Homily for November 14th, 2020: Luke 18:1-8.
Most of Jesus’ parables involve a
similarity between the central figure and God. In this case the story turns on
the dissimilarity between the corrupt judge and God. It is a “how much
more” story. If even so depraved a judge as this one grants the petitioner her
request in the end, how much more will God grant the prayers of those
who ask him for their needs. God, Jesus is saying, is not like the
corrupt judge. It is not difficult to get his attention. God is always
more ready to hear than we to pray. God is approachable.
What is the point of praying,
however, if God knows our needs before we do, and better than we do? To that
question there is no fully satisfying answer. Prayer, like everything to do
with God, is a mystery: not in the sense that we can understand nothing
about it, but that what we can understand is always less than the whole. One
thing is certain. Prayer does not change God. Prayer changes us. It
opens us up to the action of God in our lives, as the sun’s rays open the
flowers to their life-giving warmth and the nourishing moisture of dew and
rain.
Prayer also reminds us of our need
for God. How easily we forget that need, especially when the sun shines on us
and things go well. Then we start to think we can make it on our own: by our
cleverness, by luck, by pulling strings, by hard work, even by being so good
that God (we assume) will have to reward us.
We need to be reminded again and
again that we can never make it on our own. No matter how clever we are; no
matter how much luck we have; no matter how many strings we pull; no matter how
hard we work or how hard we try to be good. None of those things is certain,
Jesus tells us. There is certainty only in God. He alone can satisfy our
deepest desires. Hence Jesus’ final, insistent question. He is putting it to
us, right now:
“When the Son of Man comes, will
he find any faith on the earth?”
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