Homily: 17th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle C
“Should not the judge of all
the world act with justice?”
Friends, the
readings for our Mass this Lord’s Day point us to reflect on the relationship
of prayer. In the first reading, we see Abraham
acting out this relationship of prayer with God. We see him exploring the limits of God’s
justice with each repeated question: lowering his number each time in search of
the true answer to his first question, “Will you sweep away the innocent with
the guilty?” Abraham has a true sense of
justice and so he is convinced of the truth that the innocent should not be
condemned with the guilty. He
acknowledges God as the all-powerful judge of the world, but he does not yet
know whether God will act with justice, and so he explores this with God. Abraham also knows that God could strike him
dead in an instant and so he approaches the question humbly, not presuming to
know God’s will, but rather exploring the limits through his repeated
questions, hoping to discover that the “judge of all the world” will act with
justice and thus demonstrate himself honorable.
Besides revealing to us that God is just and that he will act with
justice, Abraham also demonstrates for us the relationship of prayer: that is,
that prayer is not only transactional, but relational.
In a
transactional style of prayer, something is asked of another and that other
responds either positively or negatively: either “Yes, I will give you that” or
“No, I will not give you that”. If
positively, perhaps there’s a cost for receiving the thing requested: “Yes, I
will give you that and this is how much it will cost.” Think of it as going to McDonald’s: You ask,
“May I have a Happy Meal?” and the clerk responds, “Yes. That will cost five
dollars”. You hand over the five
dollars, the clerk hands you the Happy Meal and the transaction worked as
designed.
Because our
lives are filled with these kinds of transactions, it becomes very easy to take
this approach when we pray. We believe
that God is all-powerful and so can provide us with whatever we need. We also believe that he is good and that he wants
to give us what we need. And so, we
approach him like we would a benefactor: pleading with him for the thing that
we need and hoping that he will respond generously to our request, always ready
to offer something of ourselves as “payment” for what we’ve received. This “transactional style” of prayer is a
very natural and honest way to pray.
Prayer that is a relationship, however, is much deeper; and it is the
prayer that God desires for us.
What Abraham
demonstrates for us in the first reading is how prayer is a vehicle for coming
to know God more deeply. At this point
in his life, Abraham has had a long relationship with God. God called Abraham out from his homeland to
settle in a new land and the book of Genesis documents that there were many
twists and turns along the way. Thus,
Abraham learned to trust in God and came to know himself and God more
deeply. Nevertheless, when God expressed
his intention to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham was confronted with a
question: “Is God truly just? Will he sweep away the innocent with the
guilty?” Abraham’s prayer, then, was
about exploring this question with God.
He did so, I believe, for two reasons: 1) so that he may know God more
deeply, and 2) so that he might test whether what he had come to know about God
(that is, that he is just) was really true.
In doing so, his deeper question, “Should not the judge of all the world
act with justice?”—a question that addresses Abraham’s understanding of how the
world works—would also be answered. ///
When Jesus’
disciples observe Jesus in prayer and ask him to teach them how to pray, Jesus
teaches them: giving them a form for and an attitude to take toward
prayer. In doing so, he teaches them
something important about God and about prayer: God is our Father who wants
only good things for us, and prayer is our way of engaging in and deepening our
relationship with him. In the examples
he gives, Jesus is encouraging his disciples to be bold in exploring the limits
of God’s generosity: saying that, “If you sinful human beings can be generous
even when you are resistant to doing so, how much more is God, who is without
sin and thus never resistant in his generosity?” Thus, Jesus is teaching us: When we explore
the limits of God’s generosity in prayer (or his justice, in the case of
Abraham), we come to know him more deeply and intimately, and thus our
relationship with him grows. When our
relationship with him grows, we grow our trust in his providential care, and
thus become more resilient to the struggles and challenges that we face every
day. And we also grow more capable of
facing the bigger questions that the world and the way it operates often
presents to us. ///
“Should not
the judge of all the world act with justice?”
This was the “bigger question” that the world and God’s actions
presented to Abraham that day. Abraham
knew the answer to this question: “Yes! The judge of all the world should
act with justice.” What he needed to
know, however, was whether the judge of all the world would act with justice. Engaging
his prayer as a relationship, Abraham explored this question with God, and he
found his answer: God, the judge of all the world, would not sweep the innocent
away with the guilty, and thus would act with justice. ///
Friends, what
are the “bigger questions” that you are facing in your life today? I invite you… urge you… challenge you, even…
to take some time to pause today and to try to name them. Then write them down on a piece of paper and
focus on it in prayer. Instead of simply
asking God to give you an answer (in a “transactional” style: "God, answer
this question… fix this problem… do this thing… and I will offer you x, y, or
z), see if you can engage God in prayer relationally, exploring the limits of
his generosity (or his justice, or his mercy… whatever your bigger question
demands). In doing so, you will deepen
your relationship with God and, presumably, your trust in him. This trust, this faith, will strengthen you to face the struggles and challenges
that each day brings and will make you a more joyful witness of the call to
relationship that God makes to each person, perhaps leading some around you to
respond to that same call.
The Mass is
the preeminent place where we collectively exercise our relationship with God
in prayer. As we approach this altar
today, let us give thanks for this gift, and let us commit ourselves to growing
our relationship with God in prayer so that we might respond more joyfully to
the struggles and challenges of our daily lives and thus be greater witnesses
to God and his love in the world.
Given
at St. Louis de Montfort Parish: Fishers, IN – July 27th, 2025