An Insurgent God

by Fr Earl Allyson Valdez

Reflection for the 17th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Genesis 18:20-32 | Psalm 138 | Colossians 2:12-14 | Luke 11:1-13

As Catholic Christians (and Filipino at that!), we have become all too used to the Lord’s Prayer that we actually do not appreciate what it means. But if we look at it carefully, not only does it provide a summary of our Christian life; more than that, it presents its difficulty. 

The gospel for today, which we can reflect on and understand with the readings, aids us in this matter. The first thing that comes into mind is that the Lord comes as a Father, and as such, the task is to make His name “hallowed,” regarded as the most important of all. It is His Kingdom that must be fulfilled, we ask Him to give what is enough for the day ahead, and that we are called to forgive others as He forgives us, especially in our gravest faults. And finally, in our request to “not submit us to the final test,” we ask and implore for His mercy even into the last minute. 

Now think about that. Put together, it’s basically placing our whole lives, even our individual decisions, to the Lord’s providence and mercy. Not only is it a recognition that only He can provide our needs and wants, but also that what we ought to do is modeled not after what we desire, but what He desires for us. 

Therefore, every time we pray the Our Father, it is our testimony that our lives truly belong and depend on the Lord! It appears, therefore, as a true act of humility and lowliness. And if we look at it, it is a true act of submission, a religious attitude that we find even in the primitive times and in the ancient civilizations, which is why people see themselves serving their gods, it is because their lives depended on Him.

And that is what, I think, finds the modern man and woman repulsive, primarily because it is a submission of freedom, a self-placed restriction for the human person to be truly himself, a refusal of what makes him and her as such: the capacity to absolute self-determination, to forge my own destiny, to truly act and to be who I really am, according to what I want. 

Such a view, however, seems to miss the point, especially if we read the gospel reading further on. Our Lord gives us the full picture of the Father in whom everything depends. That is, like a man distracted by his friend in the middle of the night, he still gives what is needed. And as a loving father who knows what his son needs, so he will give what is needed. This is the context that forms the adage on prayer: “Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find.” It is not so much that the Lord gives what we want; rather, He gives - wisely and adequately, we may say - what we truly need, especially at times when we do not know what we really need, or distinguish these needs from just mere wants. 

In other words, while we think of a God who follows what He commands, and has already put things in order, we see Him making space and recreating that order for the human person He needs. And it is this very reason why Our Lord encourages us to place our lives and our future in the Father: because He is a God who gets out of His way just to give what we need, because He is a God who recognizes our weaknesses and supports it, and because He is a God who sees that despite our freedom, we end up getting lost ourselves, and thus sent His Son to lead us to the path on which we should walk. 

He is a God who is insurgent, willing to break His own rules in the name of a greater rule, that of Love and care for His dear children and friends. And that is enough reason for us to lean on to Him and place the meaning and direction of our human existence, frail as it is, in Him. This is what we recognize in the end when we pray the “Our Father.” It is, after all, not an act of mere submission but entrustment and of accompaniment.