THE SEVENTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

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

Dear Jesus,

I’ve said this to you before. I’ll probably say it again if the occasion fits. You are a revolutionary whose radical ideas have been tempered and moderated by frequent exposure. Your words don’t shock any more; especially do they not shock those who may think they are living according to your way. You’ve been painted in pastels. The message has been softened. It’s much more comfortable being your disciple now than it was when you first issued the challenge to come and follow you.

Will anyone stand with mouth agape while this Sunday’s Gospel is proclaimed? Do they hear the words? Do they understand the implications of what you say should be the attitudes that dominate our prayer? Your disciples watched you pray. Whatever they observed made them long for a similar experience for themselves. One said: Teach us to pray. You didn’t teach them how to pray. You taught them what should be the content of their prayers. And in the few short sentences that outlined that content you encapsulated the whole revolution you had in mind.

The revolution begins with the attitude you want us to have toward God. Some verbal portraits of God are daunting. God is formidable, distant, judging and condemning. All that can be commonly held in spite of the image of God in this week’s reading from Genesis, the God who looks for a reason to withhold the fury that could sweep away the innocent with the guilty. This is the God who promised when the waters receded that there would never be another flood that would destroy the world. This is the God who anticipates repentance with lavish forgiveness. This is the God who pleads, abases himself saying let me be your God and you will be my people. You say that when we pray we should call God Abba, Father.

We forget that not every child’s sire was an Abba. We forget that not every child was treasured in a safe and secure home with doting parents to respond to every need. Children in your time were property that could be bought and sold and then to live their lives as slaves. In directing us to call God Abba, you give us an insight into your relationship with God, your Abba. You challenge the accepted power structures in families. No one is to lord it over another. Children are not to be chattel. The family is to imitate and live the community that is God, each one pouring out self in loving service of each other just as you do. We stand in awe of God’s holiness that now is approachable even as we are held in God’s embrace and long to experience God’s reign in our lives and our world. Tyranny is banished forever.

Abba is the source of every blessing. You invite us to use intercessory pray but not to pray for excess goods. Give us each day our daily bread. Doesn’t that mean that we are to pray for the essentials that are necessary for our survival? That seems to me to imply a certain poverty of lifestyle. Wealthy people don’t have to worry about their next mouthful. People who are young and strong and of comfortable means might forget even as their stomachs are perpetually sated that Abba is the one who called them into existence and sustains them. And in their mind’s eye they might find it hard to imagine themselves aging and experiencing vulnerability. What would daily bread mean in that context?

Attitude. It’s true, isn’t it? The attitudes of prayer you want to inculcate in us demand that we change our perspective. The pronouns are plural. You envision a community praying, a community that is in truth and reality familial. God is our Abba, not my Abba. That’s included, of course, but you want us to recognize each other as brothers and sisters whose common Abba desires that we live as family in loving service that is imitative of Abba’s attitude towards us. Abba loves us communally.

There is something that frightens me in your next directive that has to do with forgiveness. I have no trouble acknowledging that I am a sinner in need of God’s forgiveness. I pray for forgiveness daily and celebrate Reconciliation regularly. Are you saying that that is fine as far as it goes but you expect more? There is a condition you want us to place on our plea for forgiveness. That’s fine if I am a good forgiver. But what if I am not? Am I praying that Abba watches me as a forgiver and assesses the quality of that forgiveness and then forgives me in the same way? What if I bear grudges? What if I forgive but never forget? What if I can’t forgive? How can I ask God to treat me in the same way?

Ah, but now I see that there is more here. Are you directing that forgiveness be at the heart of every Christian community? Yours is not a community that is primarily judgmental, much less condemnatory, and quick to proclaim who is not welcome here. Am I hearing you correctly? You said it in another place. Come to me all you who labor and are heavily burdened and I will refresh you. Is that what you expect of communities that gather in your name? We are to be sinners forgiving sinners, gathering around the common table rejoicing that all are welcome here.

How long have I been praying your prayer? I wonder as I write this if I have ever understood? And if I understood, would I have dared to utter your prayer? I am confident that it is not too late. Please open my heart and help me to live what I pray just as I ask you to help me live the Eucharist we celebrate. I believe that if my heart changes, then strengthened by the Eucharist I will not be afraid on my last day. I will understand then that strengthened by your love and the love of the community in whose midst I have prayed and served, I will recognize in those final moments that it is Abba coming to take me home where I will experience the fullness of his reign.

Sincerely,

Didymus