forgiveness – Writing to Pray

Like a Dog with a Prayer-Bone

Sunday’s first reading, the narrative of Abraham begging the Lord to save Sodom if He can find but 50… 10… 5 righteous people, has been amusing me all week. Abraham’s blind persistence is touchingly comedic; he just won’t let it go! Our dog with a bone!

It is easy, too easy to draw parallel lines between Sodom and our current society. So, thinking instead of the perpendicular and intersecting lines leads me to ponder, “Where am I in this story?” I am probably somewhere in a tower smack in the middle of Sodom enjoying my craft brew, looking at the street below full of crazy people. Am I wise to the fact of an Abraham begging to the Lord to show me mercy?

Dollar to donuts, those of you reading or listening to this reflection petition the Lord daily on behalf of someone who has no clue you are praying for them. And likewise, no matter how great you think your doing someone is probably praying for you. And you may be thinking, “They should spend their prayers on those in need, not waste them on me. I’m terrific.”

And isn’t this sort of a double-blind prayer circle an incredible thing!? I wonder, Who is interceding for me? Because I’m rather self-absorbed and small-minded, I am betting they are asking the Lord for something wiser than I would be asking for myself. In other words, what we pray for for ourselves does not necessarily sync with what the Lord or others may know we need. I’m sure the folks down in Sodom would not have asked for themselves what Abraham prayed for on their behalf.

We remember easily that the Lord decided to give Abraham decedents as numerous as the stars, but that does not appear to have been Abraham’s prayer for himself. No, he’s not praying for himself, but rather, for Sodom. Likewise, perhaps things here would be better if we did not ask the Lord for this or that on our own behalf, but accepted that our spiritual well-being is better left to the Lord and others. And instead, conversely, spent our prayer time considering others and their needs.

Questions for Reflection:

1. 1. How much time do I spend praying for my own self vs. others? Might I make any changes?
  2. In a few weeks time, after implementing some changes, I might ask myself, what sort of movement do I notice within me as I pray more for others and less for my own self-perceived needs.
  3. What changes have occuried in connection to the people or situations I have been praying for?

Psalm 103: Matthew 18:21-25

We all have a running conversation in our heads. Sometimes we are imagining an impending conversation, or an earlier one. While lines and ideas from movies, music, social media, writing crowd into our brains, we also have commentary on all we see and hear bobbing along. In pop psychology, this sort of inner world dialogue is called ‘self-talk.’ The self-talk of the ancient Israelites and those of Jesus’ time would have been radically different; I imagine they talked more to and with the Lord, and less with self. Early Church Father, Cassiodoros, pointed to the psalms as an example of Jesus’ inner world: their formulas and structures would have been His natural thought process. Psalms 103 opens with self-talk.

Christian translations typically begin today’s psalm, “Bless the Lord, O my soul,” Commentaries point out the word soul in this context refers to his whole self (2). Robert Alter’s translation begins, “Bless, O my being, the Lord” (5). This makes it clear that the psalm-singer is calling on every fiber of his being to partake in the praise. He is holding nothing back, despite recent illness.

The Psalmist quotes Exodus directly, pulling those hearing him back to Egypt and the desert. He begins with personal praise for an individual experience of God’s saving forgiveness and healing; he concludes with the same phrases, but now invites the divine council, the army of heaven and all of creation to join him.

In today’s gospel, a servant with a huge debt begs the king for mercy and is generously forgiven for the entire debt. He then, however, with grand amnesia, precedes to extort a much smaller amount from a lower servant. This passage instructs us: interdependence, accountability to the community and patience are requirements of discipleship.

The servant owed a debt of gratitude, but in willful blindness, remained fixated on money. When we forget what we have been forgiven of, we turn a deaf ear to the call to forgive others. “(The servant) has shamed the king by not imitating him” (1). The opportunity to forgive another, to imitate the Lord, is a great gift. “Followers of Jesus are to give as they have received (10:8), love as they have been loved (John 13:34), and forgive as they have been forgiven (Matthew 18:35, Ephesians 4:32)” (2).

Psalm 103 can illuminate another angle of this parable. Said servant did not offer the sort of thanksgiving and praise exemplified by our psalmist, he forgot. Perhaps, the conclusion of forgiveness is not forgiveness, but the opportunity to express of gratitude to and praise for the Lord.

Journal Questions:

What is the character of our self-talk? Do we talk to God or self; are praise and thanksgiving a component of our interior world?
Are we familiar enough with scriptures such as the psalms that lines, ideas, beliefs contained therein that they too reside in our interior landscapes?
Do words of praise, blessing and gratitude dot our internal landscape?

References: Refer to blog post entitled Resources

Tag: forgiveness

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