Proper 12: July 29, 2007.

Hosea 1:2-10 or Genesis 18:20-32

Psalm 85 or Psalm 138

Colossians 2:6-15 [16-19]

Luke 11:1-13

First Reading

Genesis 18 concludes with a story that pictures Abraham bargaining with God like a shopper at the market haggling with a fish seller. The Lord tells Abraham that a great cry for justice has reached him from Sodom and Gomorrah. The Lord must investigate to see whether the complaint is true. Although Abraham strikes the "correct" tone before God ("I am but dust and ashes."), he demonstrates true chutzpah in challenging God to do what is just.

There is a comic element about the bargaining session between Abraham and the Lord, but a profoundly serious issue lies under the surface. Abraham dares to ask what makes God's judgment just. Is justice in any way proportional? If so, how will God account for the innocent people as well as the wicked people who live in Sodom? By the end of chapter 18 the story seems to assert that God is relatively more inclined to show mercy than to punish. God regards the presence of a few innocent people as being of greater importance than the presence of many wicked people. For the sake of as few as ten innocent people, God will forgive all. As the story plays out in chapter 19, though, it appears that there are less than ten innocent. All of the innocent--Lot and his daughters--escape, while all of the wicked perish.

The Colossians text encourages the reader continue to live in Christ, using a series of wonderfully contradictory images: keep walking (peripateo), having been firmly rooted and built up in the faith. The specific warnings that follow reflect the author's particular concerns for believers to remain true to the faith as it was taught to them. There is wide variety of opinion about whether the warnings are a call to resist the teaching of a "Colossian heresy" and, if so, what sort of false teaching it was. It has been variously described as showing signs of Gnostic, Jewish, ascetic, pagan, or mystical influences. While it may not be possible to identify with certainty a link between the Colossian heresy and any single known religious group of the ancient Mediterranean world, we can identify what the author of Colossians regards as dangerous. The references to philosophy, human tradition, and elemental spirits, as well as observing festivals and worshipping angels, suggest a view of Christ that is something less than the view held by the author. Regardless of whether we understand the heresy as a religious "system," the author seems to be warning against any view that identifies Christ as merely one powerful supernatural presence among many. We are not to regard Christ as something less than the fully sufficient Son of God and Savior so that it is necessary to also make use of other powers to be assured of salvation or protection.

The author's response is direct. He asserts that in Christ "the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily." Furthermore, fullness of life is available to the believer through Christ. This life may be pictured in terms of a "spiritual circumcision," which is to be understood in terms of being set free from the limits of a life directed by mere biological impulses and drives. This life can also be described in terms of forgiveness, accomplished through Christ's death on the cross and received through baptism. The author depicts this gift of new life as already received, as the believer has been joined to Christ in both death and resurrection. In the cross, Christ's victory over every other power is decisive so that the author can imagine Christ as leading a parade, like the triumphant processions celebrating the victories of the Roman armies, with every other spiritual power following to display their subjugated and defeated status. The Colossian community is called, then, to resist attributing any positive value to any spiritual power other than Christ.

In Luke 11, Jesus teaches his disciples a simple prayer addressing God as "Father." The prayer gives expression to some of Jesus' central concerns: love and trust toward God, forgiveness, and hope. The prayer begins with a call for praise, that God's name and reputation be revered. It continues with a request for God's reign, voicing the dearest hopes of God's people that under God's gentle rule there will be vindication for God's people. The supplicant asks God both to provide what is needed for life and to grant forgiveness, remembering, as Jesus makes clear elsewhere, that receiving forgiveness is closely related to extending forgiveness (Matt 18:23-35). Finally Jesus teaches his followers to ask God for protection from great trial.

Jesus then tells two short parables that invite the listener to trust God's good providing. The first asks the believer to reflect on how important the bond of love is between friends and to know that, because of God's great love, God will respond to every believer who asks, seeks, or knocks. The second pictures God's love as far greater than any human love, even love for a child. If parents know instinctively how to care for a child, how much more will God respond to our needs! God's answer to prayer is seen as giving the Holy Spirit.

Pastoral Reflection

The Colossians text encourages the reader to continue living in Christ. This raises the question, though, of how Christians will be nurtured in faith and Christian identity, which points to the need for ongoing faith practices that shape life to conform to the way of Jesus. Prayer is one of the essential practices for maintaining a lively faith.

The Lord's Prayer is received by the church as Jesus' essential teaching on prayer. It often is used in communal settings and often spoken together in unison. A different sort of communal use is suggested by The Didache, which encourages use of the Lord's Prayer three times a day (8:3). Aaron Milavec observes that within the earliest church spontaneity was the normal expectation for prayer, "even when an abstract or schema was set out for guiding the praying leader." He goes on to suggest that "it would be hard to imagine that members of the Didache community assembled together to recite or hear a prayer that lasted a brief twenty seconds. Rather one can expect that in the presence of a gifted prayer leader the Lord's Prayer served to indicate the progression of themes that were expanded upon and added to in accordance with the specific circumstances and perceived needs of those present" (The Didache: Text, Translation, Analysis, and Commentary [Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 2003], 67).

In the congregation I serve, the Lord's Prayer has been used in something akin to this manner in small-group settings. A prayer leader, perhaps the pastor, speaks one line of the prayer. During a period of silence, group members may speak their personal praises, thanksgivings, and petitions. When it appears that all who wish to speak their prayers aloud have done so, the prayer leader speaks the next line of the prayer, again followed by silence, and so on. In this way, the Lord's Prayer has facilitated a profound experience of shared faith and life. AJC