XVII Sunday of the Year

NEVER GIVE UP

Genesis 18:20-32; Colossians 2:12-14; Luke 11:1-13

Readings for the XVII Sunday of the Year

Winston Churchill took three years to get through the eighth grade! Many years later, in October 1941, he was asked to address the boys at his alma mater. His speech supposedly consisted of five words: “Never, never, never give up!”

This may be a legend! But these words sum up the thrust of today’s readings: never give up on God and on prayer.

In the first reading, Abraham asks God repeatedly and negotiates with him to save the immoral cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. This is the APU program: aggressive/ audacious, persistent, and unreasonable!

In today’s gospel, after teaching his disciples to pray, Jesus urges them to be persistent in prayer: ask repeatedly, seek untiringly, and knock loudly… and they will receive, find, and have the door opened.

But for what do we ask, seek, and knock? 

Jesus gives us the “pattern” to pray. We ought to pray, first, for God’s name to be made holy, for his kingdom to be established, and for his will to be done. We, then, pray for ourselves: for food, forgiveness (in the measure that we forgive!), and freedom from temptation/evil.

When we pray according to this “pattern”, God – like and much more than a good parent – will answer our prayer!

Jesus’ simple argument is that no father ever refused the request of his son; and so God the great Father will never refuse the requests of his children. A child might not be able to distinguish between a stone and bread, between a snake and a fish, between a scorpion and an egg. The parent, seeing the child reach out for a stone/ eel/ scorpion, knows the child is hungry, and satisfies not the request but the need expressed.

God gives us what we need. Instead of a change in situation for which we may be praying, he may give us strength and courage to face the situation or a new path of action or an enlarged capacity for suffering or looking at things with broader vision. God’s response to our prayer is generous and mysterious: the Holy Spirit.

Will I persist in prayer like Abraham? Will I ask repeatedly, seek untiringly, and knock loudly?

May you and I remember that prayer is to be in harmony with God; to feel the assurance that God is in, around and greater than any circumstance; that prayer is not a trading post, but a line of communication. 

May you and I never give up on God and on prayer!