Text of my homily for July 27

 

Here's the text of my homily for July 27.  Here's the gospel text I preached on.  An audio of my homily is available on the sidebar. 

Do you remember what you prayed in the Psalm today after the first reading?

Hear the words we prayed,

“Lord, on the day I cried out for help, you answered me.”

 

Wouldn't it be great if it worked that way all the time, on the day I call for help, you answer me. But it doesn't, does it?

 

I hope we all have had the experience of praying for something or for someone and receding just what we prayed for. And I know we've all had the experience of praying for someone or something and NOT receiving what we asked for - or worse: we prayed and we received something we didn't expect at all, something we didn't want at all.

 

Haven't we all at one time or another, bargained back and forth with God as Abraham did with God in the first reading? We have all kinds of ways of setting up little bargains with God, little contracts. “Well, Lord, if I do this, if I give up that, if I make sure I'm always attentive to this, will you do this for me?”  We like to sweet-talk God. We’d like to try to do it – but It doesn't work. God is beyond that. But we try it nonetheless.

 

Or have we been like the man in the gospel knocking on his friend door at midnight looking for food? Have we gone knock, knock, knocking on heaven's door, badgering God to give us what we want, what we need, what we desperately desire? And what have we received?

 

How about today? What did you come to church praying for today?  Let's close our eyes for a minute. Just ask a couple of questions.

What am I praying for today?

Who am I praying for today? For what?

For whom have I been knocking on God's door day and night, hoping and praying that the Lord will open that door and give me what I'm asking for, help me find what I'm seeking.

How long have I been knocking on that door, praying for the same things, for the same people, seeking and asking for the same gifts.

Maybe I've been praying for weeks or months or years, or even the better part of my life, seeking the same things, interceding on behalf of the same people, asking for the same help.

What am I praying for today?

Who am I praying for today?

(You can open your eyes.)

 

You know, sometimes people speak to a priest as if the priest is God H himself. I can't tell you how many times people have said to me, "Hey, Father, can't you do something about the weather?" Well, when that happens, I always have the same response to say, "Look, I'm not God, I’m just the local sales rep." Well, today is gospel makes it very difficult to be the local sales rep. Jesus seems to promise us everything here, if we'll only be persistent, God will come through for us. And some of us might well wonder if there's any “truth in the advertising” here. Well, the Public Relations Department is clever, and they have worded the advertising copy very carefully.

YES, if I knock on the door, it will be opened. But I'm not told what I'm gonna find on the other side.

YES, if I seek, I will definitely find. But I might find something I didn't want. didn't expect.

And YES, if I ask, I will receive, but I need to remember that I'm asking a God who gives and takes in the most mysterious and confounding ways.

 

What I find behind the door, God opens, what I discover when my seeking is done, what I receive, when my prayer is finally answered, might sometimes seem to be a snake, when I was looking for a fish, or a scorpion, when I was hoping for an egg. It's not so much that we need to read the fine print, to understand the sweeping promises that Jesus makes here. Rather, what we need is to have a certain amount of spiritual maturity in how we understand prayer - and the God to whom we pray.

 

In all our seeking and asking and not, knock, knocking, on heaven's door, even when it seems that God's not answering we can be sure of a few things. We can always be sure that our prayer brings us always closer to God. Because it's in and through our deepest needs and desires and hurts and burdens and disappointments that Jesus comes to meet us. He never abandons us. The first purpose of prayer is not to get things from God. The first purpose of every prayer is to grow closer to God. And we can be sure that whatever we find when the door we've been knocking on finally opens, whatever we find, Jesus will be there to help us meet whatever we encounter.

 

We can be sure that whatever we receive in response to our asking, Jesus will be there to help us accept it - and live with it, and through it, whatever it might be.   And we can be sure that whatever we discover at the end of all our seeking, Jesus will be there to help us face it.

 

And more than that, at the end of all our knocking, it is Jesus who will open the door. And at the end of all our asking, it is Jesus himself, who will be our final answer. And at the end of all our seeking, it is Jesus, whom we will find. Because whatever and how many are the doors we knock on, no matter how difficult and crucial are the things we ask for, regardless of whatever it is we might spend our lives seeking:  our hearts will be restless until they rest in Jesus.

 

The message of today's scriptures, what Jesus promises us in this gospel, is not that we'll always get what we want and need and pray for --- but the God will never abandon us and will never fail to give us his Spirit. That was the very last line in the gospel. Jesus promises all these things and he said, "And the Father will never fail to give you the Spirit." God will never abandon us, never fail to give us His Spirit, to help us to meet and accept whatever's behind the door we knock on, whatever we receive after all our asking, whatever we find at the end of all our seeking.

 

On the night before he died, Jesus prayed. He prayed for one thing: to be spared the suffering ahead of him. He knocked on his father's door, seeking and asking for relief and deliverance. And the door Jesus knocked on, opened. It opened to his arrest, his indictment, his suffering, his death, and his rising from the dead. His prayer was heard and answered. The door was opened, and what he found was eternal life, but not apart from the cross.

 

In the power of the Spirit and in the mysterious and confounding ways of God, Jesus' prayer was answered, and he rose to new life, and that same life will be given to all of us who ask for it, who seek it, who knock on heaven's door, praying for it.

 

To us, he’ll open a door to a life that has no suffering, that is peace forever, that is the answer to each and all of our prayers.

 

In fact, a taste of nothing less than that is ours even this afternoon at this altar, at the Lord's table in the bread and the cup of the Eucharist. Here, at this altar where we come knocking on heaven's door, here we will find what we ultimately seek: the gift, the life, the presence of Jesus, who is the answer to our every prayer.

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