| July 29, 2001 Genesis 18: 20-33 + Colossians 2.12-14 + Luke 11 1-13 |
| It is our fifth week in the Jerusalem Journey, exploring the instruction Jesus gives to those who would be his disciples. Poverty, Joy, Mercy, and Hospitality were the first four qualities of discipleship, and I remind you, that what we are discovering here is not what disciples do, but what they are: Poor, Joyful, Merciful, and Hospitable. Today, we look to the First Testament’s reading for our clue as we explore the Gospel passage. Without domg so, we might simply say that it tells us that a disciple is prayerful and let it go at that. Of course of disciple is prayerful, that’s not the point of what Luke has Jesus telling them. The message emerges m the story that follows the prayer |
| That is where the first reading from Genesis comes in. It’s not about God. It’s about Abraham. There is no need to establish God’s power and reputation. After all, God is God. The ancient one who kept this story alive did so, apparently, in order to praise Abraham as a worthy contender for mercy, even before his Maker Sitting with that story, reading 1t over and over again, I became more impressed with Abraham than with God. There’s no surprise nor revelation about God in this story, but it certainly says a lot about Abraham and his constant, steady, unwavering persistence. |
| Now, when you hold on to that memory of Abraham, and then listen to the whole of today’s Gospel passage, there is something more going on in Luke’s plan than simply giving us a prayer formula. What the disciples ask of Jesus is not so much how to prayer in words, but how to be successful in prayer, and the response of Jesus is more to be found in the story that follows than in the formula itself. |
| Abraham discovers that God will have mercy, and what we seem to see here is that mercy is that mercy comes by a partnership: God responds to human compassion to become compassionate. Without compassionate and merciful people, God’s compassion and mercy is not available. Does this mean that without Abraham’s mercy God would not have had mercy? Who knows? What is obvious is that it didn’t happen that way What did happen is that a someone pressed God for mercy and it was granted. There is a partnership revealed here that we dare not ignore. |
| Herein lies this week’s quality of discipleship: “persistence” or “perseverance.” The application of this quality lies in one’s recognition of the partnership or coalition the disciple has with God, just as those disciples had with Jesus.Perseverance is the key It is the real secret to affective prayer; not the use of the right words, the right formula, or the right sequence of dates. It is perseverance in the relationship no matter how things are going. Yet everything in our culture and this age would make this look foolish. Throw away relationship that fail to make us feel good all the time, a relentless search and demand for perfection in others, and a growmg sense of entitlement that makes us impatient and intolerant of anything that is slow or a pleasure that is not instant make the disciple whose life is formed around perseverance look oddly out of place. But so it shall be for those who have set their face on Jerusalem and chose to be formed by Jesus Christ along the way |
| Those who say· “Lord, teach us to pray ” are not seeking a repetition of words, but a breakthrough to the one thmg necessary to keep them on their journey. It is the one unique element of Luke’s lesson on this issue, and a constant theme in his whole Gospel. the Holy Spirit. That is what will be given to those who ask, the very Spirit and Life of God. It won’t be a matter of the little things with which we all sometimes clutter up our prayers with passmg wants, needs, and fears. It will be the Spirit that can and will sustain us through all temptations, tnals, and fears. This is what Jesus has ultimately come to give us, to teach us, and share with us. It is that Spirit which allows disciples of Jesus to take up the words of the Psalm we just used in this liturgy and make its words our own. “I thank you for your faithfulness and love which excel all we ever knew of you. On the day I called, you answered. you increased the strength of my soul. ” |