private practice of piety, it was the fuel and reassurance that inspired remarkable action in the world. It was the energy and life-force behind a movement of social change.  

This is the kind of prayer that Jesus was talking about, prayer is not meant to stay just between us and God. Our prayers need to have feet and hands. Prayer is the practice of seeking God’s presence and guidance as we work toward creating a better world. Prayer is one way we know God is with us, even when the challenges ahead seem insurmountable.
  
Martin Luther King, Jr., faced the threat of bombing and death, but his connection to God through prayer gave him the courage to persist. His persistence ended segregation. Doors that had been sealed shut began to crack open. Questions that had gone unheard began to be answered. Needs that had neglected began to be met.

What is happening in our world today that requires our persistence in prayer?  The persistence of our prayer, the raising of our minds and souls to God, reinforced our own commitment to each other and the world around us. Forgiveness and reconciliation, thanksgiving and praise, hopes and desires blend into continued and continuing prayer. As St. Paul VI said, “To live, it is necessary to pray.”

In prayer we can bargain with God as Abraham did in our First Reading, knowing our creator is mercy-filled. Through prayer we can recognize, as St. Paul did, that God is open to receive us whoever or wherever we are. In the familiar words of Luke’s Gospel, Jesus tells us that our Father gives “the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” 

And if we have moments when we feel like our prayers are weak, or like we don’t know what to say or do, we can be like the disciples: “Lord, teach us to pray,” they asked him. Jesus stands ready not only to answer our prayers, but also to show us the way.