Deacon Michael’s Homily for 17th Sunday of Ordinary Time - July 23-24, 2022

Deacon Michael’s Homily for 17th Sunday of Ordinary Time (July 23-24, 2022)

 Readings for this Sunday can be found HERE

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Prayer is one of those things in life which when you mention it almost everyone thinks that they know what you are talking about

..and that you are talking about the same thing.

But there are many ways and means of prayer,

…we can do it alone, or together,

…in formal liturgical setting like right now,

…or out in a forest or mountain top,

…it can be sung, spoken or silent,

…it can be imaginative and vivid, or contemplative and mysterious,

…structured or improvise or formless.

There are prayers that give thanks, give glory to God, express the full range of human emotions and aspirations from exaltation and joy to lamentation.

But in my experience, when someone wants to talk about prayer, what they are almost always referring to is intercessory prayer…

…that is petitioning, or asking God for something.

This is a simple-sounding yet tricky business.

The track record in scripture on this isn’t exactly sterling.

Moses prayed to enter the Promised Land with his people after 40 years in the desert. He didn’t.

King David prayed and fasted for seven days that his son might live. He died.

Jeremiah asked that Jerusalem not be destroyed by the Baylonians.  It was.

Saint Paul asked an affliction he called the “thorn in his flesh” be removed. It never was.

Jesus asked that his followers be one. Look at us.

He also asked in Gethsemane that the cup of suffering and death before him be taken away. It wasn’t.

What to make of this? What to ask for?

In today’s Gospel the Lord offers direction to his disciples as to how to how they are we are to pray and reminds them and us what God offers through it all

…and as a consequence what we are to desire and seek in prayer.

To get a perspective on prayer, some grounding, we need to back up for a sec and remind ourselves of “the big picture question” for Christians

…basically it's “Why am I here?”

The old Baltimore Catechism puts it a bit more precisely

…in a question that I can remember, as a child, and answering in response to my mothers quizzing me.

Book 1 Lesson 1 Question 6 is…“Why did God make me?”

The answer…to know, love and serve God in this world, and to be happy with God forever in the next.

In today’s Gospel, in response to his disciples, asking how they are to pray,

…the Lord gets to how we are to rightly order our lives to those purposes

…reminding us of the things that are foundational to our existence, and so our prayer.

In today’s reading from Luke we have a shorter more direct less stylized form of a prayer that also appears in longer form in Matthew,

…known to us as the “Our Father”

...the quintessential prayer of Christian for twenty centuries.

…the ever so familiar words that Jesus taught us.

Its movements are simple and basic, focusing on essentials.

The evoked hallowed name of God recalls that God is God and we are not, we are God’s creation, and not ourselves the center of the universe.

The anticipation of the coming of the Kingdom,

…the summing up of all of reality subject to God rule or will,

…the movement of the divine to rightly order the world bit by bit, bringing heaven and earth together

…has implications for how we are to live and act now

…living by Christ’s word and example.

We need our daily bread, to sustain body and soul, to live this anticipation day by day

…always seeking and offering forgiveness because we ourselves need it.

Finally Jesus tells us to ask for God’s mercy in not being subject to the “final test” and with Matthew’s version adding to be delivered from the Evil One…

…because in our weakness, who knows, we just might fail the test or give in to evil.

Such is the context of the knocking, asking and seeking which Christ assures yields the greatest of all gifts

…the presence and indwelling of the Holy Spirit, God’s very presence to enliven, sustain  and empower us in all of the above.

So in asking for things we need to always discern just what it is we are asking for

…and how it might relate to these larger purposes to which we are called

…knowing, loving and serving God, through loving and serving one another and our neighbor

…and so be changed ourselves as well.

God knows that we need to do this.

Praying for it all out loud focuses and reinforces our own convictions.

Persistently and purposefully knocking, asking and seeking after the Spirit

…the power of love necessary to accomplish this work of God

…is the prayer that will be answered

…as it is the fulfillment of why we are here at all.