SCRIPTURE:
1ST Reading—Exodus 17:8-13
2nd Reading— 2 Timothy 3:14-4:2
Gospel— Luke 18: 1-8
Imagine that your child or grandchild for some of you, wants an ice cream cone. The child keeps asking and asking and yet you tell the child many things to hold off their constant persistence: “You just had lunch”. “You’ll spoil your dinner”. “You’ll get your good clothes dirty”. “You didn’t do what I asked you earlier”. “We do not have time to stop”. But the child is persistent asking and asking until you finally can not stand it anymore and you give in and buy that ice cream cone.
I see some kids in this congregation. Now kids, this is not a lesson into how to get things from your parents or grandparents. If you listen real close you will learn how God always wants you to reach out to him in prayer. O.K ?
Constant and persistent prayer seems to be the main theme or lesson in our readings today. We also hear that God is always willing to hear us. In fact, there is no prayer that God does not hear. It is impossible for us to live “out of range” from God. There are no signal loss zones with God. Even when we sin, God is there waiting for us to reach out to him for forgiveness and mercy. Try as we might, there is no “God free zone” in our lives.
In today’s gospel parable, Jesus teaches about prayer. Jesus gives us the example of a widow, the poorest of the poor and the weakest of the weak, in those times. Jesus reminds us that like the widow in the story, we are called to pray constantly being ever persistent and not to grow weary, not giving up on God.
All of us must strive to live in a state of constant prayer. The unjust judge in the gospel story says that the widows petition was answered because she would not give up. If even an unjust judge will answer a
petition, if asked long enough and hard enough, how much more will God, who created us out of love and who is not an unjust judge but a loving father, hear our prayers!
So the first characteristic of prayer is constancy. We must pray always. The way we even live out our daily lives need to become a prayer glorifying our God in what we say and do.
Now kids, if we dis-obey our parents, if we fight with our brothers and sisters, if we tell a little white lie, that is not prayer, is it? The same applies to all of us. If we get mad at a coworker, if we get mad at the crazy driver in front or in the back of us, if we fail to come to mass every Sunday and Holy days of obligation, is this a life of prayer?
The saints lived a life of prayer in all that they said and did. This can be our way of life. We all can become saints by living a life of prayer. We can make our daily lives a prayer to God. How do we do this? The saints through constant prayer to God, proclaimed His words through their very lives.
By living their life as a prayer to God others came to know God. The life of prayer is not always easy and for some is a hard road. As Paul stated to Timothy; “proclaim the word; be persistent whether it is convenient or inconvenient”.
We can become saints but the only thing holding us back is ourselves. In a way, we become despondent, not being constant and persistent in our prayer life, that is giving up, not trusting that God will do anything or even hear us.
The hardest thing for us to do is to trust in God. The widow’s example also gave us another characteristic of prayer, Trust. She trusted that eventually her petition would be answered. Like her, we have to learn to trust. We have to learn to trust the very God who gives us life, who gives us our next breath, and gives us the ability and privilege to love.
Not only must our prayer be constant but we also have to have complete trust in God that our prayer will be answered in the best possible way no matter what. Sometimes we fool ourselves into thinking that we know more than God, that we know more about what is best for us. Sometimes we fool ourselves into thinking that our prayers were not answered in the way we wanted. In other words, we have trouble trusting God.
Dear friends, each and every prayer we offer should end something like this; “Father, I think this is what I need and this is what I ask, but I know and I trust that you know best and that you love me. Father, your will be done”.
This is how Jesus finished his most profound and fervent prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane and this is the example of how we can end our prayers, each and every one of them.
If we look at the first reading today from Exodus, the message is the same. As long as Moses kept his hands in the air the battle with Amalek went well. Whenever he gave up, whenever his prayer was not rooted in constancy and trust, things went poorly. Finally, it was with the assistance of Aaron and Hur that Moses was able to keep his hands up and remain in prayer to God.
The last message of today’s readings is simply this: Like Moses needed Aaron and Hur to sustain his prayer during battle, we need each other and we need the Church to sustain us in prayer.
Like the Consecration of the Bread and water into the body and blood of Christ, the celebrant of the mass petitions all the angels and saints to be present and he petitions the Spirit of God to come upon these gifts to make them holy, to make them truly the presence of Jesus Christ himself. That is so powerful in itself and we with the angels and saints, are witnesses to it. This is done in community.
You see, we are never alone and especially when we pray, whether it be with our words or actions. God is always with us. What did Jesus say when he ascended into heaven, “I will be with you until the end of the age”.
If our prayer is constant, if our prayer is persistent, and if we trust in our loving God to hear and answer us, then when the Son of Man, Jesus Christ comes again, he will find faith and through that faith will find a bit of Heaven on earth.
On a side note, this weekend is World Mission Sunday. What is mission? Mission is what we have been given through our Baptism. Mission is living up to what God expects of us and that is to spread the logos, the word of God made flesh in Jesus Christ. We do this in many forms but actions do speak louder than words. What do we remember about the saints? It is not so much what they said, even though their words were profound and inspiring, but it is in the way they lived out their lives.
Our faith propels us out from these front doors of this Church and out into our homes, our local communities, our places of work, our school yard, where we shop, and even for some, on the streets around the world where you find the poorest of the poor, the marginalized,the forgotten of society.
Now, don’t feel like you are not doing mission if you are not abroad with the worlds poor. The collection today for Mission Sunday is a way where you can help, where you can reach out to this worlds marginalized. This is one way we can reach out in Mission by our financial support. The missionaries around the world cannot help these brothers and sisters without us.
In just a few minutes, we will offer our prayers and petitions to God as a community, as the body of Christ. But before we do that we will profess our faith. Let us all ask God to help us live up to those words and ask for strength to do it through the reception of his Sons body and blood in the Eucharist and with Him, let us go forth from this church today and every day in loving service to others by living a life of prayer.