Readings for the 17th Sunday in Ordinary Time:
Genesis 18:20-32 | Colossians 2:12-14 | Luke 11:1-13

Jesus teaches us to pray.

After a tragedy like a natural disaster or, horridly, a school shooting, many people would comment, “thoughts and prayers.” Many more would feel enraged by this sentiment as it seemed to dodge hard questions about why mass shootings happen or whether any aid for victims of natural disasters would be coming. So those enraged by the “thoughts and prayers” comment might reply prayer does nothing or it is useless. If people only say a prayer and then go on with their lives, then I think their furor is justified. And, perhaps, those offering their “thoughts and prayers” are trivializing prayer. Still, if we understand prayer as Jesus does, we might say prayer is essential to healing our country.

Today’s Gospel reading offers some of Jesus’ teachings on prayer. The disciples saw Jesus praying before they asked him how to pray. They see Jesus praying frequently. If we want to follow Jesus, we have to pray. Prayer means connecting to God. To pray is to deepen our conscious relationship with God. Jesus did nothing on his own, but only in his relationship to God the Father. Prayer is about centering our hearts and minds on God. This implies that nothing else is at the center of our lives. Idols are whatever preoccupies us so much that our lives revolve around them. They need to be abandoned by placing God back at the center.

In response to his disciples’ desire to hear Jesus’ teaching on prayer, Jesus gives them the Our Father, which is slightly different from the prayer we recite at Mass. Still, the essentials are there. The focus is on God: hallowing or keeping sacred God’s name and praying for God’s kingdom. Of course, forgiveness and reliance on God are there, too. It helps to see the Our Father as a prayer for transformation. Prayer connects us to God, and it changes us. With God at the center of life we can forgive, rely on God in times of anxiety, and ultimately heal.

Jesus then tells a parable about a friend knocking on a door late at night to get some bread. Jesus says, “I tell you, if he does not get up to give the visitor the loaves because of their friendship, he will get up to give him whatever he needs because of his persistence.” Jesus is telling us that no matter what, just keep praying. Jesus teaches us to persevere in prayer, especially when our feelings dry up and it seems like God is a million miles away. The Christian mystics tell us to rejoice when this happens because we are entering into God as God, and not God as we think God is. When we pray we forget we are meeting God, the Holy Mystery who is beyond all experience though still available in our experience.

Finally, Jesus offers a well-known verse of scripture: “Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find…” We might think all we need to do is ask God for those things we think we need to be happy. However, a mystic named Meister Eckhart offers a different perspective. He says God only wants to give the gift of the divine self. Therefore, when we ask, we ask for God’s life. When we seek, we seek God’s presence. When we knock, we knock on the door of God’s Holy Mystery. Then, we receive, find, and open to God as God is in Godself. We receive the gift of oneness with God. Eckhart encourages us to pray for nothing and for nobody, that is, not to ask God for things but simply to be in God. Eckhart is justified in this view, for at the end of today’s reading, Jesus asks, “If you then, who are wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?"

When we seek God alone in prayer, our consciousness is transformed.  With God at the center of our prayer, God occupies the center of consciousness.  Since God is love, through prayer love moves to the center, and so God transforms our lives into divine love.  Only God’s love will heal our racial divisions, halt the violence within that becomes violence on our streets, and reconcile enemies.  We need prayer at this time in our country because it connects us to God and transforms our consciousness.