Thursday of the First Week in Lent
I will start this reflection with a confession. I have, more than once, asked God for a win for the Flyers men’s basketball team. I know. That’s pretty bad on a number of levels.
One of the things that I think is so powerful in the reading from Matthew today is that Jesus tells us to ask, to seek, and to knock. He doesn’t tell us what to ask for or what to seek or on which door to knock. And I could imagine him doing that. He might have said something like: if you’re going to call yourself my disciple, here are the kinds of things for which you should pray. These are the kinds of things you should seek. You should knock on these doors and not others. But he doesn’t.
Instead of doing that, he tells us who our Father is. And he does that by way of a powerful analogy. Who among us, he asks, would not give our son (or daughter or sister or cousin) food if he or she were hungry. Who among us would not respond generously to such a request? It’s something of a rhetorical question. The assumption here is that none of us would. And if that is the case then how are we to think of our Father? If we would not refuse such a request, why should we think that God would?
Of course, we never know in advance what is on the other side of a prayer, a seeking, or a door. I can think of many, many times in my life when my prayers were answered in ways I absolutely could not have anticipated! More often than not, it was only upon reflection that I could thank God for the ways that God responded in very surprising ways to my prayers, seeking, knocking.
All that said, I do think that the fact that Jesus doesn’t tell us what to pray for or what to seek or which door to knock on is really important. This is on us. While I feel quite confident that God does not mind (too much) my stupid prayers—for a Flyer win, for example—I also think that it behooves me to think about what I pray for.
This Lenten season of reflection and of thinking (more often than, perhaps, we usually do) about who we want to be as Christians is a great time to consider what we pray for. What is it that we are asking of our Father? What are we seeking in this life? What doors are we knocking on?
I would love it if the Flyers took the national championship! But Jesus isn’t calling me to be a Flyers’ fan. He calls me to kindness as in the Golden Rule. He calls me to compassion. And, perhaps most of all, he calls me to love—even my enemies.
Oh Lord, may I be that kind of disciple. Amen.