Twenty-Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time 'C'

Saturday October 16, 2010

Thirty-three miners, a thousand helping hands and One God

Picture Moses standing on the top of the hill with outstretched arms, hands aloft facing the Amalek tribe with Aron supporting one arm and Hur supporting the other when Moses became fatigued. Was he attempting to honor or appease a warrior God who conditioned his intervention on Moses’ stamina? It is more than an odd or eccentric image of God and I’m not certain this is what God intended then or now. Nevertheless, even in our own time some folks seem to cast God in this warrior-like image.

Because of its translation, the humor in Luke’s telling of the parable about the unjust judge is subtle. The judge would not have been an observant Jew but more likely a gentile appointed by Roman authorities. The fact that he did not fear God is an allusion to the text from the book of Wisdom: “Fear [i.e., reverence] of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” The judge was corrupt because, despite the protection of law for widows, her welfare was less important to him than his own convenience. His fear of a black eye was the reason he decided to respond to her relentless appeal and persistent pleas. In fact God is not like the unjust judge any more then he is like the God depicted in the reading from the book of Exodus.

These observations notwithstanding, the readings are indeed about the need to persevere in prayer. However, despite the impression to the contrary, persistence does not demand that we perform physical or spiritual gymnastics to please or appease God. Nevertheless, there are some who insist on the performance of spiritual gymnastics in order to gain the attention of God. Excessive emphasis on certain devotional practices can lead to superstition. A careful distinction must be drawn for example between a novena of prayer recited at regular intervals and a chain prayer formula that guarantees success when recited in accordance with precise prescriptions and sanctions. Church leaders, preachers, and spiritual directors need to be vigilant in this regard so as not to impose conditions on certain prayers as if conditions and sanctions attached to them will somehow change the mind and heart of God. Though motivated by deep faith and the fervent hope of a sure response from God directly or through the intercession of a particular saint, such mandates convey the impression that if we pray long and hard enough, somehow God will relent and give in as a parent gives in to a child or as the unjust judge gave in to the cries of the widow.

The simple definition in the old Baltimore Catechism has enduring value: “Prayer is the lifting of our minds and hearts to God.” It is nothing more or less than tuning into God’s mind and heart not to capture and convert God to our will but to allow us to be captured by God’s will and purpose. In other words, persistent prayer, i.e., the consistent effort to converse with God with the aid of whatever prayer form works for us will ultimately bear fruit in our own conversion of mind and heart. Sooner or later, if our prayer is sincere, we will come to think and act like God. I call this ‘getting into the rhythm of God. Jesus is the paradigm and model because his entire life was a prayer. The Scriptures tell us “he was obedient unto death.” This means that he listened faithfully to God and in the process was empowered to live in complete conformity to the mind and heart of God.

And who are better witnesses of endurance and perseverance than the thirty-three miners, one hundred helping hands the millions across the globe who never gave up? We are only in the first chapter of the many stories that have yet to be told of their dark night of despair in the bowels of the earth. In the words of one of them, Satan battled for their lives but God won hands down.

During this time in which we continue to struggle with the rhetoric of politicians and the challenge of finding new paths out of the chaos of war, our prayer is that we not be captured by the evil that is at the root of terrorism but to be captivated by the good that can come out of the efforts of those who are willing to sacrifice for a brother and sister in need. Our prayers will be heard and hearts will be softened and our awareness that we are part of a global village will increase and our thirst for justice will be directed not toward the violent who deny justice but toward those who have been deprived of a place at the table of humanity.

In the words of the famous Jewish biblical scholar, Rabbi Heschel, “Ultimately, there are no proofs for the existence of God, only witnesses.” If we are to be so effective witnesses, we must put on the person of Christ—to be in our time and place what he was in his time and place.

The God who became incarnate in Jesus Christ became incarnate once again in thirty-three miners, a thousand helping hands and the millions across the world who never gave up.

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