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: audacious, persistent, 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, 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 stone-bread, snake-fish, scorpion-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 seen need.

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!

XVI Sunday of the Year

BEING WITH AND DOING FOR…

Genesis 18:1-10a; Colossians 1:24-28; Luke 10:38-42

Readings for the XVI Sunday of the Year

One hears parents complain: “I slog from morning till night to give my kids the best. They don’t care. For whom am I working if not for them?” Children also complain: “Dad and Mum never spend time with me.” A dilemma! To be with people or to do things for them?

This dilemma finds an echo in today’s Gospel. Martha and Mary both respond to Jesus’ presence—one by serving him, the other by sitting with him. Both responses are good yet seem to contradict each other. 

It’s not a question of work vs prayer. It is necessary to look at the context of the episode. It comes after the parable of the Good Samaritan, which Jesus concludes thus: “Go and do likewise.” The passage that follows today’s pericope is about prayer. In between we have today’s real-life situation: Martha serves Jesus and Mary simply sits with him. Who is neighbour to Jesus?

Reginald Fuller, a biblical scholar, suggests that the Martha-Mary story is a corrective to the activism in the parable of the Good Samaritan. Jesus’ command “Go and do likewise” is meaningful only when it flows from hearing the word/prayer. For Martha’s service to be a true expression of love of neighbour, it would need to flow out of being with Jesus.

Further, it’s about discerning what a person needs in a particular situation and at a given moment. Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem to his passion and death. His greatest need is not “many things” but an empathetic-silent presence. That is what Mary gives him.

Finally, it’s about balance! Some of us are like Martha and some like Mary. We need to combine the two: without sitting and listening—to God and people—our doing leads to anxiety and anger; without doing, our faith and our love are empty, our being is passive. 

Like Martha, the urge to “do” rules our lives, keeping us busy and invested in getting things done; we find it difficult to simply “be” and to quell our distractive urge to “fill” time. Like Mary, we need to spend time with people; this will help us to discern what they need and then we respond meaningfully. 

Will my love of neighbour flow from my being with the Lord? Will I discern a person’s need and then meet that need? Will I strike a balance between being with people and doing things for them? 

XV Sunday of the Year

LOVE KNOWS NO BORDERS

Deuteronomy 30:10-14; Colossians 1:15-20; Luke 10:25-37

Readings for the XV Sunday of the Year

In July 2003, a successful heart operation on two-and-a-half-year-old Noor Fatima, a Pakistani child, put the spotlight on Dr Devi Shetty and Narayana Hrudayalaya (in Bangalore). Patients from several countries continue to visit this hospital. Dr Shetty says: “Pain has no language… reaction to pain and suffering is the same, so our response to the problem is also the same.” 

Through the parable of the Good Samaritan, this is what Jesus tells the scholar of the law who asked him: “Who is my neighbour?” The scholar asks Jesus the meaning of Leviticus 19:18 (which he just quoted). For the Jews, one’s neighbour was the people in one’s own group, camp, area; it had a restrictive meaning. But Leviticus 19:33 reads: “The stranger who sojourns with you shall be to you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself.” The command to love one’s “neighbour” extended to foreigners, immigrants, and sojourners.

Love has no borders and knows no barriers. Love reaches out to anyone in need. Love gets involved regardless of who the person is and regardless of the cost. 

This is what the unlikely hero of the parable does. The Samaritan goes beyond the boundaries of religion and nationality; he reaches out to the wounded man in need, gets involved in his life, spends time with him, and pays the innkeeper to minister to him. Recall that the Jews considered the Samaritans half breeds, thieves, and heretics. The Samaritan—the one least likely to keep the law—is the only one who keeps it.

Jesus gives the “man” no name, no religion, no nationality… in times of need, these are irrelevant. Further, he reverses the question: it is not important who my neighbour is, but to whom am I a neighbour! 

In an era when we build “gated communities” with religious, ethnic-racial, socio-economic fences, when we want to build walls and fences on borders, Jesus challenges me to live the commandment of love by going beyond all barriers and to build his kingdom as a neighbourhood with no frontiers.

How do we respond to people in need: are we moved with compassion and reach out to them with mercy, or do we walk on pretending they don’t exist? To whom and how will I be “neighbour” in the week ahead?

May our love be across borders and boundaries.  

XIV Sunday of the Year

LEAN YOUR WEIGHT ON GOD

Isaiah 66:10-14c; Galatians 6:14-18; Luke 10:1-12, 17-20

Readings for the VII Sunday of the Year

A missionary, after working several years in the South Pacific Islands, was translating the Gospel according to John. He couldn’t translate the phrase “to trust in” because there was no word for ‘trust’ in the language; nobody trusted the other! 

Just then an islander entered. Sitting at his desk, the missionary raised both feet off the floor, and asked: “What am I doing?” The islander used a verb which means “to lean your weight on.” That’s the phrase the missionary used to translate “to trust in.”

The Word of God today invites us to lean our weight on the Lord.

In the Gospel, Jesus sends out seventy-two disciples to proclaim the kingdom. His instructions are striking: “carry no staff, no money bag, no sack, no sandals.” No one in his/her right mind travelled the Palestinian roads without staff, sack, and sandals. Without a staff, one was defenceless; without a sack, one could not carry money, food, clothes; without sandals, one wouldn’t be able to walk on the rocky terrain or run from danger. Anyone thus travelling would communicate, through attention-getting behaviour, this message: we lean our weight on God; we trust in God for our defence and depend on his providence for sustenance.

Paul concludes his letter to the Galatians with a similar thrust: “May I never boast except in the cross of Jesus Christ.” For Paul, boasting is an expression of absolute confidence, not in himself, but in Jesus. 

In the first reading, Isaiah looks to the restoration of Jerusalem, not by human achievement but by God’s grace. He invites her to lean her weight on God, who nurses her as a mother nurses her infant and who comforts her as a mother comforts her child.

How often we think that the success of our tasks depends on us! We need to lean our weight on God; we need to depend on him.

May you and I “travel light,” lean our weight of God, and live a little more trustingly in him, his grace, and his providence.