NewCreation

Homily for 17th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

Welcome, my sisters and brothers, to this the homily for the 17th Sunday in Ordinary Time. And this week our Gospel continues directly on from last week. Last week we had Martha and Mary, and here we have Jesus on prayer, something which comes in Matthew 6, or rather earlier in Matthew's Gospel than it does in Luke. Jesus was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray as John taught his disciples." So it's interesting that Jesus was doing something by example. He didn't start off by telling his disciples to pray. It was their desire to imitate him that led them to ask, and that's always the first thing we'll see with the prayer. His insistence is about asking. It's very, very strong, even stronger in Luke's Gospel than it is in Matthew's. So the first thing is: his presence doing something produces in them a desire to be in some way like him and to do what he's doing. "Lord, teach us to pray as John taught his disciples." So they had another model in mind as well. They thought, oh yes, John was teaching people sort of tough things, and Jesus doesn't seem to be particularly interested in group formation, at least not in an obvious way. So let's see whether we can get him to persuade us of some things. Then Jesus does speak to them, and again we're so used to thinking, ah, this is Jesus teaching our prayer, that what we fail to notice is that he says very little. It's very, very scarce, what he actually says about prayer. "When you pray, say: Father." In Luke's Gospel it isn't even "Our Father, who art in heaven," as it says in Matthew. It's just "Father." In other words, the whole thing starts from the resting place, a place of complete confidence in one who is doing something, who is bringing something into being, from whom all desire can come. That's the starting place: very simple word, "Father." The second word: "Hallowed be your name." The phrase is familiar from Jewish prayers like the Kaddish, and we get a lot of it commented more in John's Gospel than here. It appears to be something like: may your presence in the world, your person in the world, receive all its due reputation; may who you are be known as you really are. A great deal of what Jesus does in the last speeches in John's Gospel is talk about glorifying the Father and the Father being glorified in him, and I think that this "hallowed be your name" is a good deal to do with: may your reputation attach to your person here on earth — no mention of "on earth" yet, of course — but so may your reputation be known, may your glory be… "Perceive your kingdom come" – again, without the "on earth as it is in heaven," which we get in Matthew – simply the assumption that the whole pattern of desire into which we are being inducted is one that wants to see a new way of being together made available, a longing for a world in which there is not war or hunger or disease, all of those things. Kingdom of the Father, the Father who actually loves people, wants them to be together. Let that come. And then: "Give us each day our daily bread." Slightly different from Matthew's, where it's "give us today our daily bread." Here it's "give us each day our daily bread." And of course no one really knows what the word which is translated by us as "daily" really means. The word epiousios in Greek doesn't appear anywhere else. Origen assumed that it had been invented by the evangelists. It could mean a variety of things. It could mean the bread which is necessary, it could mean the bread which is daily, it could mean the bread which is super-substantial – in other words, that's sort of the manna brought to life in the Eucharist. Each one of these has possible meanings. But we translate it "daily" with, I guess, a certain humility, not knowing what it is that we're being asked to pray for here. Then it says, "And forgive us our sins" – whereas Matthew has "our debtors." So here sins are mentioned: "for we ourselves forgive anyone indebted to us." And there is the word for indebtedness which we get in Matthew. So Luke is adding something to Matthew's sense that all sins are forms of indebtedness between people; they're all horizontal things that we need to forgive. And it says in Luke's Gospel – it makes it perfectly clear – "and forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us." In other words, that request, "forgive us our sins," can only be made on the basis of something we are doing. It's as we forgive that we are forgiven. This completely reflexive nature is brought out here by Luke. "And do not bring us to the time of trial." Important in Luke: there were various times of trial where Jesus was tried by the devil, and when Jesus is tried at Gethsemane, those are the times of trial. He prays that his disciples do not get put to the test. And indeed, why is that very important psychologically? Sometimes we want to make ourselves good by throwing ourselves into tests to see whether we can make ourselves good. That's a way of not actually receiving who we are through what the Lord is doing with us. So neither do we want to be submitted to tests, nor should we joust at windmills so as to set up tests for ourselves. "Do not bring us to the time of trial." Now, whereas in Matthew's Gospel Jesus follows immediately from having taught the Lord's Prayer to repeat the part about reciprocity — of forgiving others as you seek forgiveness for yourselves — so as to make it absolutely clear what's central: there is the reflexive nature of what's going on. In St Luke's Gospel the key thing which he then brings out is the asking. That's what's key. So he says to them: "Suppose one of you has a friend and you go to him at midnight and say to him, 'Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, for a friend of mine has arrived and I have nothing to set before him.'" So a friend has arrived, has come en route, you like him, you want to do something for him, you go to your neighbor, you treat him as a friend and you say, "Lend me three loaves of bread." Apparently the Aramaic behind these is barley loaves, and they were more like barley biscuits, in fact. In addition to making ordinary bread, people would use crushed barley loaves and crushed barley flour and water to make quite thick biscuits that would then dry out beside the fire. And the way you would make these edible — because otherwise they would just break your teeth — would be boiling water and dipping them in, and that would cook them and turn them into food. So, pretty basic emergency-ration barley loaves, and you have nothing to set before your friend. In other words, not only do you like your friend, but you're ashamed that you have nothing, so you're in a place of shame before the one you like or love. And this other so-called friend or neighbor answers from within: "Don't bother me, the door's already been locked and my children are with me in bed." Understanding that at that time a house would be a single room, a large bed, the whole family would sleep on it — anybody getting out of it would clamber all over everybody and wake them up, and so on and so forth, if they hadn't been woken up by the neighbor shouting from outside. "I cannot get up and give you anything" — in other words, I've got a very good excuse for not doing anything I tell you. Even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, at least because of his persistence — and the Greek could be translated as the Aramaic is translated — shamelessness: because of his shamelessness he will get up and give him whatever he needs. In other words, it's the shamelessness of the guy who's standing outside going, "Give me some bread, give me some bread," because he cannot be shamed into shutting up. That's the key thing here. And this is very typical of Luke. We have a similar story with the importunate widow. It's her refusal to shut up that finally bullies — literally boxes — the judge into submission. At the time when the importunate widow is bullying him, boxing him into submission about getting him to sort her problem out. So shamelessness is a key thing in this request. "At least because of his shamelessness he will get up and give him whatever he needs." So I say to you — in other words, that's what he's going for us — "Ask and it will be given to you, search and you will find, knock and the door will be opened to you." So the instruction he's giving is shameless insistence: shameless insistence, asking, being able to verbalize, searching, actually going after something, knocking, physically — you know — getting worked up about something. And the door will be opened for you. "For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks the door will be opened." And of course this is not actually immediately our experience, because many of us ask for things and do not receive, and search and do not — immediately at least — find, and everyone knocking: the door is not immediately opened. I've been knocking on the door of the Church to be allowed to be the priest that I am for many years, and although the Holy Father allowed me to carry on, still no door opened for this to actually be realized. I keep on knocking and asking and searching. So there doesn't appear to be a time limit with the promise here. But the point is: be shamelessly insistent, go for it, be single-minded, be bloody-minded, insist. And one of the things that makes it possible to insist is the imagination. So here is the thing: if your imagination is of somebody who doesn't really like you — the Father mentioned in the first line of the thing — then of course you're not going to insist very long. You're going to give up soon. So this is how the Father is brought out — the single word "Father" at the beginning of Jesus' prayer. "Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead?" of a fish? Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion? Very obvious things. Desert culture, plenty of snakes, plenty of scorpions. These were not unknown animals to Jesus' listeners, and the difference between a fish or something doing them good, or an egg, and those beasts is very, very obvious. But in terms of our pattern of desire, are we so clear about that? Are we so clear that the Father is the sort of person who actually wants us to have good things? Don't we sometimes think that maybe he's given me a scorpion because it's good for me, or a snake because it'll whip me into action? Don't we moralize the bad image we have of the one who wants to give us? Don't we find it really difficult to actually believe that God does want things that are good for us? So it's our insistence in actually learning to imagine the goodness that he wants for us, and carry on wanting it, that is central to what God wants for us. This is why we must pray. And Jesus makes this point: "If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children" — in other words, you know how to screw each other up, you know how to have dysfunctional family relations, you know all these things, and yet even you can distinguish between good gifts and bad gifts for your children — "how much more will the heavenly Father give Holy Spirit to those who ask him?" Give Holy Spirit. What is that? This is the pattern of desire that is, if you like, opened up by the desirability of what is good, that actually enables us to imitate what is going to do good for us, and which then strengthens our longing and our wanting, so that we can carry on insisting until we are turned round and find ourselves actually possessed by what it is like to be God towards all things that are, and discover ourselves owning it, receiving it, having looked for it, finding it. So this element — which some translations give as "is that not the heavenly Father giving the good things to those who ask" — but give Holy Spirit: rather than thinking of it as a compensation, think of it as this: what is wanted is the pattern of desire. That's what Jesus asks us to receive through prayer — to learn and to enter into the pattern of desire which runs us in such a way that we will not be hurt, that we will not be subjected to cruel self-moralizations, that our longings will be satisfied, and we will be enabled to carry on wanting more and more, because that is what the Creator longs to give us. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.