Lord Teach Us How to Pray

   

As with most new fathers to be I had no idea what to expect as to my feelings toward the new baby. Naturally, all the attention was understandably focused on the new mother to be. No one had any words of wisdom for me or shared insight as to what I would likely experience. I like most “fathers-in-waiting” just sat on the sidelines and silently wondered what it would be like. So, when my son was born, I was overwhelmed by new feelings and sensations and the strength of my love for this stranger, almost from the very beginning of his life.

Not too long after the birth of my second child approached. I was uneasy about my feelings and filled with false guilt as I secretly wondered how I could possibly love her (it was to be a girl), as much as I loved my son. There’s no way, I thought, I could duplicate those “feelings?” However, after my daughter was born, I realized that my love for her was just as great…I learned that I did not have to divide my love in order to share it, or consciously love one more or less than the other. It was already there, “pre-packaged” for me in both of my children. Today, I reflect on those years of parenting, and marvel at how much greater is the love of God for each one of us.

In our Gospel (Luke11:1-13), Jesus teaches his disciples how to pray. Over the years I’m sure his lesson created considerable controversy and raised much doubt about all prayers being answered: So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. Is this really true?

Our children provide a unique model as we try to comprehend how much God loves us. Over the years, my children would ask for many things. All requests were heard and I know all their requests were answered, if not always to their satisfaction. In some cases they received what they asked for; in many they did not. Often, however, my alternate suggestion, which they may have resisted at first, turned out to be an even better “gift” than what they had originally requested. I don’t remember ever not listening to their requests, despite how outlandish some may have been or I thought they were. I don’t remember not answering them one way or another. Even when they were denied for whatever reason, I listened, and our mutual love for each other never suffered albeit with some difficult encounters.

Luke’s Gospel us that this is the way it is with God: If you then...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?

Who is My Neighbor

The Parable of The Good Samaritan is one of the most well known gospel stories in the Bible. The story (Luke 10:25-37) tells of a man who is savagely beaten and robbed while going from Jerusalem to Jericho and given up for dead in a ditch. A priest and a Levite pass by without helping him. But a Samaritan stops and cares for him, taking him to an inn where the Samaritan pays for his care and then some. The parable's overarching theme teaches that enemies can have compassion for enemies; compassion has no boundaries, and that judging people on the basis of our perception of differences is contrary to the Jesus' message.

So who were the Samaritans? We are told that while they were Israelites and descendants of Abraham they broke with traditional "tribal" lineage and were considered outcasts and enemies of the Judeans. In addition, they chose to worship at a central temple on Mt. Gerizim, rejecting the temple in Jerusalem as the cornerstone of the faith. So, in this parable in which Jesus' audience would have expected a Jew to be the hero of the story, they were likely shocked to hear that it was the Samaritan instead. Only by understanding this pivotal paradox does the powerful message of this parable serve as a lesson for the audience then and for us today. 

Scripture scholar James Martin defines a parable as a “metaphor or a simile drawn from nature or common life arresting the hearer by its vividness or strangeness and leaving the mind in sufficient doubt about its precise application in order to tease it into active thought.” He goes on to say that “parables are poetic explanations of spiritual concepts impossible to fully comprehend literally. For example the reign of God is far too rich to be encompassed by any one definition, no matter how theologically accurate. In the Parable of the Good Samaritan, a man from a hated ethnic group was ultimately revealed to Jewish listeners as the good guy who cares for the stranger. As with this parable, many run counter to the expectations of the audience and therefore are subversive to conventional wisdom.” (Martin, p200).

The lesson in this parable emanates from an answer the lawyer's question posed to Jesus: “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?"  By referring to the Law, Jesus refers the man to an authority they both would accept as truth, the Old Testament. In essence, He is asking the lawyer, what does Scripture say about this and how does he interpret it? 

The lawyer answers correctly, "...love thy neighbor as thyself," and Jesus acknowledges that he has given an orthodox answer but he doesn’t stop there. As an educated man the lawyer realized that he could not possibly keep this law, nor would he have necessarily wanted to. There would always be people in his life that he could not love. Thus, in an effort to limit the law’s parameters, he asks the question “who is my neighbor?” The word “neighbor” in the Greek means “someone who is near,” and in the Hebrew it means “someone that you have an association with.” This allows for a limited interpretation of neighbor as fellow Jew and would have excluded Samaritans, Romans, and other foreigners. Jesus uses the parable of the Good Samaritan to correct the lawyer’s limited definition of “neighbor” and corresponding duty to his neighbor. (Martin p200)

This Gospel reminds us that we are to set aside our prejudice and show love and compassion for our “neighbor.” And our neighbor is anyone we encounter as we are all creatures of the Creator and we are to love all of mankind as Jesus taught.