Homily
for July 29, 2007
Liturgical Year C - Cycle I
17th Sunday in Ordinary Time
By Fr. Joshua Nyoni Topic:
Prayer
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Reading I Genesis 18:20-32 "In those days,
the Lord said: 'The outcry against
Sodom and Gomorrah is so great, and their sin so grave, that I must go
down and
see whether or not their actions fully correspond to the cry against
them that
comes to me. I mean to find out.'
While Abraham's visitors walked
on farther toward Sodom, the Lord remained standing before
Abraham. Then
Abraham drew nearer and said, 'Will you sweep away the innocent with
the
guilty? Suppose there were fifty innocent people in the city;
would you
wipe out the place, rather than spare it for the sake of the fifty
innocent
people within it? Far be it from you to do such a thing, to make
the
innocent die with the guilty so that the innocent and the guilty would
be
treated alike! Should not the judge of all the world act with
justice?' The Lord replied, 'If I find fifty innocent people in
the city
of Sodom, I will spare the whole place for their sake.' Abraham
spoke up
again: 'See how I am presuming to speak to my Lord, though I am but
dust and
ashes! What if there were five less than fifty innocent
people?
Will you destroy the whole city because of those five?' He
answered, 'I
will not destroy it, if I find forty-five there.' But Abraham
persisted,
saying, 'What if only forty are found there?' He replied, 'I will
forbear
doing it for the sake of the forty.' Then Abraham said, 'Let not
my Lord
grow impatient if I go on. What if only thirty are found
there?' He
replied, 'I will forbear doing it if I can find but thirty
there.' Still
Abraham went on, 'Since I have thus dared to speak to my Lord, what if
there
are no more than twenty?' The Lord answered, 'I will not destroy
it, for
the sake of the twenty.' But he still persisted: 'Please,
let not
my Lord grow angry if I speak up this last time. What if there
are at
least ten there?' He replied, 'For the sake of those then, I will
not
destroy it.'" Gospel Luke 11:1-13 Jesus was praying
in a certain place, and when he had
finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray
just as
John taught his disciples.” He said to
them, “When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom
come.
Give us each day our daily bread and forgive us our sins for we
ourselves
forgive everyone in debt to us, and do not subject us to the final
test.” And he said to
them, “Suppose one of you has a friend to
whom he goes at midnight and says, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of
bread, for
a friend of mine has arrived at my house from a journey and I have
nothing to
offer him,’ and he says in reply from within, ‘Do not bother me; the
door has
already been locked and my children and I are already in bed. I
cannot get up to give you anything.’ I tell you, if he does not
get up to give the
visitor the loaves because of their friendship, he will get up to give
him
whatever he needs because of his persistence. “And I tell
you,
ask and you will receive; seek and you will find; knock and the door
will be
opened to you. For everyone who asks,
receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the
door
will be opened. What father among you
would hand his son a snake when he asks for a fish? Or hand him a
scorpion when he asks for an
egg? 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?”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The readings we have just had today
speak to us about
prayer. The first reading from the book
of Genesis reveals to us what God is like.
He is a compassionate and a forgiving God. Abraham was troubled
by the idea of the
innocent being punished along with the guilty.
What did he do? He began to
pray. “How about if you find 50? Will you destroy the city?
Then come down. 45.
How about 40? No, how about
30? Please do not be angry with me if I
speak again, my Lord. How about 20? Don’t be angry with me.
How about if you find 10? Will you destroy the whole city?”
Imagine and put yourself in the place of God
and then Abraham speaking to you. How
would you react? I think normally I
would be annoyed but God wasn’t. What
did God do? The Lord answered that he
would not destroy the whole city. This reveals to us that God, himself,
can be persuaded by
human beings. He listened to the
petition of Abraham. He listened to
him. As I speak about this persuasion,
this listening to that, I’m reminded of what St. John Chrysostom once
said. “God governs the world, but prayer
governs God.” This is what we see in the
interaction between Abraham and God.
God, in a way, has got them by prayer.
In this story, we see that this God of Abraham is in a way a God who is
intensely involved in human activity. We
see here the power of intercessory prayer.
Never giving up, but praying and asking consistently so that God will
do
His will. If I may remind you, God does
His will whenever He wills it. Then we come to the Gospel itself.
We find that the disciples of Jesus were in a
way fascinated by the way Jesus prayed.
Before Jesus could take any big step, before He could choose the
twelve,
He went to pray. One time, He got up
very early in the morning, left the disciples, went to a hill and
prayed. Now the secret to the mission of Jesus was
this: Before He could face the world, He
needed only to face God. That was the
secret to His mission. What is the
secret to our daily way? What do we do? We try to face the
world when we can’t even
face it. Glory Be to God. Is that not true? Think
about it. This is what we do. Jesus set an example of how
to pray and the
disciples were interested. They were
fascinated. What did they say? “Teach us, Lord. Teach
us to pray.” He taught them that beautiful prayer, which
we pray many times, the Our Father. Then
He spoke of that persistent prayer. He
said to them, “Ask and it will be given to you.
Seek and you will find. Knock and
the door will be open to you.” I say this as a point.
Prayer is all about asking. In
the Our Father, we pray. We ask for our
daily bread. We ask for what we
need. God knows what we need. It is because we do not know
what we really
need, because of that we have to pray so that we may know what we
really need. We do not know what we really need. Paul said
to the Romans that because we do
not know, the Spirit comes to help us.
Let me quote from the Book of Romans.
It says this: “The Spirit comes
to aid our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we ought.
The Spirit itself intercedes with
inexpressible longings, intercedes for the Holy one, according to God’s
will.” The second point is that prayer is all
about
searching. That continued search for God
must be part and parcel of us as Christians.
We must continue to search for God because, at times, our God seems to
be very far; but other times, He seems to be very near. When God
is very far, we shouldn’t give
up. We must go on. In that search for God, we should not so
much
seek the consolations of God. St. John
of the Cross has a beautiful poem that we can meditate on. It
says this:
“Do not so much seek the consolations of God, but seek the God of
consolation.” Go beyond a little bit and
seek God Himself. We need also to search
for the will of God in our lives because what He wills is always good
for
us. God can see further than we do. He does whatever is
good for us. He watches over us with such divine
providence. Lastly, I will say this.
Prayer is all about knocking.
What do we mean by this? Knocking
at the door of God so that when He opens, we may discover and be aware
of what
God wills for our salvation. With these few thoughts, may we be
helped to reach the
God of Jesus Christ.