Luke 11:1 - 13
I barely remember the
first time I prayed for something. I think I was about four, and my
birthday was coming up, and I was hoping for a little toy bulldozer
that you wound up and turned loose. They were made of metal and
could push things around. That of course is a quality a four year
old admired. I was not yet in school, but my parents made sure that
I said my prayers at bedtime and I guess I began to see that prayer
was a great shortcut to getting what you wanted. And in fact at my
birthday I had the bulldozer; like magic. I learned a very important
lesson. And as time went on, I had other prayers answered, usually
for stuff I wanted; and I didn't notice the coincidence that my
prayer requests for various toys seemed to be fulfilled on my
birthday or at Christmas. As I grew older I began to notice that not
all my heartfelt prayers were being answered. And I learned several
reasons for that. One was that God always answered prayers, but
sometimes he said “no”. Another was that God knew that if He
answered my prayer it would end up hurting me, so He didn't answer
them. Still another was that someone else may have been praying for
just the opposite of what I prayed for, and God either remained
neutral or responded to the one who was most sincere. That was a
good explanation as to why my team lost an occasional game to another
team – God probably favored them, even though we had prayed to win.
And the most pernicious of all, which I've heard on the lips of
patients I've taken care of, or their relatives – “i guess I
didn't pray hard enough”.
The scriptures don't
always help. There is a passage in john in which Jesus says, :”If
you ask the Father anything in my name it will be given to you.”
Maybe that's my problem – I don't always remember to add “in
Jesus' name” to my prayers. And we have this lengthy reading from
Genesis, which seems to tell us that if you keep after God he might
change his mind Sure seems that way. And Jesus tells us about the
neighbor who will get bread from the householder if he bangs on the
door hard enough, or how about the widow that keeps bugging the
unjust judge until he finally gives in?
But the bottom line is
that prayers are not always answered. Jesus himself prayed in the
garden of Gesthemeni: “Father, if it is possible, may this cup be
taken away from me”. But it wasn't. And philosophers and
theologians tell us that God is all powerful, all knowing, all good,
all just and the list goes on. God does not change and His will
which cannot be overcome, doesn't change either. What will be will
be. Can we change God's mind? Not really.
So let us look at this
Gospel passage again. The disciples say, “Teach us to pray”.
Being good Jews they've been praying since their bar mitzvahs. They
know the prayers. They know the postures; why are they asking Jesus
how to pray? And notice Jesus' answer: “When you pray” Jesus
knows they already pray. And I think an important question to ask is
do we pray? Oh, yes, we come to Mass, we might say a few prayers now
and then, but do we really make time to devote our attention to God
alone even for a few minutes a day? Prayer is ultimately a
conversation with God, not the words in a book or a Hail Mary
repeated over and over again. I'm not saying these are bad – they
aren't, they are good and important – but each of us needs to enter
into that personal relationship with Jesus and that can't be gotten
by anything other than actually sitting down and doing it.
Notice what Jesus' prayer
is all about. He prays for the things that God wants; the petitions
in the Our Father – and this is Luke's version, not the one we are
familiar with – are exactly what God wants and is moving the world
towards; we pray that God's kingdom come. I think that you will
notice that most of the prayers of the church are like this. If we
pray that God's will be done, it will. If we pray that we be
forgiven our trespasses, they will be, because Jesus died so that we
would be forgiven.
Jesus invites us to ask,
to seek, to knock. And He tells us that these actions won't be in
vain. But I think Jesus is saying something along the lines of
“Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those...” In other
words, our prayer needs to be accompanied by action. If we pray for
the coming of God's kingdom, what are we doing to bring that about?
If we pray to end abortion and vote for pro choice politicians, I
doubt that God takes us seriously. If we aren't asking, seeking and
knocking, it won't happen, not so that we can see, anyway.
And I think the last
thing to mention is that Jesus does make a promise in this Gospel
passage. He says, “If you who are evil know how to give your
children good things, how much more will the Father give good things
to those who ask Him?” Oops, I think I misquoted that. It really
says, “How much more will the Father give the Holy Spirit to those
who ask Him?” And that's the bottom line. Saint Paul tells us,
“In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not
know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for
us through wordless groans. And He who searches our hearts knows the
mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people
in accordance with the will of God.”
When we pray in Jesus'
name we are praying as He did, seeking always to do God's will rather
than our own. When God's Holy Spirit prays within us, that is the
same Spirit that prayed in Jesus Christ, the Spirit that allows us to
call God “Father” and that guarantees that He sees us as His own
beloved sons and daughters just as He sees Jesus. If I am a child
with parents that I love, part of me wants to please them, and if
they are really wonderful parents, I want what they want, especially
what they want for me. And that is the guarantee that Jesus gives us
– if we ask for the Holy Spirit, it will be given to us, and He
will teach us to pray properly; He will give us the mind of Christ,
which always seeks to do the Father's will – as Jesus said, “My
food and drink is to do the will of the Father”.
So pray that God will
heal little Billy, or that uncle Ted will give up drinking and join
AA, or that you will ultimately find true love. God listens. But at
the same time, learn to pray as Jesus prayed, that God's will be
done, that God's kingdom come; and put your money where your mouth is
– if you are praying to pass an examination, you better be studying
as well. If you are praying for better health, throw away the
cigarettes and start exercising. Because you are the Body of Christ
and you must want what He wants – enough to do something about it.
And above all, find time every day to sit alone and speak to God and
let Him speak to you. And say, “Lord, teach me to pray.”
