What does active faith look like?
In this week’s Gospel text from Luke, the widow making her
case to the dishonest judge does so not just with words, but with her whole
being, persistently. And if this (bad)
judge can offer her a good sentence, then just think what God can do when we
pray! The widow, for her part, acts
toward a goal, and her prayer is thus itself active. She reminds us that passivity is not an
acceptable stance for faith – not in prayer, not in anything we do. To the contrary, we are called to live our
faith actively, with God always before us.
The widow is a model of active relationship with God.
Sunday’s first reading from Exodus gives us another model of
constant, active prayer. The Israelites
have crossed the Red Sea and are heading into a wilderness, the unknown, a
place where they have no control. There,
they battle the Amalekites, and Moses must rely on God to work through
him: just as Moses leans on his staff
for support, so does he lean on God. His
own prayer is a prayer for those fighting:
they know God is with them. As
Psalm 121 reminds us, his help is from
the Lord, his guardian, his shade.
With his staff, Moses reminds us that constant, active prayer is
possible even in our moments of deepest weariness, and that active faith feeds
our relationship with our Creator.
Our active participation in the life of the church is thus
rooted in constant prayer, but it doesn’t end there. As Paul reminds Timothy, we must remain faithful to and proclaim
the word, being persistent whether it
is convenient or inconvenient – an act that is itself a form of prayer. Persistence in prayer, persistence in
faith: we are charged, each and every
one of us, with the active proclamation of the Good News with our lives,
showing the world how Jesus is present in those lives, and just how much his
love matters. It doesn’t get more active
than that.
This post is based on Fr. Pat's Scripture class.
Photo source
No comments:
Post a Comment