Some
Thoughts on the Liturgy
THE
PRAYER OF PETITION
+
A number of years ago, in a small Kentucky town
-
there were two churches and a whiskey distillery
-
both churches felt that the whiskey distillery was a bad
image for the town; besides that, the owner was an atheist
-
they tried to get it closed down, never successful
-
decided to have a joint prayer meeting, asking God to
intervene, and help them get rid of the whiskey distillery;
they did it a number of times
-
sure enough, one Saturday night, there was a terrible
electrical storm, lightning struck the distillery, burned
it to the ground
-
next morning, Sunday, both churches, rejoicing, speaking of
the power of prayer
-
meanwhile, the owner of the distillery, quite distraught,
of course, was told by the fire insurance people that it
was an “act of God” and there was no coverage
-
so, the owner sued the churches, claiming that they had
conspired with God to destroy his building
-
interesting: the atheist becomes a believer because it is
to his benefit
-
church leaders denied categorically that they had done
anything to cause the fire
-
that also is interesting: believers in God, denying the
power of prayer even after they had prayed for something to
happen
-
the judge dismissed the case, but the church members
deserved to be sued for using God for their own convenience
-
I believe many of our prayers of petition do that – we
try to use God for our own convenience
+
Today’s liturgy obviously concerns the prayer of petition
-
Moses petitioning God to help the Israelite people
establish themselves back in the Promised Land
-
Jesus in his story saying that the persistent petitioning
of the poor woman pays off
-
giving rise to some familiar beliefs that we have:
-
God answers the prayers of the just—Moses and Joshua win
-
God answers the prayers of the poor
-
God gives what we want, as long as we are persistent
+
But immediately, we have unanswerable questions
-
good people get hurt even when they do pray: hurricane,
earthquake, war
-
God does not answer some prayers: we pray for the homeless
and they remain homeless, and we pray for the people who
are persecuted, and they are still persecuted, we pray for
peace, and there is none
-
two people in exactly the same circumstance, same prayers
are said, one answered, the other is not
-
leads to the question: is God answering prayer?
+
The liturgy today suggests some answers
1
– as we consider how God answers prayers
-
nowhere in the Scriptures does the Lord ever say that we
will get exactly what we want
-
unfortunately many Scripture texts lead us to that
conclusion
-
as we study those stories, Jesus’s concentration is not
on the healing or what people want
-
his concentration is on people’s faith
-
Jesus says that in today’s Gospel—have faith in the
fact that God is “doing justice” to his chosen: Jesus
saying that God will give swift
justice
-
that is, God will help the situation and we must have faith
that God will help in God’s own way
-
Jesus knows that that may be a problem, and so he asks his
rhetorical question that speaks to how we work with the
prayer of petition:
Will
the Son of Man find faith on earth?
2
– a second thought, this one about the person asking
-
Paul speaking to his bishop-friend Timothy in the second
reading says some very important words about what should be
happening if people are Christians
-
they should be immersed in Scripture
-
all Scripture must be used and known, Paul says,
-
for training in holiness so that the person of God may be
fully competent and prepared for good work
-
in all of our lives, we must be in the process of being
molded
by
Scripture, by the Word of God
-
and in that setting, we should be making our prayer
+
The church people in the opening story used God when it was
convenient
-
too many of us do that
-
the lesson of the prayer of petition coming from our
liturgy today is that we should pray in such a way that we
are prepared to let God
answer
-
even if we don’t understand the answers when they
come.
|
