The Subversive Prayer
Lk 11:1-13
Fr. Jijo Kandamkulathy, CMF
Claretian Missionaries
The gospel introduces Jesus teaching the disciples how to pray. Jesus also in the process explains to them the inherent nature of God, features of a good prayer, the dispositions required of the one who prays, and the mind of God who listens. Luke pictures Jesus as a prayerful person who connected regularly with his Father. I am particularly attracted to the transformation that happens to Jesus during his prayer. Let us do that observation later, but let us first listen to what he teaches about prayer.
On the request of the disciples asking him to teach them how to pray, Jesus begins a prayer with “Our Father….” The prayer is addressed to a father, a father of the whole human race. In one stroke Jesus was changing the God concept of the people. The ferocious gods, vengeful gods, warrior gods, judge gods and jealous gods ruled the day, the imaginary images of a force they only have felt and never seen. Here is God’s own Son, coming down and teaching us, removing the misconceptions about that force we were calling in different names. There is only one nature for this God. He is a Father.
Addressing God as Father is one of the most subversive acts that Jesus did. Until then, the structure of religion was built on the sense of sin and guilt, and their restitution through intermediaries. The priestly class functioned as the only authorized interlocutors with the fierce judge God. They had to do different sacrifices on behalf of the people to ask for mercy from God. The Son comes down with a personal experience of this Father God—the scenario changes. He teaches that all people are God’s children and requires no interlocuters for children to connect with their Father. In one prayer, Jesus was demolishing the Jewish structure of religion. Remember how Jesus cleansed the temple. He declared it was the house of his Father and there was no room for sacrificial animal trades there. It is a house of prayer, a place to connect with one’s Father without sacrifices. The removal of the intermediaries surely infuriated the priestly class!
One of the accusations levelled against Jesus was blasphemy, that he called himself Son of God. Well, he was! All of us are. However, the vestiges of the fierce unapproachable judge God stays with us that we still keep a distance from our Father.
Three most poignant occasions of prayer that the gospels depict are the transfiguration prayer, the prayer at Gethsemane, and the prayer at Calvary—the three prayers on the hilltops. Mount of Tabor (debated to be Hermon as well), the Mount of Olives, and the Mount of Calvary. Jesus has prayed everywhere: in the plains, in the desert, in houses in the outskirts of the villages, or by the seaside. He had made the whole world a place of prayer. I do not remember where I read this little story of prayer. A boy was going to the jungle to pray. Someone questioned him, “God is everywhere. Why do you have to go to the jungle for prayers?” The boy responds, “Yes, God is the same everywhere, but I am not the same everywhere.” In fact, places do not matter, if we can develop a sense of the presence of the Divine wherever we are. But experience tells us that we need special places and special tuning of ourselves to pray. Some people can make that connection anywhere while some others cannot. Let people use their own comfort zones to pray. But pray we must.
What I began saying was what happens to Jesus in those three special moments of prayer on the mountain tops. At Mount Tabor, Jesus got transfigured. Prayer was making a change in the one who was praying, physically! He had a transformation. This is what happens in deeper prayers; the one who prays gets transformed. Very often we request God to change his mind and give us benefits instead of changing ourselves.
At the Mount of Olives, he started praying for a benefit, to get out of the chalice of pain. He was afraid and he had the temptation to run away from it all. But, ultimately, Jesus gets transformed internally, convinced that the cross was the way to human salvation. The prayer written in a single sentence might not have come under a single breath. He prayed, “Father, if it is possible let this chalice pass by me, but not my will, let your will be done.” It might have taken a time of personal transformation for him to say the second part of that prayer, “It is not my will, let your will be done.” Look at the phrase that he uses. It is the same phrase that he taught us through the prayer, “Our Father.” Prayer is not just a verbal exercise but also the name for a constant attitude in life as well.
The prayer at Mount Calvary is heart-rending to read even for us who are far apart in time and space. He cried out, “God, God, why have you forsaken me?” Then he undergoes one more transformation on the cross. “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” The one who felt abandoned at one moment understands that the Father was there, even if he could not see him. Then he entrusts his spirit to the Father who was not visible at the time. What a transformation of a man who felt abandoned at one moment to feel complete trust after sometime of prayer!
Every prayer is a self-transforming moment. If it does not change me, I need to begin changing my approaches to prayer and fundamental perspectives of life. Any prayer one makes without a willingness to change oneself is contentless.
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