{"id":1158,"date":"2013-07-28T12:02:52","date_gmt":"2013-07-28T16:02:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/?p=1158"},"modified":"2013-07-28T12:02:52","modified_gmt":"2013-07-28T16:02:52","slug":"17th-sunday-in-ordinary-time-year-c-homily-the-lords-prayer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/17th-sunday-in-ordinary-time-year-c-homily-the-lords-prayer\/","title":{"rendered":"17th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C Homily – The Lord’s Prayer"},"content":{"rendered":"

17th<\/sup> Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C<\/a>
\nGenesis 18:20-32
\nColossians 2:12-14
\nLuke 11:1-13
\nJuly 28, 2013
\nI\u2019m always astonished at this story of how Abraham barters with God.\u00a0 Normally when we barter is to find a mid-range price.\u00a0 We might all be familiar with bartering with buying a car.\u00a0 There is a price on the window but we ask ourselves is that the best price.\u00a0 We counteroffer\u00a0with a lower price and we go back and forth with the seller until a mutually agreeable price is reached.<\/p>\n

Abraham asks God to save the city if there are just fifty innocent people live there.\u00a0 God accepts the terms.\u00a0 The bartering should be done with but it isn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Abraham then proceeds to negotiate a \u2018lower price,\u2019 forty-five, forty, and eventually done to just ten.\u00a0 To me it is remarkable how bold Abraham was in doing this but what is more remarkable is that with each step Abraham makes in the offer, God goes along.<\/p>\n

Why should God be willing to negotiate with Abraham?\u00a0 God is the almighty and would have had every right to make an offer to Abraham, take it or leave it.<\/p>\n

But God doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

God is not giving up to let Abraham get his way.\u00a0 God isn’t bartering.\u00a0 He is doing what he would have always done save the innocent but do we “barter” in our prayers?<\/p>\n

God doesn\u2019t want to destroy Sodom.\u00a0 God does not want to destroy any<\/i> innocent people.\u00a0 God wants to save each and every one of us.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why God sends Jesus to save us.<\/p>\n

It is Jesus who teaches us the Lord\u2019s Prayer.<\/p>\n

Prayer is part of who we are.\u00a0 It defines us.\u00a0 The disciples of Jesus knew this when they asked Jesus to teach them to pray.\u00a0 Each religion has prayers particular to it.\u00a0 As Christians, it is the \u201cLord\u2019s Prayer\u201d that identifies us as such just like the Rosary identifies us as Catholics.<\/p>\n

The very first line of the Lord\u2019s Prayer identifies who we are.\u00a0 Jesus tells us to call God \u201cFather.\u201d\u00a0 Our God is not some distant god is far removed from our lives.\u00a0 Back to the story of Abraham, it is God who comes to Abraham to tell him about Sodom and Gomorrah.<\/p>\n

God invests in himself in our lives.\u00a0 God gives us his all in sending his only Son to redeem us.\u00a0 God wants to be in relationship with him.\u00a0 This is what it means to be Christian.<\/p>\n

Then we pray \u201challowed be thy name.\u201d\u00a0 God is great and we are called to help others know how great God is \u201challowing his name.\u201d<\/p>\n

We also pray not to get our way but that God\u2019s kingdom come, for God\u2019s will to be done, knowing God knows better than us.<\/p>\n

We pray for our daily bread knowing we can\u2019t do everything on our own.\u00a0 We need strength from God.<\/p>\n

We pray for forgiveness, knowing we have screwed up at times and are in need of God\u2019s forgiveness.<\/p>\n

Praying isn\u2019t always as easy as it seems and we don\u2019t always get what we what.\u00a0 Jesus tells us to ask and we shall receive.\u00a0 Why don\u2019t we get what we ask for?<\/p>\n

Jesus speaks of the father who doesn\u2019t give his son and scorpion when he asks for an egg, or a snake when he asks for a fish.\u00a0 We might think of course not but what does this have to do with anything about prayer?<\/p>\n

The scorpion Jesus speaks of could curl itself up in a little ball.\u00a0 As such, it actually looked like an egg.\u00a0 A person would see the \u201cegg\u201d and seek it as something good, only to find out it was a poisonous scorpion.\u00a0 Likewise, there was a snake that looked like a fish.<\/p>\n

Sometimes in prayer we can ask for something we think is very good only to find out it is deadly.\u00a0 God isn\u2019t going to give us something that will kill us.<\/p>\n

Other times, we really do ask for something good but may not get it.\u00a0 Sometimes we don\u2019t get it because of human choices made by others (free will) and at other times we have no idea.<\/p>\n

We need to trust God.\u00a0 It isn\u2019t always easier.\u00a0 It takes courage to pray the Lord\u2019s Prayer and meant it.\u00a0 That\u2019s why when we say the Lord\u2019s Prayer at Mass, I introduce it with the words \u201cAt the Savior\u2019s command, and formed by divine teaching, we dare to say\u2026\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

We pray this way because Jesus taught this pray but it still takes courage to pray that God\u2019s will and not our own be done.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

17th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C Genesis 18:20-32 Colossians 2:12-14 Luke 11:1-13 July 28, 2013 I\u2019m always astonished at this story of how Abraham barters with God.\u00a0 Normally when we barter is to find a mid-range price.\u00a0 We might all be familiar with bartering with buying a car.\u00a0 There is a price on the …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘17th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C Homily – The Lord’s Prayer’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[82,12],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMTPk-iG","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1158"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1158"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1158\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1159,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1158\/revisions\/1159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}