Jesus says to His disciples: “Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you.” We serve a generous and merciful Father. Today’s first reading is dramatic. God loses patience with a sinful city, and is about to obliterate it, wipe it off the face of the earth. But then Abraham comes along and pleads with God. The whole point of the passage is the power of prayer. A good person storming heaven with prayers works wonders. In the book of Exodus, Moses fulfills the same role. The Israelites in the desert are not true to God, they worship false gods, they stop trusting the true God and complain about the lack of food and water. Moses’ main job, once he has escaped the clutches of the Egyptians, is to intercede with God for his unruly mob of followers. He becomes a professional man of prayer. Again and again he softens the heart of God, until he has brought his quarrelsome tribes to the verge of the promised land. Prayer works, is the message. It works, because God cares.
It works, but in a context of love and trust. Abraham and Moses were loving sons of the Father, they treated him with profound respect, they were prepared to be patient. When Jesus talks to His friends about prayer, He is presuming that we too respect and cherish God as our Father, that we trust His judgment. If you know a family where children rudely demand expensive presents, and shout and scream if they are frustrated, you may think to yourself, “I hope the parents don’t cave in, I hope they stand firm.” Willful infants can treat their parents like vending machines: insert the demand, receive the goods. God the Father is not about to be treated like that: after all, we already owe Him so much. What He wants of me is my heart, my confidence, my patience. My relationship with Him is far more valuable than the gifts He might give me. To Him we can say, in the words of psalm: “You stretch Your hand and save me, Your hand will do all things for me.”