July, 27, 2025; Luke 11, 1-13; 17th Sunday in Ordinary Time
The parable that Jesus offers us in today’s gospel can be easily misunderstood. A man seeks a favor from a friend at midnight, but the friend will not unlock the door for him because it is so late. So, the man keeps knocking until he wears his friend out and receives what he desires. This parable is about prayer. An easy and false interpretation of this parable would tell us that when we ask God for something and do not receive it, we should keep praying until we wear God out and change God’s mind. This interpretation is false because there is no need to wear God out. God is committed to us and loves us. God intends to bless us and give us what we need. It is impossible to change God’s mind because God already knows the way our prayer will be answered and the way that that answer will be for our good. So, indeed this parable tells us to keep praying and to keep asking. But we do that not to change God, but to change us. When we face some difficulty of crisis in our life, we as Christians rightly turn to God and ask for what we need. Sometimes that is granted, but even if it’s not granted, our prayer is not wasted. When we place ourselves before the Lord in prayer, it allows God to change us, to show us new possibilities, and to empower us with strength to face what is to come.
We might be worried about a decision our daughter or friend might make that would be disastrous to her and to others. So we rightly ask God to help her make the right decision. She could. But even if she makes the wrong decision, we should continue to pray. We should pray that God would protect her from the consequences of her bad decision. In doing this we reaffirm the love that we have for our daughter and at the same time allow God to change us so that a new attitude or an approach might help us better support the person we love.
All of us are dismayed about the continuing presence of evil in our world. We realize how many places are characterized by hunger, violence, and injustice. As Christians we do not deny these evils, we turn to God and ask God to change them. We continue to knock on the door asking that it might be opened to peace and justice. And even if our prayers are not answered, they are still valuable to us. Praying for peace and justice keeps our hearts aimed in the right direction and may allow God to show us something that we can do to foster a more just world.
Prayer cannot change God. But it can change us. Therefore, when we face some locked door in our life, the gospel today advises us to keep praying so that God might make us more flexible, more generous, more loving. We should keep knocking so that God might show us a new possibility or direction. If the door through which we wish to enter remains locked, it is prayer that can show us that God has opened a window.