Bible Study #4

BIBLE STUDY #4

SEVENTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

JULY 25, 2010

Gospel – Luke 11: 1-13

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.

Reflection

The three paragraphs above in Luke’s Gospel are all about prayer. The first paragraph is the Lord’s Prayer, or the Our Father; the second paragraph is about persistence in prayer; and the third paragraph is about the effectiveness of prayer. There is a lot of information here, and a mistake a preacher can make is to try to cover every point of the gospel in a homily. The homily then becomes too long and sometimes confusing. A preacher needs to pick a theme from the gospel and stick with that one idea.

The first theme from today’s gospel is the Lord’s Prayer. Many of John’s disciples had gone over to Jesus, as well as other Jews and many Gentiles. As God’s Son, Jesus has a direct, personal and deep relationship with the Father. They see Jesus at prayer, and want to have that kind of connection with the Father, also. Asking Jesus how to pray is asking him for this connection to the Father.

We can also call God our Father, just like Jesus does, because we are incorporated into the body of Christ through our baptism, and have that connection to the Father through the Son. Jesus bridges the gap between us and the Father through his death and resurrection. As church, whose vocation it is to continue Jesus mission and ministry, we also bridge the gap between God and other people.

We also participate in Jesus deep and personal relationship with the Father through our own participation in prayer like the Our Father and through sacraments. Our relationship with the Father isn’t nearly as close as Jesus relationship is, but we mirror that relationship because the Father can and should be an intimate part of our lives. Just as Jesus was strengthened in his own vocation in life by the grace of the Father, so are we.

When we say ‘hallowed be thy name’, we are acknowledging God’s holiness, far and above over any holiness we may possess, which is only by the grace of God anyway. We acknowledge God’s superiority, and our need to worship him, and let him direct, guide, and strengthen our lives. Since God is holy, we need to listen to what he says and let that be our guiding light.

When we say ‘your (thy) kingdom come’ (I can’t get used to saying your rather than thy; I was taught to say thy, and it sounds funny if I don’t), we are putting the Kingdom of God over any earthly kingdom. We are committing ourselves to the building up of God’s Kingdom, over and above building any earthly kingdom. God told us in the book of Genesis to subdue the earth, but not without listening to how God would want the earth subdued. In other words, God’s dominion should be reflected in human life and society.

When we say, ‘give us this day our daily bread’, we are referring to the Eucharist, the bread of life and the cup of eternal blessing. We are praying that this meal will help overcome differences between people, and help to establish the Kingdom. Since we can’t have Eucharist without priests, this prayer is also a prayer for vocations, that God inspire young men to the priesthood, so we can have the eternal bread that guides us on our way to the kingdom.

This phrase says daily bread; it isn’t praying for a stockpile of bread, or to get a bakery, but what we need to live every day. Life isn’t about amassing and preserving wealth. We are asking God for what we need, and if we are lucky to have more than we need, it is incumbent upon us to share with those in need.

Forgiveness is one of the most important concepts in scripture. It is mentioned over 100 times in the Old Testament and over 100 times in the New Testament. In this prayer, we ask God to ‘forgive us our sins’. We are acknowledging the obvious, that we are sinners and need God’s forgiveness. Unforgiven sin not only prevents us from eternal life, it also blocks the channels of God’s grace in this life. When someone tells me that God seems distant to them, I ask them when was the last time they went to confession. Invariably, it has been awhile.

In this prayer, we are also telling God to forgive us to the extent that we forgive others. This is quite an incentive to forgive others, I would say. God forgives us just because we ask. His Son has paid the price for our sins, and freely offers forgiveness to all. Given this great gift, how can we fail to forgive others?

When we pray ‘do not subject us to the final test,’ we are asking that we might not succumb to temptation. We know that, at times, we will, but we pray that it be minimized. Sin becomes a habit. The more we sin, the easier it is to sin, and we can easily lose our way. It is only with God’s strength that we can resist the urge to sin. And it is only God’s forgiveness that allows us real freedom.

The second theme in the Gospel is in the second paragraph and talks about persistence in prayer. Is it saying to nag God? Is it saying that if we persist in our asking, God will grant what we want? Do we give God our ‘to-do’ list, expecting quick results if we are to continue to believe in him?

God doesn’t need our prayers or worship. We pray and worship because we need it. We relate to God as we would to other people. We need to spend time, getting to know each other, and we develop a bond between each other. When we persist, then this bond becomes unbreakable, such as in a good marriage.

Our relationship with God works like this. The more we pray, the more we get to know God, grow in his grace, and become holy. The closer we get to God, the more God inspires us to be good disciples, and then our prayer turns from what we want, to what God wants for us. That’s when we have turned an important corner – when we are more concerned about serving God and others than serving ourselves.

This kind of prayer also makes us put things in perspective: regardless of what happens to us in life, that God has won; what pain we have, what are struggles are, God has won. The final word is that God has won. If we are faithful to God, He will be faithful to us. That is the only thing that is important in life; everything else pales in comparison.

The third theme is in last paragraph and talks about the rewards of prayer. It sounds kind of greedy to expect a reward, but that is just human nature. Not only does God promise us a reward when we are faithful, this reward is our motivation to continue on the Christian journey. If our only reward was the promise of eternal life sometime in the future, I’m afraid most of us would fall by the wayside.

The reward we get for a faithful life is the peace and happiness that only comes from God. I’ve often said that scripture is God’s owner’s manual. If we want to know the best way to live, we need only look in the bible. Gods knows us much better than we know ourselves, and he tells us about ourselves and how we are to live. God doesn’t always give us what we want, but he’ll give us what we need. ‘No’ is a perfectly good response from God. Our problem is that when a door is closed to us, we stare at the closed door and fail to see the open door God is providing for us.

The rewards for living a good life are God’s peace and happiness in this life, and eternal life in the next. What could be better than that?

I hope that this reflection helps you to prepare for Sunday. God bless all of you, and I’ll see you in church.

Fr. Phil