November 14, 2009
Saturday of the Thirty-second Week in Ordinary Time
For when peaceful stillness compassed everything and the night in its swift course was half spent, Your all-powerful word from heaven's royal throne bounded, a fierce warrior, into the doomed land, bearing the sharp sword of your inexorable decree. And as he alighted, he filled every place with death; he still reached to heaven, while he stood upon the earth. Wisdom 18:14-16
The Lord said, "Pay attention to what the dishonest judge says. Will not God then secure the rights of his chosen ones who call out to him day and night? Will he be slow to answer them? I tell you, he will see to it that justice is done for them speedily. But when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?" Luke 18:6-8
Piety
"And I tell you, ask and you will receive; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. What father among you would hand his son a snake when he asks for a fish? Or hand him a scorpion when he asks for an egg? 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?" Luke 11:9-13
Study
Earlier in the book, Luke reported Jesus’ recitation of what has come to be known as The Lord’s Prayer as the disciples sought from Jesus instruction on how to pray. After that lesson, Jesus reminded them how much better God will respond to our prayers than a parent responds to a child.
Today, the lessons on prayer continue. Jesus not only teaches us to pray but to pray without ceasing and without becoming weary. Again, the parallel between the ways humans will respond to each other’s requests is made. This time, rather than a parent, Jesus uses the story of the dishonest judge to make his point rhetorically. Will not God then secure the rights of his chosen ones who call out to him day and night? Will he be slow to answer them?
The answer is left unsaid in Luke 18. Of course God will answer his chosen ones more readily than a dishonest judge will respond to this persistent widow. Not only will God respond to us, but to make sure he is in touch with us, God sent his son to live among us.
As we get ready for the Advent season, the images portrayed in Wisdom bring together a vision of the entrance Jesus makes into the world and the exit he makes. First, it describes the first Christmas night when the Son of God was born. God sent his son into a doomed land with the sword of redemption for our salvation just as he freed the Jews from the grip of Pharaoh’s imprisonment.
When peaceful stillness compassed everything
and the night in its swift course was half spent,
Your all-powerful word, from heaven’s royal throne
bounded, a fierce warrior, into the doomed land,
bearing the sharp sword of your inexorable decree.
Then, as Jesus dwelt among us, “he still reached to heaven, while he stood upon the earth.” Jesus helped the Father fulfill our prayers in the preaching and signs he performed while with us. From this phrase in Wisdom, can you image Jesus, a baby in a stable reaching up toward heaven and his human parents from the manger that become his crib? Or does this word-picture help you imagine Jesus on a Palestinian hillside preaching about the Beatitudes with his arms outstretched to the crowd? Or maybe you see Jesus with his arms outstretched blessing the loaves and fishes in order to feed the five thousand people following him – eager to be engaged yet to far from home to get there in time to eat. Or maybe Jesus has his arms outstretched as he prays to the Father to raise his beloved friend Lazarus from the sleep of death. Or maybe you see his arms stretched out and reaching to heaven while being nailed to the cross, fulfilling every last promise of our salvation. Or maybe you see those arms outstretched to heaven as the risen body of the Lord ascends to heaven while the disciples look on in awe at what they have witnessed.
“He still reached to heaven, while he stood upon the earth.” Even Jesus, especially Jesus, is our model, our ideal. Even though he is the Trinity, he never stopped reaching to heaven with his prayers praising the Father, petitioning the Father, thanking the Father, and adoring the Father for always responding to his needs.
Action
How can we better reach to heaven for what we seek? How can we not? As we close out this liturgical year, let us use the readings from Wisdom to help us reenergize our prayer life in preparation for our coming Advent season.
