TWENTY NINTH  SUNDAY

1. The  preparation of this homily seemed like the hands of Moses. At times it was like  Moses’ hands raised high. The ideas came quickly and seemed to have the  potential for a great homily, after a paragraph, it seemed like Moses when his hands got weary, the ideas seemed to go nowhere.

1^a I pictured Moses  sitting on a rock with his brother Aaron ad Hur holding up his hands. It seemed to be a picture of the community supporting one another in prayer.

When we are weak

when our faith grows dim, we need the others to  support us. We need them to hold up our arms, our  hands.

However, Reginald Fuller a Scripture Scholar and Michael  Duggan a commentator on scriptural texts say that this picture has more to do  with God protecting the people of Israel.

it has not to do with the justification of  war

It has not to do with the idea that God is on the side  of the victorious.

 The  gesture of Moses raising his hands was prophetic, not one of prayer. Once before he had held up his hands. On that occasion, the  Israelites were faced with the sea in the front and Pharaoh’s army behind. Moses  raised his hands at the Lord’s command. The people of Israel were saved.

2. In the  book of Genesis, the Book of Numbers and the First book of Samuel, we see that  the Kingdom of Amalek had been warring against  the People of Israelites. At that time they had been travelling through the wilderness. So it is not the first  time that God has come to the refuge against this enemy. Now once again Moses  raises his hands and the People are saved.

The gesture of raising our hands now comes very  spontaneously as we pray the Lord’s prayer. It comes  spontaneously to the Charismatic group when they sing songs of Praise. How many  times we raise our hands, often with clenched fists, when we pray in tough  situations: frustration when there is no communication between husband and wife,  between parents and children, between lovers and  friends.

When we just do not have money to pay our  bills

when we are faced with sickness like cancer,  leukemia, a heart attack.

2^a  The final and most dramatic image of  hands being raised - are the  hands of Jesus Christ as his hands are nailed to the  cross.

forever raised in love

forever extended in  forgiveness

forever open to us  sinners as we return to God

forever extended when we have given up all  hope.

The God who protected Israel is the God of compassion who protects us even  today.

3. We are  invited to pray persistently in the parable of the Widow and the unjust judge.  This is not merely a parable with a surprising ending. It is a parable that is  one of a kind, it is unique. We are called to focus on the widow who prays  persistently, and not on the Judge who gives her justice not out of compassion,  but out of irritation. God who protects the people of Israel is a God  of compassion and abounding in mercy, not doing things because of  irritation.

For Luke the theme of Widow is one of his central  themes. For him the

Widow was prophetic as we see in Ch. 2. Story of Anna.

Widow was generous to a fault. 21. She put in all that  she had.

Widow was constantly a sign of God’s favour.

The Torah identifies the Widows for who God exercises a  special care because they were so vulnerable to abuse. It seems God’s care must  continue till today, because the widows are still abused today in the emotional,  sexual and financial areas - to mention only some of the obvious experiences we  see.

4. This is  where I came to a dead end - like the hands of Moses when they fell - I did not  know were to proceed.

Is there any need to pray persistently and ask for God’s  help, when God knows what we want. If someone ask us to do something and we say, don’t we get irritated if  they keep on reminding us again and again and again? I wish I had a satisfactory  answer to give you, but I do not. I can only share my  experience.

4^a  I realize that I pray again and again  for the same thing, not to remind God but more for myself, not to give up hope.  When things do not come out the way I want or it seems to take ages before they  are answered, I tend to try something else, give up hope, trust in other means. The Lord had warned the people of Israel not to trust in their horses  and chariots, God wants me to realise that God will  care for me as He cared for the People of Israel.

4^b Jesus has said, God will answer. Will  God delay? Sometimes it does seem that God just seems to do just that: DELAY.  But again from experience I have found that I do not have the whole picture.  Sometimes I get just the opposite of what I am praying for. Only to find out  weeks later, months later, sometimes years later, that it was for my good that  my prayers were answered, but in the negative at that given moment. God always  answers our prayers, but sometimes the answer is NO  !

Scott  Peck became a Christian after writing the best selling Road Less Traveled. He  asked a nun to be his spiritual advisor. She enquired about his prayer life. Oh,  I’ve got a rich prayer life he informed her. I pray all the time. I pray when I  am out walking. I pray when I am going to sleep. I often pray silently when I’m  out walking. Do you set specific times during the day to pray? She innocently  asked. No was the answer. That feels stultifying to me, kind of rigid and unspontaneous. Maybe so she answered, but what I hear you  saying is you communicate with God whenever you like  it. That seems to me a very one way relationship. If you love God as much as you  say you do you owe it to him to make yourself available to him at certain times  whether you feel like it or not.