Sunday 28 July 2013

Background

This passage gives teaching from Jesus about the spiritualpractice of prayer and in particular how to pray for 'our' not just'my' salvation. One meaning of the verb 'to save' (relating tosalvation) is to rescue from danger and to restore to a previousstate of safety and well being.

Broken or distorted relationships are a powerful threat to thesafety and well being of a community. Jesus continually challengedpeople to love their enemies, to make peace quickly with those theyhad fallen out with, and to value the marginalised and those theyhad a social prejudice against. Just before this passage is Jesus'story of the Good Samaritan (Luke10:25-37), where a man who was robbed was not helped by thosein own Jewish community but had to receive help from a Samaritan,someone his community despised and the last person from whom hewould have liked to receive help.

Jesus knew how difficult it was for people to change theirattitudes to those who, for some reason, they felt they had goodreason to hate or to keep at a distance. It could seem impossible.Verses 5-13 talks about perseverance in prayer. People had to keepfocused on bringing the person or situation before God in prayer,persistently asking for God's way or guidance. They had to trustthat God could find a good, saving way through. Just as God wouldnot give them a snake instead of a fish as an answer to theirprayer (verse 11); they had to trust in God's love for all people -their opponents as well as themselves.

The strength to persevere in prayer like this comes from a deeprecognition that there have been many times when we have beenforgiven for missing the mark and given a fresh start. This canfuel our compassion to keep on praying despite our anger, hurt,anguish for this person or situation.

The next part of the prayer is about not being brought to thetime of trial. It seeks to pro-actively keep relationships healthyto avoid the need to offer prayers for costly reconciliation.

To Ponder

• Remember the details of a time when you or someone else had toreceive help from someone you really didn't like or want to know.How were you changed by the experience?

• Remember a time when you have persevered in praying for healingin a messy relationship or a situation which was threatening theinner peace of mind and outer well being of many. How did youmanage to keep going in the praying?