Ex 17:8-13
Ps 121
2 Tm 3:14-4:2
Lk 18:1-8
The Doors released their album “The Soft Parade” in July of 1969. A few weeks later it became the soundtrack for my sophomore year at Penn State when my roommate arrived with a copy of it. The title track begins with Jim Morrison proclaiming in an amplified voice, “When I was back there in seminary school there was a person there who put forth the proposition that you can petition the Lord with prayer.” He repeats, “petition the Lord with prayer” twice with sarcasm dripping from each word. And then he screams:
“YOU CANNOT PETITION THE LORD . . . WITH PRAYER.”
Unfortunately, by the time the album was released drugs had set him on the course that ended with his death two years later from a heroin overdose.. He was 27 years old. Morrison was wrong.
You can petition the Lord with prayer.
You should petition the Lord with prayer.
You must petition the Lord with prayer.
The first reading and the gospel tell us how in one word: importune. Importune means to demand with urgency or persistence; to annoy, to beset with solicitations; to be troublesomely persistent, or to be annoying in one’s requests. A two year-old’s full-time job is to importune. Many a parent has given in to importuning requests for a box of triple sugared chocolate bomb cereal just to make it stop.
Unlike most of us subject to importuning be it that of a 2 year-old or a friend, it is impossible to annoy or trouble God with prayer. What some would think is too much is just barely enough. The entire psalter, from Psalm 1 to Psalm 150, is one long importuning prayer with scattered bursts of thanksgiving.
The image in the first reading is fascinating. As long as Moses’ arms were raised in prayer the Israelites were winning the battle. When his hands dropped with fatigue the tide would shift. But Moses had help. Aaron and Hur supported his arms as long as necessary. So it is for us. We can’t always do it alone in prayer. That is why we are surrounded by a community of believers. That is why we pray for others. That is why others pray for us. Arron and Hur represent the community of believers supporting us when we are too fatigued, too anxiety-ridden, or too overwrought to pray. And we support the arms of others when we pray for and with them.
The community of believers is first, foremost and always must be a community of prayer. All other agendas, programs, social activism must take a backseat to prayer, particularly the Eucharist. Persistent prayer is crucial to the ongoing salvation of the world. Prayer may be the only thing keeping the world rotating on its axis.
The Gospel is fascinating. The widow was relentless. No matter what the unjust judge did she returned importuning until he gave her a just judgment. The judge’s motivations for that judgment were less than honorable. He was not motivated by a thirst for justice but by the fear of being struck.
Too many today give wrong judgments for fear of being cancelled or accused of one of the myriad faux-isms, pseudo-ists, or hilarious phobias with which we are bullied daily. The judge's actions recall T.S. Eliot’s observation, “The final temptation is the greatest treason, to do the right thing for the wrong reason.”
Jesus asks the rhetorical question: “Will not God then secure the rights of his chosen ones who call out to him” in prayer? We know the answer is a resounding yes.
Psalm 121, is among the most beautiful and poignant prayers
in the entire psalter. It is also one of the most difficult to apprehend and interpret.
About twenty years ago Jesuit Father Paul Harmon was addressing a group of Jesuit scholastics about Psalm 121. He suggested that one interpretation of the first verse is that when the psalmist looked up to the mountains he saw that he was surrounded by sacrificial fires being offered to the pagan gods. That realization compelled him to ask “Whence shall help come to me?”
The psalmist had been abandoned by his people who chose not to follow the God of the covenant, the one and only true God. but the gods du jour, because it was politically correct or socially expedient to worship them. Things haven't changed much over the millennia.
And then, from the depths of his despair, the psalmist recalled, “My help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.”
Upon realizing that he had been abandoned by his people, the psalmist had to look interiorly, he had to pray, to realize that help did not come from the heathen gods and goddesses of fire or anything else. Help did not come from power, money, or social status. It did not come from any of the “ists” and “isms” that are today’s false gods and pagan religions. Help only came from the Lord, who created both heaven and earth.
"I lift up my eyes toward the mountains;
whence shall help come to me?
My help is from the Lord,
who made heaven and earth."
Think about that for the rest of the day.
_________________________________________
Up in Vermont until this morning. Despite the eternal pessimists who crowed 'there has been too much/too little/ too hot/too cold and the leaves aren't going to be good, they were spectacular. They were mostly past peak beyond 2500 feet elevation but spectacular from there and down. Enjoy.
No comments:
Post a Comment