All you have to do is ask …
A Gospel Enquiry
Introduction
My wife and I volunteer in our parish community … and elsewhere. It is important that people serve others in need because we are created to be servants to those who need help. If we don’t, then humanity suffers. Our faith grows weak. After all, Jesus came to serve.
We have been touring around the north island of New Zealand and in the past two days, in two different towns, I have been struck by the power of service. I am not thinking of the service we received, so much as the power of service in the stories told about the growth and development of society in the towns we visited. More often than not, the focus was on individuals and the contribution they made to the towns we visited. That the stories were told is a sign of the respect the people who care about their communities have for those who gave unstintingly to their communities in ways that reflected care for others not just in the present but also for the future.
Our present world is fractured. The politics of division weakens the bonds that should bind us in our communities. The stories I have read and which I witness as we walk down foreign streets are of people coming from all over the world to find a place they can call home, where they can live in peace and contribute to building the community. The sharing of culture binds us together and contributes to the politics of unity.
As a colleague once said to me as we sat and shared what was important about our faith - he had rejected his Muslim upbringing because his country’s rulers, who espoused the Islamic faith, deprived his people of their birthright, and he rejected Christianity because the Australian government refused to grant him asylum (… just a number, not a person) - we are all the same, we are human beings, flesh and blood, with the same desires and dreams … to belong and to be happy and to enrich the lives of others around us.
May this Gospel stir in you thoughts, prayers and actions for the good of our world.
The Gospel
Jesus said to his disciples:
‘Suppose one of you has a friend and goes to him in the middle of the night to say, “My friend, lend me three loaves, because a friend of mine on his travels has just arrived at my house and I have nothing to offer him”; and the man answers from inside the house, “Do not bother me. The door is bolted now, and my children and I are in bed; I cannot get up to give it you.” I tell you, if the man does not get up and give it him for friendship’s sake, persistence will be enough to make him get up and give his friend all he wants.
‘So I say to you: Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you. For the one who asks always receives; the one who searches always finds; the one who knocks will always have the door opened to him. What father among you would hand his son a stone when he asked for bread? Or hand him a snake instead of a fish? Or hand him a scorpion if he asked for an egg? If you then, who are evil, know how to give your children what is good, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!’ (Luke 11:5-13)
The Enquiry
See
What happens in this Gospel story? What precedes this teaching? How does this Gospel relate to Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10) and the Our Father (Luke 11)?
Why does Jesus focus on people’s unwillingness to help those in need? St Luke recounts the story of Jesus visiting Martha and Mary before encouraging his listeners to have faith in God and to seek the assistance of the Holy Spirit. What do you make of this?
What happens when people receive the Holy Spirit? Consider what happened at Pentecost and what St Paul describes in his letters about the work of the Holy Spirit.
Judge
What do you make of Jesus’ description of people’s experiences of being asked for help? Do you think what he says has any bearing on the phenomenon of donor fatigue and the drop in the number of people volunteering their time and talents to serve those in need?
What does your faith tell you about addressing the needs of people experiencing trauma because of war, natural disasters, the loss of livelihood, homelessness? Are you challenged in any way by what you have read here? Is the challenge about how you pray? Or about how you act?
Do you think we should be asking for the power of the Holy Spirit to work in our lives? Should our faith be action-oriented?
Act
What change does Jesus want to see in the world that you experience?
What small action can you take to contribute to bringing about this change?
Who can you involve in your action and how, when and how often will you get them to participate in your action?
Image Source: Harry Kossuth (Creator): Etching by Jan Luyken illustrating the ending of the parable, from the Bowyer Bible, Bolton, England. Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons.