Today’s readings: Genesis 18, 20-32; Colossians 2, 12-24; Luke 11, 1-13.
Today’s first reading sounds quasi-comical and gives a picture of God very distant from the theological or juridical concept we perpetuate. God resolves to destroy a city, but Abraham confronts Him and presses him for the best deal possible. In the second reading St Paul gives a different perception of God “He has forgiven us all our sins. He has overriden the law, and cancelled every record of the debt that we had to pay.”
This sounds reassuring, in contrast with our constant insistence on bills that need to be settled, even after our death. Probably we are afraid of promoting the image of a generous and forgiving God because people would then abuse of it.
Yet the image of God the Scriptures give should make us ask questions not only about His identity but also about ours. For many, talking about God may sound imaginary, let alone to stand still and pray. Pray to whom? For what? Why?
On the other hand, in the words of Ravi Zacharias in his book Grand Weaver. How God Shapes us Through the Events of Our Lives, there are those who are “incurably religious”. They long to worship and will even create their own objects of worship. Are we duped and made to believe all that we claim to believe?
Islam holds that the only way to pray is to turn in the direction of Mecca. In the Christian religion, for centuries there were such things that were held on to as absolutes. That is why religion lends itself so easily to fear and superstition.
Jesus challenged all this and put spirituality at the forefront. It is spirituality that matters, and that is more heart stuff than rules and doctrine. Jesus many a time affirmed that he is greater than religion and he often took to task traditionalism, legalism, and superstition. True spirituality concerns the way we effectively relate to our God.
“Prayer,” writes Iris Murdoch, “is properly not petition, but simply an attention to God which is a form of love.” In our faith-talk, it is common for us to speak of a restless heart exploring the pain of loneliness so pervasive in our lives. But St Luke’s gospel speaks more of God’s own restless heart, of God’s drama in search of humanity at large.
Genesis speaks of a God who softens down when it comes to adjusting to concrete situations, almost to the extent of compromise. In a weird sense it reminds me of the Code of Canon Law, which after establishing the legal framework of Church’s organisational structure and practice, enunciates the ultimate criterion: “to keep in mind the salvation of souls, which in the Church must always be the supreme law”.
In Scripture, man is always the supreme law and this gives a sharp turn to the way religion was always meant to be. It shows all along that God, while remaining the holy and tremendous mystery, is always and in various ways ‘God with us’.
Robert Wicks, in his book Crossing the Desert, speaks of the inner freedom that we need to face life, and writes: “In this complex world with so many demands and insecurities, only those who have a sense of simplicity, single-heartedness, and knowledge of who they are will have a spontaneous, transparent heart which will allow them to flow with life rather than drift with it.”
It is most probably this sense of a transparent heart that is missing in our communities and in our faith-formation proposals. We’ve taught people how to say prayers but not how to pray. In our churches, we lack sacred spaces and the right atmosphere that helps customise the heart to prayer.
The orthodox tradition of prayer often talks about prayer as a journey from the mind to the heart. The mind has its role, but the inner process of digestion takes place in the heart, which is our living centre. But it is not at all easy to find a way to our hearts.
Our liturgies do not enhance this journey because they are ceremonial but hardly prayerful. So it remains a thing of the mind. And we never reach out to the heart.