Transformation

My living and ministry work here in Kenya are under the sponsorship of the Archdiocese of Mombasa. This sponsorship is not in a financial sense, but the Archbishop of Mombasa, Archbishop Martin Kivuva Musonde, signed both my work permit application and my application for an Alien ID (or as it says on the card itself, “Foreigner Certificate”). Yes, I am now official. I no longer need to carry paper copies of my US passport and work permit with me all the time. All I now need is the Alien ID card. I can now easily, without any begging or sad stories of how I’m a poor missioner working and living here, pay resident rates for things.

Like pretty much all dioceses, the Archdiocese of Mombasa has a pastoral staff to oversee the various ministries in the diocese. The pastoral staff gets together for Mass every Monday morning in the pastoral center chapel to pray and worship together. On the first Monday of every month, the staff gets together in the conference room for chai (tea) and to give updates on their department or ministry. This month was my first time attending the monthly Mass and meeting. Although I’m not required to attend, I want my ministry project, Helping Orphans Pursue Education (H.O.P.E.), to have good visibility within the archdiocese in order to better tap into the resources within the archdiocese to help make my ministry project thrive. This can only happen if people know what is going on with the project and are made aware of challenges, issues and where we are struggling.

The archbishop tries to attend the weekly Masses and most specifically the first Mass of the month and meeting that follows. I was happy that the bishop was available for my first pastoral center Mass and meeting. The bishop concelebrated the Mass that day with four other priests. There were over fifty people in attendance for the Mass and meeting. Although I’ve had the opportunity to previously meet with the archbishop and several members of the pastoral staff, this was the first time I really had the chance to talk in detail about my ministry and plans for it moving forward. I also had the opportunity to introduce myself to other staff members that I had not previously met who were in attendance.

The first reading for the Mass that day was the story from Genesis where Abraham pleads with God, or more like haggles with him, over the fate of Sodom. The reason this stuck with me is that the bishop’s homily revolved around this reading. As it happens, this story from Genesis is also the first reading for today’s Sunday Mass. Although the homily at today’s Mass I attended did not touch on this story from Genesis, it got me thinking again of the pastoral center Mass earlier this month, the bishop’s homily, and how he also incorporated some reflections from the reading into the words he shared during the meeting after Mass.

The story from Genesis is the one where the Lord says how great the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is. Abraham then proceeds to ask if he will sweep away the innocent with the guilty there. Abraham asks God if he would wipe out the city and not spare it if there were just fifty innocent people there. Abraham even tries to strengthen his case by telling God “Far be it from you to do such a thing, to make the innocent die with the guilty so that the innocent and the guilty would be treated alike!” The Lord replies that if he finds fifty innocent people in Sodom that he will spare the whole place for their sake.

Abraham then begins to haggle with the Lord over the fate of the city, although he tempers his remarks by adding in how he is presuming to speak to the Lord this way even though he is but dust and ashes. Abraham then continues to press the Lord by asking what if only forty-five innocent people are found there. Again, the Lord says that he will spare the city for the sake of forty-five. Abraham persists and asks God what if only forty are innocent, what if only thirty, what if only twenty, and finally what if only ten innocent people are there. Each time the Lord replies that he will spare the city for the sake of those innocent people.

This passage can be looked at from so many different perspectives, each with a powerful message. For example, we can look at the passage from the perspective of mercy and justice (especially if you know how the story of Sodom eventually ends). However, I’d like to look at this passage from the perspective of prayer, especially prayers of petition, which is how the bishop approached the passage.

From Abraham’s encounter with God we see several things. First, our Lord wants us to approach him and talk with him. He wants us to open our hearts to him. He wants us to trust him and not be afraid to come to him with anything. He wants us to share our lives with him as he shares his life with us. God also wants us to persevere in our prayers. As we see from the reading, Abraham was persistent. In the span of the passage from Genesis, Abraham approached God with a new proposal six times. In his “negotiations” with God, Abraham asks God to spare the city of Sodom six times – what if fifty, forty-five, forty, thirty, twenty, and finally ten. However, as we also see, Abraham approaches God in complete humility as he says to God that he is but dust and ashes and asks that the Lord to not grow impatient or angry.

All of this is punctuated by today’s Gospel reading. It is so beautiful how the readings from the Mass fit together. The Gospel starts out by one of Jesus’s disciples asking him “Lord, teach us to pray.” This simple statement encapsulates what our approach to prayer should be. We are to humbly bring ourselves before our God acknowledging that we don’t really understand everything and aren’t completely sure how to proceed. But that’s OK. God is there with us, talking to us, guiding us.

After Jesus teaches his disciples the most perfect prayer, the Lord’s prayer, he proceeds to teach about the necessity and efficacy of perseverance in prayer. First, he uses a parable to talk about a friend who visits another friend late at night after he and his family have already gone to bed. The visitor asks for food for another friend who has just returned home from a journey and has nothing to eat. The friend who is being asked for food tells the visitor to not bother him. Jesus then says that if the friend does not get up to give the visitor food because of their friendship, he will get up to give him whatever he needs because of his persistence.

Jesus continues by saying “Ask and you will receive, knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives;and the one who seeks, finds;and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.” Jesus concludes by saying that the Father will give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him. All we need to do is ask. What a goldmine we are sitting on!

Although it may seem disheartening, the flip side of this is that our prayers do not really alter God’s plans. Our petitions do not cause God to change his mind. God lives in an eternal now consisting of all time as we view it – past present and future. God already knows what he is going to do and what is going to happen. So, what’s the point then?

I believe the point is that prayer changes us. If we approach God in trust and humility, prayer transforms us and draws us closer to him. But in order for this to happen, we need to approach God trusting that his will is truly what is best for us. We need to trust that if we don’t get the outcome we prayed for, or even if our prayer seems to go unanswered, it is because our loving God knows best and has something even better planned.

We can become so fixated on getting answers to our prayers and the things that need fixing, that we miss the bigger picture. Yes, I know it’s not easy. I struggle with this just as much as anyone else. I can so clearly see what the best path forward is. Why can’t God get with the program? I just don’t understand. But I also realize that this is a lack of trust and humility in my relationship with him. Again, God doesn’t need to change. I need to change.  I need to better approach God in trust and humility and allow him to work through me. If I do this, I know that my prayers will deepen my relationship with him and conform me to the person he created me to be. God wills to share his life with us for all eternity. Prayer is how we get there. For if we allow prayer to transform us and bring us into closer union with God, we cannot do other than love him and our neighbor in our thoughts, words, and actions. 

This is the true power of prayer. Through the perseverance in prayer as Jesus taught and displayed by Abraham, we learn to trust God more and enter into a deeper relationship with him. Although hard to put our heads around, even though our petitions may be completely self-giving and involve the life and happiness of ourselves and the ones we love, our loving God desires something even more for us. Our petitions are temporal. God’s desire for our happiness and good is eternal.

The true purpose of prayer is to draw us closer to God. God may not answer our prayers the way we want or according to what we think we need. However, he never stops reaching out to us, offering to share his life with us, and drawing us into deeper relationship with himself. What ultimately matters is not how God responds to us, but how we respond to God. If we let it, prayer will transform us and lead us to the union that God desires with us.

God is good.