OT XVII [C]  Gen. 18:20-32, Col  2:12-14, Lk 11:1-13

The main themes of today’s Scripture readings are the power of intercessory prayer, the Our Father as the ideal prayer, and the necessity for persistence and perseverance in prayer, with trusting faith and boldness. In short, they teach us what to pray and how to pray.  The first reading, taken from the book of Genesis, gives us the model for intercessory prayer provided by Abraham in his dialogue with God. Although Abraham seems to be trying to manipulate God through his skillful bargaining and humble, persistent intercession, God is actually being moved to mercy by the goodness of a few innocent souls.  

The parable in the gospel teaches us that prayer is not putting coins in a vending machine called God to get whatever we wish. We must not look upon God as a sort of genie who grants all our requests. God is our loving Father Who knows what to give, when to give and how to give. This includes not only our daily bread to satisfy our physical hunger but also “bread” to satisfy our spiritual hunger. Prayer is a relationship -- an intimate, loving, caring, parent-child relationship. The Greek text means: "Ask and you will receive something good,"--not just whatever we ask for. The New Testament Greek also instructs us, "ask and keep on asking...seek and keep on seeking...knock and keep on knocking.”  Hence, we are to be persistent declaring our trusting faith and dependence on God. One thing that is sometimes overlooked in this story is that this, like the story of Abraham bargaining with God for the lives of Lot and his family, is primarily a story about intercessory prayer. One friend goes to another friend on behalf of someone else. Bishop Sheen has this comment on prayer: "The man who thinks only of himself says prayers of petition. He who thinks of his neighbor says prayers of intercession. He who thinks only of loving and serving God says prayers of abandonment to God's will, and that is the prayer of the saints." 

"Prayer doesn't change God; it changes me." A colleague asked C.S. Lewis if he really thought he could change God with his prayer for the cure of his wife’s cancer. Lewis replied: "Prayer doesn't change God; it changes me." 

A mother sent her fifth grade boy up to bed. In a few minutes she went to make sure that he was getting in bed. When she stuck her head into his room, she saw that he was kneeling beside his bed in prayer. Pausing to listen to his prayers, she heard her son praying over and over again. "Let it be Tokyo! Please dear God, let it be Tokyo!"

When he finished his prayers, she asked him, "What did you mean, ‘Let it be Tokyo’?"

"Oh," the boy said with embarrassment, "we had our geography exam today and I was praying that God would make Tokyo the capital of France."

Prayer is not a magical means by which we get God to do what we want. Prayer is an inner openness to God which allows his divine power to be released in us. Ultimately, the power of prayer is not that we succeed in changing God, but that God succeeds in changing us.

William McGill summed it up this way. "The value of persistent prayer is not that God will hear us but that we will finally hear God." Keep in mind that Jesus has taught us to address God as Father.  A loving Father listens to his child, but does not blindly endorse every request.  Instead, the loving Father provides what is needed, including discipline. 

 One of the reasons why we don’t pray is that we think  a loving God should provide for us and protect us from the disasters of life, such as disease or accidents, without our asking Him. 

A fisherman who was out of fellowship with the Lord was at sea with his companions when a storm came up and threatened to sink their ship. His friends begged him to pray; but he demurred, saying, "It’s been a long time since I’ve done that or even entered a church." At their insistence, however, he finally cried out, "O Lord, I haven’t asked anything of You in 15 years, and if You help us now and bring us safely to land, I promise I won’t bother You again for another 15!”

Prayer is often an escape mechanism rather than a way of life for some people.

Prayer expresses our awareness of our need for God and our dependence on Him.

St. John Marie Vianney’s advice to a couple who asked him how to pray is this:"Spend three minutes praising and thanking God for all you have. Spend three minutes asking God’s pardon for your sins and presenting your needs before Him. Spend three minutes reading the Bible and listening to God in silence. And do this every day."

We must believe that God does answer all our prayers, but the reality must then be that the answer is so often no, no to the particular thing that we ask for. God does bring about good things in answer to our prayers, but what that good might be is often very different from any expectation and understanding we might have.

And, at this point, we are challenged to undertake a difficult, but very worthwhile, journey in the purification of our desires, as we seek to make better sense of what are the goods that God wants us to pray for, so that there can be a better conformity of what we ask for and what God gives, so that our will can be conformed more fully to God’s will. This is how Jesus prayed: Father, let this cup pass me by, but not my will, but Thy will be done.

And it’s here that we come to the recognition that for such purification of our desires we have to be open to the Spirit praying within us, conforming our prayers to the will of God. As St Paul teaches in the letter to the Romans: ‘The Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words’ (Romans 8: 26). Today as the disciples asked Jesus to pray, let’s ask him too to help us pray the right way so that whatever is God’s will be our will too.