Whenever we hear a passage from the Old Testament which talks of the killing of enemies, as in our 1st Reading today, (Exodus 17:8-13) we have to remember that Jesus said “Love your enemies”. So this must mean that in order to be true to Jesus, and yet get something out of a story like this, we have to interpret it in a different way; for Jesus certainly doesn’t think you love your enemies by killing them. You can see and hear me give this Homily/Sermon on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpPHKd7jU_0
Christian preachers down through the ages have therefore explained that this story is meant to teach us about the spiritual battle that we have to fight, and that this is a battle in our own hearts and minds. I don’t know your failings, but I know the battles I have to fight, the failings I have to deal with. That’s where I find my enemies, and this story tells me that I cannot defeat them alone. I need my friends alongside me, and above all I need God to stand by me with his love and mercy and power. And once I know that, I know that Moses in the story holding up his hands in prayer, is what we call a prototype of Jesus. For it is his hands, spread out for me on the cross, that show me that God never stops supporting me, never gives up on me, even if I give up on myself. With him, all battles will eventually be won, in death if not in life.
Once we have seen how to interpret a passage like this one, we can understand much better why our 2nd Reading (2 Tim 3:14-4:2) says that “All Scripture is inspired by God and can be profitably used for teaching.” Yes, that’s true; but only if we read the Scriptures (the Bible) through the teaching of Jesus as I have just shown. Any other way will lead us astray. Today however, we also have a Gospel that needs interpreting, (Luke 18:1-8) because taken at face value we might get the idea that God is a fierce if just judge far away from us, whom we have to batter with our prayers in order to get any answers. But we know from what Jesus teaches elsewhere, that God is actually a loving father. Remember his comment about sparrows? “Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God. ….. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows.” Like a good comedian, Jesus is telling us a funny story about a persistent widow in order to remind us that even though God is a loving Father, we still need, as he says to “Pray continually.”
But we might ask why we need to pray so persistently if God cares about us so much? The answer is that prayer is far more than just asking God for things, far more than just asking God for help. After all, if that were all prayer was how could we do it continually? Some people have actually tried to suggest that prayer is like that, that it’s a matter of saying more and more prayers, and they have produced a number of different solutions as to how that might be done.
But this approach, which multiplies the number of prayers we say, or are said on our behalf, is as I’ve just mentioned, thinking about prayer in the wrong way. We get much further with this problem when we realise that prayer is more about listening to God always present with us, than just saying words, or sending thoughts towards him; and once we’ve realised that, then it does become possible for each of us to pray continually. The classic expression of this is in the Book “The Practice of the Presence of God”, where Brother Lawrence explains how he is able to constantly pray in the kitchen amongst the pots and pans, and he encourages us to expand this idea further, by thinking beyond the kitchen, to all the different activities each of us gets involved in every day, and thus to work out how we might listen to God while we do each one them. Of course, this is easiest to do when we’re faced with some problem, because then thinking through how we’re going to deal with it in the way God would want comes fairly naturally. It’s also fairly easy to praise God for his creation, when we are faced with a beautiful day, a lovely garden or a glorious sunset. Much more difficult is every day life, where we get so caught up with the next thing we have to do : at work, at home, at school, in the car on the bus, that listening for what God might be saying to us doesn’t happen nearly so easily. The idea is that as soon as we get up in the morning we thank God that we can, as we eat our breakfast we thank God we have one, as we travel to work or school or go for a walk or go shopping, we thank God we can do these things, as we watch our favourite TV programmes (Strictly?) or listen to some music we love, we thank God that he wants us to have time for relaxation and fun, and finally as we go to bed, we thank God we have a bed to lie on. And hopefully right through the day, if we suddenly see someone in trouble, or know of a friend or colleague who needs some support; we are awake to what God wants us to do to help them.
There is one problem left however. Doing it! Getting into the mindset where God matters in every part of our lives. Some might say “Well if God is always with us, what’s the point of going to Mass, what’s the point of saying our prayers?” The answer is that doing these things should help us to try to be open to God in every part of our life. We are at Mass in order to take God with us into our daily lives, but making that happen is the real battle. We say our prayers for the same reason. That’s why the Rosary isn’t just a repetition of familiar prayers, but must include meditating on one of the 20 happenings – what are called Mysteries – where we think about some event where God has acted - the birth of Jesus, his death on the cross, his gift of the Eucharist, his glory in heaven etc. Many people love to say the Rosary because it is so easy to say, but unless its emphasis on God’s activity spills out from saying it into our daily life, it is a waste of time.
Me, I prefer simple times of meditative prayer. This is where we quietly share with God what happened yesterday, thanking him for the good things and saying sorry for our mistakes and pondering on how we might have done better ;and then looking ahead to what’s likely to happen in the day ahead, the people we may meet, the jobs we may have to do, and meditating on how we might find God present in all of them. Remember, we do not have to knock on God’s door, God is always with us, but what we do have to do, and that is the battle, is to open the door for God to come in to every situation in our life. As we hear in the Book of Revelation, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any one hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me. “(Rev 3:20) Every time we open a door for God, in our heart or in our mind, that is prayer.
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