Scripture Notes: Prayer (Sirach 35)

It has happened to all of us; we pray and pray and pray, but God doesn’t seem to hear or care, much less respond. Jesus tells us, “Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you” (Matt 7:7). So what’s going on? Why don’t we receive and find and go through an open door?

First, we must always remember that God knows what we need better than we do. He knows us better than we know ourselves. There are times when what we are praying for is not good for us or for someone else. We can only see a tiny part of the picture, a little bit of the messy back of the tapestry of life. God sees the whole thing from the front, in all its color and beauty. When He says “no” or “wait” to our prayers, we have to trust in His love. He will give us what we need but not always what we want, especially when what we want could hurt us in the long run.  

Second, we must consider how we are praying and the kind of life we are living. Sirach gives us a clue about this. He tells us that the “one who serves God willingly is heard” and the “prayer of the lowly pierces the clouds” and reaches to God and receives a response. So we have to ask ourselves: Are we serving God? Do we try to live according to His will? Are we humble in our prayers, recognizing that God is God and we are not and longing that His will be done, not ours? If not, if we are clinging to our sins, if we think we can control God or that He owes us something, then we have to make a change, for we are praying wrongly. We are not in the right stance before the Creator of all things. We are treating Him like a cosmic vending machine who has to produce when we order something up. This is not true prayer. 

Third, we must understand that sometimes we are not quite ready for God’s gifts, for the answers He wants to give to our prayers. We human beings are so small and weak and narrow. We have to be stretched to receive what God has for us. This is what St. Augustine tells us. God makes us wait so that our desire for His good gifts can grow, so that prayer can stretch us out and our capacity for God can expand. 

So we need to keep on praying, asking, seeking, knocking because God will answer our prayers in the most perfect and loving way. He will give us what is best for us, and ultimately that is God Himself.

Scripture Notes: The Persistent Widow (Luke 18)

Jesus is the master storyteller. His parables are compelling, creative, and often shocking. At the beginning of Luke 18, Jesus offers the story of the persistent widow. This woman apparently has a lawsuit in progress. She has an adversary, someone who is trying to oppress her, and she wants justice. But the judge in the town simply does not care. He does not fear God nor any human being. He is going to do what he wants when he wants no msatter how it affects others. And in this case, he has no intention of giving justice to the widow.

But the widow keeps pestering him, over and over. She refuses to give up. She demands justice, literally in the Greek, vengeance or punishment for her adversary. This person has wronged her, and justice must be served. And as a widow, she has no one else to advocate for her. She can hardly advocate for herself, for a woman’s word holds no power in a court of law. Unless the judge acts with justice and mercy, she cannot prevail.

Yet the widow persists, to such an extent that the judge gets annoyed and even a little frightened. She keeps bothering him, and apparently things escalate to the point that the judge fears she might come and strike him. The Greek is literally give him a black eye. This wouldn’t look good at all. A distinguished judge like himself walking around with a black eye! It would be very difficult to explain. So justice and mercy and decency aside, the judge decides he will settle the widow’s lawsuit in her favor just to get rid of her, and to avoid embarrassment for himself. 

Jesus uses this little tale to make a point. If this unjust judge, who cares nothing for God or human beings, responds to persistence, how much more will the perfectly good, perfectly loving God respond to the persistence of our prayers. He will, Jesus declares. He will answer, and He will make sure justice is done speedily for those who cry out to Him. 

That word “speedily” might catch us, for sometimes it seems like God is anything but speedy in answering our prayers. God’s timing is always perfect, of course, but it is definitely not our timing. God often makes us wait and pray more, for as St. Augustine says, our prayers stretch us and make us able to hold more of the wonderful gifts God wants to give us. 

So like the widow, we must be persistent in prayer, knowing that we are not pestering an unjust judge but coming humbly and lovingly before our loving God so that He can stretch us out and then fill us up with all the best.

Scripture Notes: The Unexpected (2 Kings 5)

Naaman has everything going for him. He is a commander in the army of the King of Aram with a great deal of power and wealth and respect. But not everything is perfect in Naaman’s life, for he is a leper. This likely does not refer to what we call leprosy today, namely, Hansen’s disease. It is probably some kind of skin ailment. But in any case, it isolates Naaman from others; it is a blot on his otherwise satisfying life. And of course, he wants it gone.

So when a slave girl suggests that Naaman go to the prophet in Israel, Naaman jumps at the chance to be healed. But when he arrives, Elisha refuses even to see him in person. He merely sends a message, and a strange one at that: “Go and wash seven times in the Jordan, and your flesh will heal, and you will be clean.” 

Naaman is highly offended at this unexpected treatment. Doesn’t this prophet know who he is? Doesn’t he realize that the great Naaman is to be treated with respect and deference? How can he just send a message like this and not even come out to greet him? How rude! And the message itself? Wash seven times in the Jordan? What? Naaman furiously declares that there are plenty of rivers in his homeland if he wants to take a bath. This prophet sure has some nerve.

Naaman decides to forget the whole thing. He is not going to go bounce around in a foreign river. But his servants reason with him. He would do much more if the prophet asked, they say. He would do all kinds of difficult things. So why not go have a bath seven times and see what happens? Naaman has to agree.

So he follows Elisha’s instructions, and the unexpected happens again. He comes out of the river healed and clean with his skin as soft and smooth as that of a young child. He is surprised to say the least, but he also comes to realization. Only the God of Israel could have done this. So this is the God he will worship for the rest of his life. Elisha refuses to receive payment, and instead Naaman takes two loads of soil home with him so that he can have a little piece of Israel on which to offer sacrifice to his newly found God, the unexpected extra delight of his healing from leprosy. Naaman is no longer ill physically or spiritually. 

Scripture Notes: On Fire (2 Timothy 1)

St. Paul likely wrote his second letter to Timothy at the very end of his life. Scholars think that Paul was probably in prison in Rome for a second time, facing charges that would lead to his martyrdom not long after this letter was sent. So this letter serves as something like Paul’s last will and testament to the younger man who had served him so well throughout his missionary years and who was now the bishop of the Church at Ephesus.

Paul tells Timothy many important things about the Christian life, and he begins by exhorting Timothy to “rekindle the gift of God that is within you...for God did not give us a spirit of timidity but a spirit of power and love and self-control” (2 Tim 1:6-7). In other words, Timothy must be on fire for God. He must allow the Holy Spirit to set him ablaze and to fill him with His own power and love and self-control. Timothy must open himself up to the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and he must have the courage to embrace those gifts and allow them to change him from the inside out.

Fire warms and cheers the heart, but it also purifies and even destroys. The fire of the Holy Spirit burns off our imperfections and destroys our sins. And this can hurt, especially when we hold tightly to those imperfections and sins. But the Spirit can also inflame our love and devotion. He can spur us to reach out to others so that they can see His brilliant light within us and be drawn to Him.

So let us follow Paul’s advice and allow the Holy Spirit to kindle His fire in us so that we may experience His healing love and shine that brilliance to others.