FATHER-GOD
Genesis 18: 20-32; Colossians 2: 12-14; Luke 11: 1-13
Do you watch much television? I’ll admit to you that I don’t . . . well except from April to September when most nights you’ll find me in my recliner watching the Mets. And, to make it clear, I only watch the Mets because it helps my spiritual life. It’s true! Watching the Mets teaches me to be patient, to be humble, to not lose my temper, and has given me more suffering than any soul would ever experience in Purgatory!
But besides the Mets, most of the time when I do watch TV, I like to watch the reruns of the classic game shows, police dramas and situation comedies like, for example, The King of Queens. There’s one episode that I particularly enjoy watching over and over again entitled “Holy Mackerel,” about Doug and Carrie’s major misconceptions about prayer. In the episode, begrudgingly, one Saturday evening, Carrie accompanies Doug to Mass. During the Prayer of the Faithful, the priest encourages the congregation to pray in silence for their own intentions. And after initially not knowing what to pray for, a smile comes across Carrie’s face as she lifts her head and prays for a raise. No sooner than the "Amen" concludes her prayer, she receives a text from her boss telling her that she will be getting an additional $100 more in her weekly paycheck. Bolstered by this initial success, Carrie prays for some of the other REALLY important things, like that a pair of designer shoes will go on sale . . . which they do. Doug gets sucked into the success of God’s seeming generosity and on the following Sunday afternoon prays that the Jets somehow can pull off a victory in the last seconds of a game he’s bet on. And guess what . . . the Jets’ quarterback throws a "Hail Mary" and they win the game. However, after finding out that their parish priest contracted food poisoning after they prayed that he wouldn’t buy the last two pieces of mahi-mahi that they wanted and he chose another fish instead, Doug tells Carrie, “We should leave prayer to the professionals, we don’t know what we’re doing. We’re like the Bonnie and Clyde of prayer; we’re on a praying spree taking down everyone in our path!”
Like Doug and Carrie, sometimes we can have misconceptions about what prayer is. If I asked you to define prayer, I imagine most of you would say that prayer is talking to God. Well, it is, but it’s so much more:
Prayer is a relationship with God himself. Prayer is a personal contact with God. Prayer is a matter of continuous intercourse with God. Prayer is a constant dialogue with the Spirit of God in our hearts.
It is our spirit and God's spirit working together, as St. Paul says to, “cry Abba Father.” It is a relationship between two beings who want to get to know each other better. As I engage in prayer, I come to know God better and he comes to know me as I am with my failures, my hurts, my joys, my excitement, all that is me.
Prayer is trusting that God will deal with me as He has come to reveal himself through his son Jesus Christ. It is my communicating to God about my personal self, and then letting his mercy, his love, his compassion act upon my life, So prayer then becomes a dialogue between two friends, a dialogue between two beings who care for each other, an exchange between two individuals who trust in each other to respond in a caring, loving compassionate way.
Today’s Gospel is so rich. It begins with a simple request from Jesus’ disciples for him to teach them to pray as John the Baptist had taught his disciples to pray. Jesus does that by giving them a glance into his own prayer life – his dependency on his Father for everything, and his complete and utter surrender of everything he is and everything he has into his Father’s hands. Through the words he gives them, the words of the Lord’s Prayer, he tells them that God is their Father and he deserves to be praised and thanked simply because he is God . . . just for who He is, probably more than what He does. He instructs them that they should pray that God’s will should be sought above their own and that God’s rule, God’s justice and God’s mercy may transform the world. Their prayer should acknowledge that God is the giver of all good things and they are totally dependent upon Him. To pray for mercy, but only to the extent that they themselves are willing to forgive. And they should pray for the strength to keep out of harm’s way by avoiding the near-occasion of sin so to always walk in the path of righteousness.
But Jesus doesn’t just stop there. He gives them a glimpse into the nature of the relationship that is prayer, a glimpse into the heart of God and a glimpse into what should be in their own heart when they pray.
He gives them (and us) an infallible guarantee that God is a God who answers when we ask, who gently leads when we seek, who answers when we knock. He is not a “Trickster-God” but a “Father-God,” a Father-God who gives good things to his children - not a stone instead of a piece of bread, not a snake instead of a fish, not a scorpion instead of an egg. Rather he gives what is good, beneficial and loving, not what is bad, useless or harmful. He is a Father-God who can be trusted.
So much can He be trusted that Jesus, in the Parable of the Neighbor at Midnight, says that we ought to approach our Father-God with relentless persistence. We should ask and ask and ask until it is given. We should seek and seek and seek until it is found. And we should knock, pound, kick on his door until it opens. And likewise, when we ask, seek and knock, we should do so with confidence, optimism and expectation. He is a Father-God who CAN deliver and WILL deliver, for He is a Father-God who will not be outdone in generosity.
In doing research for today’s homily I found out something that I didn’t know: That much of the sayings that Jesus spoke in Aramaic seem to be a two-four beat of rhythm and rhyming. This was a device of good oratory that assisted listeners in remembering what was said. Also, because of its poetic nature, the Aramaic Language has (like the Hebrew and Arabic) different levels of meaning. The words are organized and defined by a poetical system where different meanings of every word are possible. So, every line of the Lord’s Prayer could be translated into English in many different versions. Here’s one version that I found from the original Aramaic that I think it beautiful. I don’t offer it as a substitution for the traditional version that we have come to accept and recite. Nor am I saying it’s a more beautiful or a more accurate translation. I simply offer it to you today as an opportunity for you to hear the Lord’s Prayer with new ears and to react to it the way the disciples must have on that day, so long ago, when our Lord first responded to their plea to teach them to pray.
Oh Thou, from whom the breath of life comes,
Who fills all realms of sound, light and vibration.
May Your light be experienced in its utmost holiest.
Your Heavenly Domain approaches.
Let Your will come true - in the universe just as on earth.
Give us wisdom, understanding and assistance for our daily need,
Detach the fetters of faults that bind us,
Like we let go the guilt of others.
Let us not be lost in superficial things: materialism and common temptations,
But let us be freed from that what keeps us off from our true purpose.
Sealed in trust, faith and love, I confirm all of this with my entire being.
