Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time
I was talking to someone this past week and I said to them, “I would like to take 2019 and just throw it somewhere.” Beginning with dad’s death, and then the tornadoes in Dayton, the gun violence in Dayton, the death of two children in a senseless tragedy, Fr. Dave’s death, and the number of unexpected serious illnesses of people close to me, I cannot wait for 2019 to end. To whomever I have share my feeling, they have agreed with me. “It’s been a hard year.”
In this context today’s scripture seems timely and appropriate. Rarely do scripture readings give us the purpose of a parable in the way today’s gospel passage does. Luke says, “Jesus told his disciples a parable about the necessity for them to pray always without becoming weary” (Lk 18:1). Since the theme is given to us, let us reflect on the “necessity to pray without becoming weary.”
Here are my three practical implications:
- Life is Prayer, Prayer is Life. In reality, today’s readings are not as much about prayer as they are the necessity to pray without getting weary. However, let us begin with prayer. Sometimes, we think of prayer as an activity. We think of it as morning and evening prayers. We focus on intercession, praise, repentance, meditation, contemplation. I am inviting you to think of prayer a little more deeply. Prayer is life. And our mission is to make our life a prayer. Think about your breath. We do not consciously think about our breathing, but breath is life. We die if we do not breathe. Life is breath and breath is life. It is the same with prayer. Prayer is living the life of Jesus. Intercession, praise, repentance and everything else is a way for us to get to true prayer. Prayer is living in God’s presence and for one another every moment of our lives. It has to become so naturally that we do not even have to think about it – like our breath. And just like life – when life is not prayer and prayer is not life, we die.
- God In Our midst. Today’s first reading further invites us to think of life, God, and prayer as seamless realities. In one sense, it is a comical scene. Moses was on the top of the mountain with his hands held up as the Israelites fought the Amalekites. When he got weary and his hands went down, the Amalekites gained advantage. Every time his hands stayed up the Israelites would have the advantage. So much so that they got two people to hold Moses’ arm up for him. This is not a strategy that one would find in any war manual. The point of the story, as comical it may seem, is deeper. God was with the people fighting their battle and leading them to victory. And this is the point of the story. God is in the midst of life. This does not mean that because God is with us that life will be smooth sailing. Nowhere does scripture tell us that there will no be battles, difficulties, and complexities in our life, but rather, that in the midst of our struggles God does not abandon us. We can find God in the very midst of our struggles. Meanwhile, there is a gesture that is very useful as we go through life – hands lifted up. There is one favor we can do for God and for ourselves - that with hands lifted up in prayer, we invite God into the very midst of our life. Day in and day out, like Moses, we must invite God not only to fight our battles but simply to be an inalienable part of our daily existence. We must invite God to be our every breath. This indeed in prayer. This is the meaning of persistence in prayer.
- The Good Things of Life. I said in my first point that life is prayer and prayer is life. Perhaps I should have said, all of life is prayer and prayer is all of life. The gospel reading of the widow and the judge can be interpreted to mean that God is like the mean judge who made the poor widow come to him numerous times before he would rule in her favor, and that the judge eventually ruled in her favor not because he cared about her but simply because he wanted her to stop bothering him. The point of the parable is the very opposite. As Jesus says “Will not God then secure the rights of his chosen ones who call out to him day and night? Will he be slow to answer them? I tell you, he will see to it that justice is done for them speedily” (Lk 18:7-8). God is unlike the judge in the parable. The parable is telling us that God is good and that God is eager to give us good things. And if you are ever inclined to wonder why God did not let you win a lottery or did not heal your loved one or did not get you the job you wanted, or why your marriage ended in a divorce, or why an adversity came your way, just look back at life to find all the good things that have come your way. Life and any love that came our way, our family and those dear to us, the faith we have and the strength that comes from it, those that care about us now and those we love and care about; but most of all for the gift of Jesus and the promise of eternal salvation; all these good things come from a God who is good. The best defense when we get weary in prayer is to think of all the good things we have. They too are from God. Prayer is all of life and all of life is prayer.
Yes, 2019 has been a difficult year. But God has been as in our midst. We come here to lift our hands up like Moses did. And as we head back home, to work, and the rest of life, we realize that is already there. Life is prayer and prayer is life.
Fr. Satish Joseph