Colossians 2:12-14
Luke 11:1-13
Today the Lord gives us in these readings examples of the ultimate prayers of petition, and the Church is also showing us that God is both perfectly merciful and perfectly just. In the first reading we see Abraham petitioning the Lord shortly before the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham does not tell the Lord that what he is about to do is wrong or unjust. Abraham knows better, he's aware of the wickedness of the cities of the plain. Instead he asks the Lord repeatedly if he would spare the city if righteous people could be found there.
First this petition begins with 50 righteous, then 45, then 40, and then 30, and then 20, and eventually Abraham whittles it down to 10 and the Lord agrees to spare the whole place for the sake of ten righteous people. We may get the impression here that Abraham had to somehow convince God to spare Sodom if he could find these righteous people, but the truth of the matter is that God is God, if he would spare the place for 50 righteous and agree to spare the place for 10, he would spare the place for 10 all along. As it was, he could only find the family of Lot to be righteous, and we know from Sacred Scripture that that wasn't quite good enough to save the cities of the plain.
I have always believed that if the Lord could find one righteous person within Sodom and Gomorrah other than the family of Lot, he may very well have spared the place for the sake of just one. The reality of this passage is that Abraham was willing to plead for the life of these evil places and the people within them, and God was listening. He was willing to spare the life of the cities of the plain. We don't often speak enough in our present culture of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and what led up to it. There is so much wickedness in the sight of God in Western society today-evils that are not only tolerated but praised-that it is easy to look at our culture and say that we deserve the same fate...
However, it's also easy to forget that before God put Sodom and Gomorrah literally upon the ash heap of history, he was willing to spare the whole place for the sake of ten righteous people. It gives me much hope for our country that this was the case. Will we be like Abraham was in pleading for the life of Sodom, and plead with God for the life of our country and our culture?
In the second reading from Colossians Saint Paul reminds us that we do not deserve God's mercy or his forgiveness but in baptism he freely gives it to us. St John the Apostle and Evangelist reminds us that when we do sin we have an advocate with the Father (cf. 1 John 2:1-3) and that is exactly why the Sacrament of Reconciliation is so important. God said to Abraham that he would spare Sodom for the sake of ten righteous people, he didn't say that he would spare Sodom for the sake of ten sinless people, that is impossible. One of the things that truly marks someone who is righteous before God is not that they are without sin, it's that they recognize sin when they commit it for what it is, and they sincerely beg God for forgiveness and promise to amend their life. There's no such thing as private sin, there's no such thing as sin that does not affect others in some way. The mark of the righteous person is the one who acknowledges that reality and who is willing to go and seek the forgiveness of God and the Church. (May the Lord give us all that Grace!) The very Grace of our baptism guarantees that if we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins.
In the Gospel Jesus is reminding us not so much that our prayers will be answered if we annoy God, but really that he values and hears our prayers. He understands whether or not our prayers are truly sincere. As Jesus said, if the wicked are willing to give their children good things that they ask for, how much more is God willing to give to us, to his children who ask in sincerity and in truth. Jesus is reminding us of something that Scripture tells us in many different ways repeatedly, that "the effectual and fervent prayers of a righteous man availeth much." (cf. James 5:16) Scripture gives us many examples of this, but if we look hard enough most of us can see it in our own lives. God has not left us without, he does hear our prayers. He does answer them, perhaps not always in the way that we would want, but he understands the desires of our heart, and those desires which are holy and good, and he knows how best to achieve them.
Perhaps the holiest kind of prayer to God is the kind of prayer where we are pleading for the sake of others, not merely ourselves. It's why the prayer of the mother or the father who are praying for their children to come back to the faith is particularly precious to God. It's why the prayer of the brother or sister or husband or wife for their lost sibling or spouse who needs to come home to the Church is particularly precious to God. This is the reason that the sincere prayer, made in Love, by a sincere believer, for a lost world and for a nation gone astray is especially precious to God. Yes, God hears these prayers, and he answers them with compassion.
Abraham's pleading with God in the first reading is the classic example of that. God listened to Abraham, God heard him with compassion, and God was ready to grant his request. There is a very serious lesson here, however. God's answer to Abraham's prayer is not what Abraham wanted. Abraham wanted God to spare Sodom and Gomorrah, but God did not. God did not find the righteous people there that he told Abraham that he would look for. In the end, the cities of the plain were destroyed because of their sin.
Yet God was willing to spare this place in his Mercy, and he hears our prayers for our loved ones who have strayed from the practice of the faith, or perhaps haven't come to it yet. Almighty God is perfectly just, but he is perfectly merciful as well. We may not always get the answers we want, but if we ask God in sincerity and listen for His will, and not our own, the Lord will give us an answer to our prayers.
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