Reflection for the 7th Week after Pentecost, 2022
Scriptures: Genesis 18:20-32; Luke 11:1-13
Key Verse: “For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.” (Luke 11:10)
Have you ever begged someone persistently or shamelessly to get what you wanted? I have. I have done it countless times to two important individuals in my life, one is my dad and another is God.
I still remember how I tagged along with my dad and begged for anything that I wanted badly. It took me a day or two for a small item and weeks for something that I didn’t really need but simply wanted to have. The longest one was a piano. I begged him for months persistently and shamelessly-- something my mom and my brother never dared to do. I kept reminding my dad day and night how badly I needed a piano. I said it to him when he woke up, before I went to school, the moment I got home from school, during our meal time, when he watched TV, and before he went to bed. Nothing could stop me from begging him even though I suspected that he might have said no to me in the end, or that I might just let go of it eventually.
The main reason I dared to beg him persistently and shamelessly was that I was confident of his love for me. Even though my behaviors began looking ridiculous to my mom or my brother, I didn’t stop begging. I enjoyed watching my dad say no to me as he tried to hold his laugh in. I enjoyed when my mom and my brother teased me and told me to stop begging. However, as I grew older, I began begging my dad for things less and less. It wasn’t because he loved me less or stopped loving me. As my autonomy was developing and increasing, I began to make my own decisions and choices more and more. I didn’t need him as much as an adult.
In Genesis chapter 18, we read that Abraham was begging for the people of Sodom persistently. His claim had to do with few people who were righteous. He was convinced that they shouldn’t be treated as those who were unforgivable. So how did they define ‘righteous’ based on this context? If we recall the conversation that God had with Abraham in chapter 15, we learned that God reckoned those who trust God’s promises like Abraham to be righteous.
Because of the kind of relationship Abraham had with God, he dared to beg. He was confident enough with God’s love for him. While begging, he positioned himself as dust and ashes in verse 7 like someone who had no choice or any autonomy but solely trusted and relied on God. Because of this, God forgave.
If you trust in God’s promises as how you pray the Lord’s Prayers, you have already been reckoned to be righteous. Whenever you are in the same position as Abraham, remember to pray like dust and ashes, begging God to forgive all.
We often are tempted to play God and take a side that we believe is right and cancel the side that we believe is wrong. It doesn’t matter which side we are as long as we live out our identity as the agents of God’s love and forgiveness. When we have a hard time doing so, kneel and pray, pray persistently and shamelessly like a child. Didn’t Jesus assure us in Luke 11:10 that we all have God’s full attention for the sake of God’s kingdom where love and forgiveness abound? Thanks be to Jesus for teaching us how to pray, and thanks to the heavenly Father who gives the Holy Spirit to all who pray. Amen.
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