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We begin with Abraham’s dogged pleas for the twin cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Ultimately, his effort came to no avail but the point is, God did hear and He granted the repeated requests of Abraham to stay the destruction of the cities. Sadly, in the end, only Abraham’s nephew, Lot and his family were spared. The story of Abraham’s persistence in begging God’s mercy to save the cities is helpful for us in terms of our praying.
Praying has to be persistent. This is important for a “hopeless” generation. Why “hopeless”? We have a mechanical sense of praying that is best analogised by the image of a vending machine. Our praying relationship with God is organised along a mechanical formula. Just like a vending machine, as long as coins or notes are inserted into the slot, the desired product will be dispensed. It is basically “programmed” in the sense that there is no relationship but instead, what we have with God is characterised by commerce. “I pray, so you better answer”.
Persistence is not “commercialised” by which we expect a return for the investment of our prayers. The tenacity of our prayer comes from trust that God will answer our prayers in His own time. Beyond requesting, at the heart of our praying is our relationship with God. The Lord’s Prayer established that God’s will is the foundation of our relationship and as such our praying should take its inspiration from “Thy Will be done”.
Here the will of God is not and should not be conceived of as coming from a demanding God—a deity hell-bent on frustrating our human wants and needs. The Prayer taught by Jesus is premised on a loving relationship with the Father. The word “Abba” in Aramaic must have made such an impression on the early hearers that they retained its usage. It captures the entirety of God’s love for us which Jesus invites us to, that is, to call upon “Abba” because He is loving.
The context of our prayers is because we have a Father who cares for us. However, the temptation is to reduce care and concern “existentially” to a God dispensing what we ask of from Him, forgetting that the basis for our request is so that God’s will can be done on earth as it is in heaven. In stating that God’s will is to be done, there is no denigration of the prayer of asking. We witness that in Abraham. He asked and asked and almost badgered the Lord. The point is to never stop asking. However, the purpose of persistent praying is not to bend God’s will to ours. As Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane has shown us, “Father, Thy Will and not mine be done”.
These are powerful words and they challenge the space of our prayer occupied by “I, me and myself”. Not only is the “self” inflated and enlarged, but it is also surrounded by social media noise which makes discerning God’s will for us next to impossible. Each time we pray the Lord’s Prayer, without realising it, we are signing a blank cheque for God to cash. Again, it is not as clinical as it sounds, as if God were waiting just to impose Himself on us. Instead the Lord’s Prayer invites us to deepen the relationship with God to the point that what we ask for mirrors Jesus’ prayer, to conform to what the Father desires of us and for us. The purpose of prayer is the union of hearts between God and us.
To arrive at that place where our hearts can speak to God and at the same time, hear Him, we need solitude. Without solitude, there is no contemplation. Seclusion, silence and solitude provide space to be “alone” with the “Alone”. We enter the space of beholding our God and acknowledging our dependence on Him alone. The act of praying recognises that God is the source of our “being” and not just the source of our “well-being”. Without prayer, without our connexion to Him, the source of supernatural life in us will dry up. Last week, the example of Martha and Mary taught us one thing and it is the need for balance. We need to eat but we also need to commune with God. The exclusion of one from the other can only lead to the impoverishment of the soul.
Many of us are trapped in a kind of prayer which has basically stagnated at the level of asking from God. It is true that Jesus did say in the Gospel that we should seek, ask and knock but our prayers seemed to have remained there. We have come to expect that God must answer our prayers. The dilemma arises when hope is tied to this expectation. Whatever we hope for, the reply must correspond to what we expect and when the answer does not meet our expectations, we lose hope. Health, end to conflicts, job security etc are some major concerns we have.
Perhaps the experience of a child asking from his parents can teach us that not everything we ask for will be good for us even if we think that it is good for us. If God does not always hear our prayers, that means that sometimes we are being prepared for something else. This requires trust in Him and the virtue of faith is sorely short in supply.
To establish the Kingdom in the Lord’s Prayer, we must wean ourselves from this kind of “I, me and myself” asking. If our prayers remain at the level of asking, then praying must be “successful”. Otherwise, overwhelmed by failure, we will languish hopelessly. The Novena of Grace to St Francis Xavier has a formulation which puts into perspective how we should pray: “If what I ask is not for the glory of God and the good of my soul, then give me what is conducive to both”. This prayer gives God space to be God and it opens up space for us to hear Him speak to us. In God, failure is not always failure. Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane is our main model. In Him, the Cross was not a sign of failure in prayer but a symbol of victory. In our prayers, God converts us. He changes us and it is not we who convert Him. The humility of true prayer is “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven”.
In the Gospel, which repeats the theme of hospitality, we have a Martha, reminiscence of Abraham, who became overwhelmed with the physical needs of caring for their esteemed Guest. And in the tension between Martha who was busy and Mary who had chosen the better part, we catch a glimpse of the true essence of hospitality.
The drama between Martha and Mary is regularly depicted as a tension between “activism” and being “contemplation”. However, such a polar distinction does not do justice to the nature of hospitality. It is built upon the notion of “embrace”. It is not a matter of embracing either total involvement or passive withdrawal. Instead, hospitality embraces the tension that exists between activism and contemplation.
In the case of Martha, she was without a doubt busy with trying to make Jesus feel at home. But Mary also represented hospitality because in her, the Word was welcome into her heart. Hence, the tension between activism and contemplation is held in such a way that we can be active without neglecting the need for retreat or recollection.
What the experience Martha has shown us is that it is easier to be distracted by utilitarian pursuit because the idea of not accomplishing anything is hard to stomach. In other words, we may be scared of the silence of solitude, guilty that our inaction amounts to failure of achievement. Like Adam and Eve hiding behind fig leaves to conceal their nothingness, we tend to pile on activities so that we can have “something” to present to God. It is almost like we are embarrassed by our nothingness and we need to prop ourselves up in order to be on par with God. There is almost a shame associated with the humility of nothingness. But emptiness opens up the possibility of fruitful reception.
In the case of Abraham, the strangers brought news of Sarah’s pregnancy and subsequently, the birth of Isaac. Real hospitality is more than just getting ready to welcome a visitor. It is also a time to receive them as they enter into one’s home and heart. Mary sitting at the feet of Jesus welcome the gift of Christ’s presence into her heart. An open heart would perhaps be the greatest welcome we can give to the Lord.
The Gospel invites us to take a step back. Ours is definitely a world of Martha. Without denying the importance of engagement, sometimes God’s gift comes to us in the solitude of our withdrawal. The quiet of the night in which we tune in to the presence of God can be the most fruitful and life-giving. Therefore, in our very frenetic world, we must not forget this space for God, the space for the supernatural, the space that allows the self to encounter and be encountered by God.
It is a timely kind of a Gospel for it reminds us not to neglect this priority. If we are engaged in material progress, we must be mindful of the spiritual needs of the person. Without feeding the soul, material gain can easily dehumanise a person. The soul is created for freedom and that makes the material base of reality a means to an end which is the freedom that God has intended for us. Material well-being is never an end in itself.
This forgetfulness of our spiritual self can be aggressive. We are fed a philosophy that material well-being is a substitute for the spiritual need of the human person. This is why we need religion. The etymology of the word itself is illuminating. Primarily, the role of religion is to align us with God. It is never restricted by rituals alone. Religion reclaims that space for God. In Martha and Mary we do not have two disparate models of discipleship. They should never be pitted one against the other because they highlight the two sides of the one coin of discipleship. Both Martha and Mary symbolise the pull between action and contemplation.
In this world where we usually opt for activity, it is very easy to fall in love with the work of God, that is, to be a Martha. The shaping of God’s vision for the world is tempting because we will always want to jump quickly into engagement with the world. The Martha in us can make us forget that Mary’s choice is essential to our sanity and sanctity. The God of our work is the goal of every activity we have and most of all, He is the end of our contemplation. When we forget that, we will settle comfortably for the work of our God which can fulfil us but ultimately will never be able to satisfy us fully. Only God Himself is our longing, fulfilment and completion.
Last Sunday’s Gospel showed a Jesus resolutely heading for Jerusalem. Along the way, He encountered would-be followers. Even though there was an urgency regarding the abundant harvest waiting for labourers, still He was uncompromising with the requirements of discipleship. Never mind demand outstripping supply, no exception was given to those unable to shoulder the obligations of discipleship. Today He expands His reach by appointing and sending out 72 others, presumably solid candidates, in pairs and ahead of Him to the places He Himself is to visit.
The Gospel passage records the 72 high-spirited disciples rejoicing as they returned. They were outstanding when it came to subjugating demons. However, their success stories are like icing on the cake, whereas the instructions given by Jesus highlight the demanding conditions to which they were sent. These counsels remain relevant to those who proclaim the Gospel.
Firstly, Jesus sent them out like sheep amongst wolves. This attitude invites a vulnerability amongst those who volunteer to serve, most especially those who have given themselves to full-time ministry. This mindset is coupled with the second instruction given. Have no security for the simple reason that disciples should trust that God’s providence will supply. Our achievement-obsessed universe does not allow for “vulnerability” seeing it not as a compelling sign of faith in Providence but a symptom of low self-esteem or a lack in self-confidence. We are constantly motivated to be go-getters. Instead of waiting for events to overtake us we must control our destiny. Otherwise, why send little toddlers to pre-schools? I am sure if there were such a thing as a pre-natal school, some progressive parents would be signing up their babies in the womb.
Mastery, domination and control are skill sets even more urgent to have if the default mode of engagement is “achievement”. If our goal is to meet some performance indices, then the mission landscape will always feel urgent. In a way, it should be, because, as Jesus stated, the harvest is rich and waiting. However our problem is a spiritual blindness that does not appreciate fully the challenges we face today.
At every turn of history, the Church has had to face challenges. It is like every age has its own beast to slay. Maybe, we should rejoice even more than the 72 others did. They were ecstatic as they defeated the demons whereas we do not even have to lift a finger, let alone raise a hand to drive out a demon.
During the time of Jesus, diseases were indications that forces inimical or hostile to God were at work in the lives of those afflicted. Healing a sick person was a definitive expression of Jesus’ authority over evil. It would appear that we are better than Jesus because we have driven these hostile forces into the margins occupied by the occult, superstition and magic. As long as an observed phenomenon cannot be repeated and tested in the laboratory, it should be relegated to the private realm and therefore should have no place in the market square of reason.
This implies that religion is immediately suspect. We cannot scientifically prove God’s existence. Moreover, religion deals with the supernatural and anything out of the ordinary spectrum of nature which cannot be proven must be banished. Therefore, Satan does not exists except in the “fantastical”. In a way, science may have proven itself to be more “powerful” than God.
However, what science cannot fully account for is our fascination with “beauty”. Beauty is alluring and attractive whereas evil is not. Our problem begins when Satan appears as the angel of light. We are quickly enamoured because we can no longer differentiate between what is good and evil appearing as good. We readily embrace evil only because we think it is beautiful and good.
In this confusion, we labour naively failing to notice how easily evil infuses itself into our worldview. We may be staring at Satan in the face and not know it because blinded by our lack of imagination, we have trivialised the reality of evil to the point that it does not exist. Or if it does exist, as mentioned, it is narrowly restricted to the non-appealing, that is, to the grotesque. Just watch all the horror movies we have. The satanic is reduced to the repulsive which is but the crudest expression of evil. When evil is ugly, the comparison with good is like the difference between black and white. We know day from night. But when evil appears “beautiful”, the discernment is harder. It is like judging or differentiating between white and off-white.
Indeed, like lambs sent amongst wolves, the beast of this age are the closed minds that are unable to identify the true face of evil hiding behind the seemingly beautiful. In this almost sinless world which does not account for evil, we have to settle, at best, with conspiracy theories, or at worst, with plain pure nutters. Anyone who dares to speak of the reality of evil is possibly mad.
The antithesis of a closed mind is not openness. For this openness might suggest that one should accept any and all positions put forth. If openness, in the shape of tolerance or acceptation, is not the opposite of a closed mind, what should it be? How do we slay the beast of closed minds?
Most importantly, openness has to be anchored. As the Disciples returned to the Lord, they returned to the harbour from which they sailed forth. We are not bobbing ships in an open ocean sailing without any sense of purpose. Our connexion is to Christ who is the Truth that anchors our mission endeavours. In fact, the noble values of equality, liberty and brotherhood link us back to who we are in relation to God because they are dependent on God’s design for us. When creating, God did not just mess around with plasticine. Instead from the earth, He fashioned us in His image and likeness.
Thus, our dignity does not come from nowhere. It is derived from God Himself. We may have made all the technological advances in the world and are not afraid of “demons” but they are real because these demonic forces are hard at work to make us forget this sacred origin of ours. Without this sacred link to God, we may not even realise that our souls are in danger.[1]
We should be mindful that the Devil works hard to thwart the establishment of God’s Kingdom. If Satan were not a part of this spiritual reality, what are you doing here? And, a lot of our rites makes no sense if there were no spiritual battles for our souls. Remember the Prayer to St Michael the Archangel. Satan is relentlessly undermining Christ’s mission to save souls. It is to the peril of our salvation that we ignore the spiritual reality.
The instructions that Jesus gave the 72 others keep us grounded because they direct our attention to who we are, Whom we should depend on and what we are fighting against. Ultimately, in the mission to establish God’s Kingdom and to save souls, these counsels keep us close to God as we make our pilgrimage to eternity.
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[1] This anchor on God gives us our stability because fluidity, meaning that truth is dependent on whichever the winds that blow at this time does not lead to a more fulfilled life. If anything, it leads to despair and hopelessness. The so-called progressives elites who are fighting against racism are a good example of shifting sand of fluid truth. We are cudgelled to accept the principles of BLM (black lives matter) and are supposed to embrace critical race theory and fight against “White Privilege”. Well and good. Now that Roe versus Wade has been overturned by the SCOTUS with the power to legislate being returned to the individual States, the knives of the progressives are aiming for black justice Clarence Thomas. So much for black lives matter. He does not fit into the progressives’ profile of what a black person should be like and that is a sin.
