17th Sunday in Ordinary Time: July 26/27 2025

Most of us think of prayers, as asking God for what we want or need. While prayer is much more than this, let’s stick with that for a moment.

Because in St. Matthew’s version of this Gospel Jesus says:  “In praying, your Father knows what you need before you ask him.” So if God knows what we need before we even ask, why do we need to ask at all? It is certainly not to nag God into doing what God may be reluctant to do, nor is it to earn the favors God gives us. Jesus would say that pagans might understand prayer in such terms, but not those who have grasped what he has taught them about his Father and our Father.  Our Father knows the things we need and will provide for us. Our Father even provides for those who do not even acknowledge his existence or care. Our Father doesn’t have to be talked into loving us.

What does our prayer accomplish then becomes a very valid question. . .

Which brings us to the prayer Jesus gives us in the Gospel.  If this is the way Jesus teaches us to pray, then it must accomplish what our prayer is meant to accomplish.

The first three lines of the Our Father are closely related.  They ask God to manifest his holiness, to establish his kingdom, and to accomplish his will on earth.  In praying these words, we are primarily asking God to ACT,  rather than praying that men and women will hallow, or keep holy, God’s name, bringing his kingdom, and doing his will.  That at least is the intent of these petitions as they are phrased in the Greek text of the Gospels.

We are asking in three slightly different ways for God to complete his plan of salvation for the world.  We are asking, ultimately, for the second coming of Christ. And if we are praying for the second coming of Christ, then we have to be ready, which is the common focus of the rest of the prayer.

We need bread and the necessities of life each day, which comes from God, so we admit our dependence on his grace and mercy. We need forgiveness for our sins, which again, comes from God. And we need security in times of testing, and protection from evil, which, guess what? Comes from God.

But again, doesn’t God know what our basic needs are before we ask?

Doesn’t God know that we stand in need of daily sustenance, forgiveness, and protection?  Of course God does, so what is the point in asking?

Likewise, what is the point of asking God to complete his plan of salvation for the world? Isn’t that something God is determined to do – even apart from our asking??

We ask, not because God is absentminded and prone to forget what needs doing, BUT BECAUSE WE ARE ABSENTMINDED AND PRONE TO FORGET, and when that happens, we so easily turn to other things, besides God, to fulfill those needs and get caught up in bringing about OUR kingdom, rather than the kingdom of God.

We need to remind ourselves, daily, at best, that we are a part of God’s plan to reconcile everything to himself through Jesus Christ. If we all too easily forget the BIG picture, we also all to easily overlook the small picture of our day to day lives.       And that’s when our prayers do become a wish list of niceties instead of focusing on what is truly important for our welfare and the welfare of all God’s people, now and for eternity.

The prayer Jesus teaches us draws our attention back to our basic necessities, it helps us to remember who we are and whose we are. In praying the Our Father, the Lord’s Prayer, we acknowledge our dependence on God and to do what only God can do:  complete his plan of salvation, and do our part to help bring it about here and now in our daily lives instead of hindering its coming by getting lost in our own wants and desires.

Our prayers, are reminders, not to God, but to ourselves:  reminders of what is truly important.

Reminders of what God is doing and is eager to do in our lives and in the world. Which is why we end all of our prayers by saying AMEN:  so be it.

We pray to God so God can be God – and we can remember that we are God’s beloved sons and daughters.  AMEN!