Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 111

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.”

Saint Luke’s version of the Lord’s Prayer is shorter than Saint Matthews. From time immemorial the Church has preferred the latter; but on this 17^th Sunday of Ordinary Time we ponder the prayer and its setting in Saint Luke’s narrative.

Unlike Saint Matthew’s gospel which emphasizes the command to forgive one another, Saint Luke’s prayer is followed by a teaching about prayer, and especially asking for God’s blessings in prayer. Rather than specific prayers to say or rituals to perform – some mumbo-jumbo – Jesus recommends a quality of prayer -- persistence. In-your-face prayer which continues day and night and refuses to back down and will not give up and appeals for help with boundless energy -- makes the difference.

The cynic might ask, “Is God hard of hearing? Perhaps he’s not paying attention? Doesn’t God already know what he will do for us? What’s the point of asking when God already knows what we need and will provide it if he wants to?” I used to ask similar questions about the TV show Bewitched. If she can do this, why can't she do that? That was before I was bewitched by Elizabeth Montgomery, God rest her soul. 

In any case, such questions miss the point. Jesus has come to tell us Our Father wants to know us personally, not as statistics in a universe of creeping, crawling creatures but as sparkling reflections of divine glory. As hard as it might be to imagine, the Lord God of the Universe, who created all things and controls the destiny of all things, wants to visit us in our homes.

I met a Veteran who told me he admired the way Christians seem to have a direct, personal relationship with God. For whatever reason, he had never seen that divine confidence in his family, although they practiced a similar religion. Shortly before he died he was baptized.

We find this confident persistent prayer in today’s first reading from the Book of Genesis. Abraham approaches God as a friend, arguing that God should be more tolerant of human failings. What kind of God would wipe out a city when there were fifty good people in it? Or forty? Or ten? How often have we had that argument among our friends or family? You might have reasoned with your angry brother that he should not act irrationally; or perhaps your friend talked you down off your high horse of righteousness before you did something foolish.

Abraham could not dissuade the Lord from destroying the the irredeemably wicked cities but at least he spared the few good people there: Lot, Lot’s wife and family.

To be fully human we must learn to ask for help from God and from one another. We knew how to do it as babies. We should relearn it in our old age. But especially blessed and wise are those who realize and own their shortcomings in the between years, when so many fools regard themselves as self-made persons. 

God is eager to hear our prayers. We have only to ask.