Prayer for each person is their own unique experience. Prayer for most people is motivated by a need for something; be it a healing, a job, a car, or the arrival of a good friend during stormy weather. In our Gospel of Luke 11: 1-13 Jesus is asked by his disciples to teach them how to pray. Jesus' response in Luke's Gospel is a shortened version of what we often pray from Matthew's Gospel. Nevertheless the lesson here is not just prayer, praying for God's will and for what our needs are, but also for us to remain persistent so that we receive the Holy Spirit who "helps us in our prayers." (See Romans 8: 26-27).
In today's first Reading taken from Genesis 18:20-32 is the story of the conversation between God and Abraham before God destroyed the City of Sodom and Gomorrah for it's lack of hospitality. The dialogue between Abraham and God seems a bit strange. How can the God who is suppose to be all-loving and merciful be talking about destroying an entire city like that? And how is it that Abraham a mere man is able to persuade God to reconsider? If God is so great, why this conversation to change God's mind? Out in Scripture offers some thoughts.
Genesis 18:20-32 shows us a God who invites the forefather of our faith, Abraham, to insist on God's faithfulness. Still, for LGBT folk, Charles Allen remarks, this passage is a prelude to one of the most fearsome texts of terror. Whatever Sodom's sin may be (gang rape? neglecting the poor? — Genesis never explicitly tells us), one wonders why God would need to find even one "righteous" person in the city — to say nothing of 10 — to refrain from destroying it. But it may be part of the passage's function to get us to ask precisely that question.
As Marti Steussy observes, God actually seems to invite the questioning ("Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do?" Genesis 18:17). Abraham keeps posing the question, "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?" (verse 25). And each time God accepts Abraham's proposed modification to God's plans, thus implicitly granting that the previous plan fell short of true justice. Helene Russell wonders if God is encouraging us to think critically about the norms of justice and judgment and not merely accept decisions and norms on so-called divine authority.
Perhaps Helen Russell is correct. Rather than look at God and wonder if God's justice needs changing, what about humankind? The Catholic church appears to teach against women, marriage equality and the development of open theology as if that decision is "of God" in and of itself, just because Jesus said in Matthew's Gospel that "whatever you (Peter) bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven." (Matt 16: 19). Just because that is how Roman Catholicism interprets that, all of Christianity and the secular world should also believe the same? And therefore anything the Pope does or says "ex-cathedra" or not, is "God's commandment?" Even within the Anglican Communion over these past two months there is suddenly this "mighty voice" from the Archbishop of Canterbury that is suppose to cause the Episcopal Church a member o of the World Wide Anglican Communion, though a separate, autonomous body in another country, should stop listening to the Holy Spirit call us to ordain openly gay and lesbian Priests as Bishops?
Over these past months since the Supreme Court passed Citizens United, the corporations within America appear to have been given "god-like" power over elections. The slow action of the Government over the gulf oil spill, to help those who are in need because they have lost their tourism, revenue, wild life, wild life sanctuaries, clean ocean water, clean rain water, fishing jobs and the like. Such actions are definitely the work of our dependence on oil companies as if they are gods who have unlimited potential to deliver. Actually, what they have is unlimited profits to lobby and bully the Government.
America has gone from a country that welcomes all immigrants to the possibility of finding a new home free from religious and civil oppression, to a new nation where immigrants will find political oppression that just cannot help them find freedom fast enough. Arizona's immigration law is only the beginning of what I think will be a long political nightmare for thousands of non-American's all over.
It is not God's justice that needs to change, it is our justice that needs alteration. We cannot look to and blame God when we become a nation of power mad hogs and political hungry animals that do not rest until there is no middle or lower class left. Why is the American economy so bad? Because the middle and lower class no longer has the financial freedom to spend money to move the economy. When the middle and lower classes cannot move off of ground zero, the nation cannot grow economically. This is humankind's injustice, not God's injustice.
Returning to our Gospel, persistence in prayer is the key to helping us to gain the Holy Spirit so that we might become more attuned to the will of God and find some kind of personal and spiritual peace. The commentator in Gospel for Gays says it all very well.
Prayer is a risky venture. What if [God] doesn’t answer? Or what if [God] gives us something we don’t want, instead of the thing we crave?
Does God answer prayer?
That’s a legitimate question; some would say it’s the only question.
In my experience, the answer is “yes” – with abundance.
There’s an obvious “but” however, and Luke ends this passage with an important surprise when he has Jesus say, “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”
The Holy Spirit?
Where did that come from?
Right to the end, the examples are concrete – daily needs, particularly bread in a society of scarcity. Is this a trick, after all? We ask for bread, or a paying job, or acceptance of our gay identity by a defensive hierarchy, or a partner, or a cure for cancer – and we get the Holy Spirit in response?
It’s a surprise, but it’s not a trick.
Jesus is telling us that our relationship with God is so intimate that even as we praise [God], even as we rest in [God] silent and intimate presence, we must ask for the things we need, for the things our children, our friends, our neighbors, our beloved needs; for what the world needs – peace, for example.
And [God] answers, with the generosity of a loving parent.
And in order for us to understand [God] answers, which may be different from our imagining, [God] always gives us the Holy Spirit which guides us, informs us, transforms us, shows us the path, encourages us, accompanies us, enables us, liberates us.
[God] doesn’t sweep all the tough stuff aside. Rather, [God] shows us our path, and empowers us to do [God's] will, and [God's] with us – through prayer.
As always I like to tie this whole thing in to what lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, questioning and queer individuals, couples and families experience. God is still our gracious and loving Parent, even if we do not think God is listening when we pray. Many of us have experience discouragement as we work for equal justice. Many of us have been through broken and difficult relationships, or maybe even had the experience of contracting an STD from someone who told us that she or he loved us. If you are like me, sometimes you get so angry, you just have to let it all out and tell God that you are angry with God. That is never a bad thing. God is interesting in our feelings and emotions where God is concerned. However, even when we do not think God is interested or listening, that is actually when the Holy Spirit is trying very hard to come into the conversation to number one console us, and number two help us to heal and move forward. The Holy Spirit also comes to help us to know that our loving and merciful Parent God, really does have our best interests in God's heart. Jesus still had to face his agonizing death on the cross even though he asked God to take the cup away from him. So we too may have to face painful situations. When God is actually all on our side, even death as awful as it is, is not the final word. Life in God who was in Christ is the final and most powerful of all resolutions.
As LGBTQ people we need to approach the reign of God with faith, trust and hope that our God who is unconditional and all-inclusive love does not reject us because of our sexual orientation and/or gender identity/expression. Actually, God is as close to LGBTQ people as God is to anyone. Because when God answers our prayers, God gives us the Holy Spirit.
O God, the protector of all who trust in you, without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy: Increase and multiply upon us your mercy; that, with you as our ruler and guide, we may so pass through things temporal, that we lose not the things eternal; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (Proper 12, Book of Common Prayer, Page 231).
Gracious Father, we pray for your holy Catholic Church. Fill it with all truth, in all truth with all peace. Where it is corrupt, purify it; where it is in error, direct it; where in any thing it is amiss, reform it. Where it is right, strengthen it; where it is in want, provide for it; where it is divided, reunite it; for the sake of Jesus Christ your Son our Savior. Amen. (Prayer for the Church, Book of Common Prayer, Page 816).
Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen. (Prayer Attributed to St. Francis, Book of Common Prayer, Page 833).
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