Proper 12C Your image of God creates you – Richard Rohr
In Genesis 18:20-32, we see Abraham, father of the three
Abrahamic faiths, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, negotiating with God over
the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah. Their fate is often misunderstood and
misrepresented, for the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah a lack of hospitality. The
three angelic visitors who announced Abraham and Sarah would have a child are
now in Sodom along with Lot and his family. The towns men are not only inhospitable,
but make clear they want to submit them all to violence.
Abraham intercedes asking if God would still destroy the
cities and all their inhabitants if there were 50 righteous people among them.
God relents and says, no, if there are 50 righteous, I will not destroy the
cities. Then Abraham proceeds to whittle it down to 45, then 40 and all the way
down to 10 righteous people. Evidently, in the end there are fewer then 10
righteous and the cities are destroyed for they treat their neighbor. One take
away, however, is that we are free to persevere in negotiating with God, and
our God is one who listens and even shows a willingness to change God’s mind.
Luke chapter 11:1-13 continues the theme of hospitality, how
we welcome friends and strangers, that was central to chapter 10 in the parable
of A Generous Samaritan. The power of that story is that if a centuries-long
enemy of the Jews can treat an enemy as a neighbor, and love that neighbor as
one loves oneself, we all should be able to do the same. This, no doubt, is why
Jesus teaches us to pray for our enemies and those who persecute us because you
never know when, one day, they may rescue you from harm and even death.
Chapter 11 opens with Jesus praying in a certain place. That
is, lest we miss it, he models what he has been teaching. He has set his face
toward Jerusalem and is on the way to a showdown with the civil and religious
authorities there. Throughout all four gospels we are told he has enemies. Is
it too much to assume that on his way toward certain conflict and even
persecution that he would stop along the way and pray for his enemies?
When finished he is asked by those who follow him on the
way, Will you teach us how to pray? To leverage their request, they remind him
that John the Baptizer teaches his disciples how to pray. He says to them,
"When you pray, say:
Father, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
Give us each day our daily bread.
And forgive us our sins,
for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.
And do not bring us to the time of trial."
Liturgically, we pattern this prayer after the version in
Matthew which is slightly different. But both versions have been so
domesticated through years of liturgical performance that we no longer are
capable of recognizing just how challenging this prayer was when Jesus taught
it. Starting with addressing God as Jesus does, “Father.” This invites us into
a kind of intimacy with the Almighty and powerful God of the Exodus, God who
arranged to get our people out of exile, and the God who brings Jesus back from
being dead as the proverbial door nail, that Jesus, “the Son of God,” has had
since his birth.
Then, in order, we are to pray for our Father’s Kingdom to
replace the kingdoms of this world, whether Rome, the United States, Russia,
China, or whatever, whenever. Then for bread that is given daily, like the
manna in the wilderness. Not a refrigerator, a chest freezer, and a pantry full
of food, but daily bread – placing our survival in the hands of this Father
whose name we are to hallow on a day-to-day basis. Then we are to ask for
forgiveness, conditional on we ourselves first forgiving all who are in debt to
us – in any way. We are to just stop and think about this petition before
actually praying it. Have I forgiven all who are indebted to me before I ask
God my Father to forgive me my sins? Note the equivalence of sins with
indebtedness.
Finally, we pray to be spared “the time of trial.” If you
are following Jesus to Jerusalem; if you advocate for God’s kingdom to replace
any and all other kingdoms; if you are willing to abandon an economy based on
acquisition, consumption and greed; if you are ready to forgive all who are
indebted to you; you are most likely on your way to a time of great trial, for
you are officially swimming against the dominant currents of your society.
This is followed by a parable about hospitality in a story
about – yes – bread. You have been visited by a friend in the middle of the
night. Your responsibility is to feed him upon arrival, but alas, you have no
bread. You go to your neighbor, knock on his door and ask for three loaves of
bread. Your neighbor says, Go away. My door is locked. My kids are in bed. Come
back tomorrow. Yet, although he will not get up to help you, his friend – ie
love his neighbor as himself - yet for
his neighbor’s shamelessness in asking in the middle of the night, and the
shame he will incur from other neighbors if he does not help you, he gets up
and gives you three loaves of bread. A moral of the story is, persevere in your
prayers to your Father, and your Father will provide you with what you need – which
is not necessarily what you want!
We can negotiate with God on behalf of others. We are taught
to pray for the dismantling of the kingdoms of this world. Which, by the way,
does not mean installing a White, Chrisitan, Theocracy, but rather a world of
justice and peace for all people that respects the dignity of every human
being: male, female and LGBTQ; Jew, Christian, Muslim, Taoist, Buddhist,
atheist, agnostic; black, white, brown, yellow, immigrant, indigenous,
colonizer and colonized. All people. And we are to be generous as we respond to
the needs of our neighbor, which is what loving our neighbor really means. All
are neighbors to us and Jesus.
There is just one little detail, however, that continues to
peak my curiosity: how is it that the neighbor has three spare loaves of bread
in the middle of the night? Presumably, he has fed his family all day long. He
is to live on bread given daily. And yet, he has all this bread. And his
neighbor is entertaining a visitor in the middle of the night – a visitor –
just how much bread does one need to offer a midnight snack to one midnight
visitor? Think about it.
Finally, if your child asks for a fish or an egg, says Jesus,
you would never give your child a snake or a scorpion instead. In the end, we
are told: Ask, and you shall receive; Seek and ye shall find; Knock and the
door will be opened to you. What we are to receive, find, and lurking behind
Door Number 3, is something thousands of times better than all that you could
ever give your children: The Holy Spirit, which is a personal experience of
your Father God. An experience of your Father’s love for you. Here and now you
can enjoy this relationship with God that Jesus has had, and experience all the
characteristics of God’s kingdom. It is in light of this knowledge that we
should come before God in prayer.[i]
This prayer we call The Lord’s Prayer and the stories that follow are Jesus’s
image of God. Does it look like ours?
Amen.
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