Chris Campbell
…your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
Beloved in the body of Christ,
In today's Eucharistic Gospel Matthew gives his description of Jesus handing down the Lord's Prayer to us. In it we are challenged in two ways.
Our first challenge is one that leads us to better understand prayer and what its purpose is.
'When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.'
Our challenge here is twofold, one is to be simple in our prayer, the other is more difficult: to trust in God.
When I was young I would often pray to God for specific things that I felt I needed in my life, a new Lego set or for a girl to like me; to keep a long story short, these prayers never seemed to have any follow through on God's end.
However, what I was denying in these prayers was trust in God. This is the lesson Jesus is trying to teach us. That while we think we know what we need in life, God will provide us with truth. When we pray, we are not meant to ask for things we want, but instead to offer ourselves up to His mercy.
We are meant to trust in Him and know that our hope lies not in the wants of this world, but in Him.
The second lesson Jesus gives us in this prayer is one which is often even more difficult than trust, but necessary for it: forgiveness.
For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
Forgiveness is perhaps one of the most difficult, yet important commands, Jesus gives us.
While it seems like a basic exchange that God will forgive us as we forgive others, it is of grave importance that we do this, for how can the body of Christ be unified if its members cannot live together in the love of one another.
In this world we too often see the divisiveness caused by an inability to forgive. People so often hate and destroy one another out of vengeance, and disgust of the actions or beliefs of another.
To forgive is one of the most difficult commands we have been given because above all it means letting go of our ego, our pride, and most of all our sense of self.
But this is what Christ teaches, and what he does for us. As he hangs on the cross he looks down on us, we who have hung him there by our sin, and begs the Father: "Forgive them, for they know not what they do."
As this season of Lent continues, remember when you pray to trust God, and do all you can to forgive others, as Jesus has forgiven you.
May you live in Truth, Peace, and Love,
—Chris