Last Sunday we had a visiting priest who titled his homily “Let go, let God in.” As I talked with him after mass, he smiled and said, “What I was hoping to accomplish was to help people pray like a prayer warrior, not like a battle ax.” His words and his message apply even more appropriately to this week’s readings.
There are many forms of prayer. A number of those forms are intended to enter into relationship with God and give him thanks, praise, and worship—the Mass, Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, Liturgy of the Hours, much conversational and charismatic prayer. Other forms give structure to our needs for repentance and God’s desire to give mercy when God gives us a time of metanoia (conversion). Other forms, such as Lectio Divina, Centering Prayer, Ignatian contemplation, and theological reflection, are intended to change us by forming God’s image more clearly within our hearts, minds, and souls.
But then, there is prayer of petition: prayer when we ask God for something. It is probably the form of prayer most often used. We are taught it as children, “God bless mommy and daddy and……” It is the prayer that will remain present, even in public schools, so long as there are tests.
When prayer of petition is for someone else or for a change in politics or culture, it is Intercessory Prayer. People often pray the rosary as Intercessory prayer. This can be a wonderful mix of worship, contemplation, and petition. We say the prayers, think of the Mysteries, and hope that God will use our prayer to apply graces to someone or something else. In these situations, we are interceding—standing in the gap—between God and another.
Genesis 18:20-32
The timing of this Scripture is right after the story last Sunday when God came to Abraham and Sarah as three men to whom they offered hospitality. The men then told Abraham and Sarah that within a year they would finally have the child they had begged God for.
Now the three men have gone on to nearby Sodom. They are going to provide God the evidence for destroying the city—or not. God and Abraham are having a conversation about Sodom. Abraham is pleading with God. Abraham knows that his nephew Lot and his family are in Sodom. He sees them as innocent and is pleading with God for them—as well as any other innocent people in the city.
Abraham gets God down to ten people—if there are ten innocent people in the city, God will not destroy it. If you continue reading Genesis through chapter 19, you will discover that the three men met Lot at the gate of the city, stayed at his house, though accosted by others in Sodom, and found no innocent people outside Lot’s family. However, God found a way to save them, even though he destroyed the city.
How interesting! How supportive of our own intercessory prayer efforts today.
Colossians 2:12-14
How does this brief passage reminding the Christians in Colossae of their baptism fit with the other readings? What comes to mind is it sheds light on a question that I have always had: how can my prayer for someone else create openings for grace for that person? How can my prayer work good in the world to change rulings of a national court or save a cousin’s marriage?
True, the first reading showed that Abraham could do that. But Abraham was an exceptionally holy man. The reading from Colossians reminds me that I have been baptized. My sins and tendency to sinfulness were “nailed to a cross.” In my baptism, I was raised “through faith in the power of God.” Abraham’s faith can be my faith. Abraham’s action can be my action. The power of Abraham’s prayer can be the power of my prayer.
And yours.
And the many, many people who are praying hard, long, and often in these difficult times. The reading from Colossians gives us hope that our sincere, ordinary prayers can and do have power.
Luke 11:1-13
Here we have Luke’s wording of the “Our Father” or “Lord’s Prayer.” The phrasing is shorter. Phrases we know from Matthew 6:9-15 are omitted: “who are in heaven,” “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” and “lead us not into temptation.”
There are subtle differences in the phrasing: It begins “Father,” rather than “our Father.” Instead of “Give us THIS day our daily bread” it is “Give us EACH day our daily bread.” Instead of “and forgive us our trespasses AS we forgive those who trespass against us” it is “and forgive us our SINS FOR we ourselves forgive everyone in debt to us.” Instead of “and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil” Luke says simply “and do not subject us to the final test.”
Why the differences? Matthew’s memory and sources differ from Luke’s sources. Or, perhaps, Jesus was asked multiple times “how do we pray,” and his directions varied slightly from day to day.
For me, at this reading, the difference that prompts reflection and prayer is the difference in Matthew’s “as we forgive” and Luke’s “for we forgive.” Either way, Jesus is making it clear that a foundational Christian concept is our readiness to forgive others for the harm they cause us.
Of all things that God asks of me, this is the hardest. Yet, God has taken me through the logic in prayer again and again: letting go of what others have done is absolutely essential for God’s Kingdom to come. Until I let go of my feelings, judgments, and self-righteousness about what others have done and may continue to do that hurts me, I cannot escape the “dog eat dog” survival of the fittest culture of “the world.” I have to be able to treat each and every person with a love that “seeks the good of the other as other.” That doesn’t mean that I let go of cautions or safeguards or even legal punishments of another who has done wrong. But it does mean that I must let go of anything that smells of vengeance or desire to separate another from God’s mercy and grace.
Both Matthew and Luke have Jesus giving additional instruction after the “Our Father.” Luke tells us to persevere in prayer. Keep on keeping on.
It is true, in my experience, that perseverance in prayer for others frequently leads me to changes in myself—understanding that makes forgiveness easier, ideas for new ways to cope with a difficult situation, resolution of difficulties that often begins with softening in me, rather than the other person.
It is in that sense that the final line of the Gospel is the gem of the passage: “If you then, who are wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how MUCH MORE will the Father in heaven GIVE THE HOLY SPIRIT to those who ask him.”
GIVE THE HOLY SPIRIT—The Holy Spirit is GOD living in and acting in us. We pray for ourselves and others. God gives MORE OF HIMSELF to us.
We let go and LET GOD IN. Just because we’re baptized. Just because we ask. Just because we persist. Just because we seek good. So we pray as a prayer warrior, depending on God, rather than a battle ax, trying to tell God what to do.
Prayer
Father, hear my prayer. Jesus, be my prayer. Spirit, answer my prayer. Help me let go and let God in. Make a Prayer Warrior.
