• Hosea 1: 2-10

The beginning of the received text of the story of Hosea is surely one of the most poignant among the Hebrew  prophets.  A narrator declares that it is the Lord who directly instructs Hosea to take a whore for a wife “and have children of whoredom” because “the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord.”  This union produces three children, each named by the Lord: “Jezreel” (a reference to the sordid history of the bloody murders of Israel’s kings); “Lo-ruhamah, for I will no longer have pity;” and “Lo-anmi, for you are not my people and I am not your God.”  Then follows a declaration that amounts to a total reversal in the text: the children of Israel will in the future be as numerous as grains of sand on the beach and will be known by the name, “children of the Living God.”

• Psalm 85

The psalmist begins by recalling the Lord’s past restoration and forgiveness of the Lord’s people (vv 1-4) and then shifts to a present crisis, pleading to the Lord to “Show us Your kindness” once again (vv 5-9).  She then expresses confidence that the Lord’s “rescue is near for those who…” honor the Lord; kindness and truth with justice and peace will embrace and from their union truth and justice will “spring up from the earth.” (vv 10-14)

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• Genesis 18: 20-32

Perhaps Abraham is emboldened because the Lord just made a covenant that he and Sarah will be the progenitors of a great nation, through whom the whole earth will be blessed (vv 10-19)!  So when the Lord decides to visit two cities notorious for their cruelty of the oppressed who cry out for justice,  Sodom and Gomorah, and decides they deserve total destruction, Abraham intercedes.  The text says Abraham “stepped forward” and asked the Lord if both the innocent and guilty will be “wiped out.”  He pleads that if there are just fifty just persons, “Will not the Judge of all the earth do justice?”  The Lord relents.  Abraham pursues his cause with the Lord by asking about forty-five, then forty, then thirty, then twenty.  Abraham acknowledges his nagging audacity, “Please let not my Lord be incensed and let me speak just this time.”  Now he asks if the Lord will spare the cities if there are just ten just persons who could be found.  The Lord relents.  The two figures part company and go their separate ways.

• Psalm 138

The psalmist gladly makes oblations before the Lord for “Your kindness and Your steadfast truth” to which the whole earth is witness.  He then discloses the powerful insight that although the Lord is high and lofty, the Lord “sees” the lowly on earth.  Inspired by this insight, the psalmist ends with a request: “So do not abandon Your handiwork.”

• Colossians 2: 6-15, (16-19)

The writer of the letter to the church in Colossae warns against the potential for “deceit” by human philosophies and “the elemental spirits of the universe,” and urges his readers to focus instead on Christ, in whom “the whole fullness of deity dwells, in whom you have come to fullness in him…”  Human institutions, customs, authorities might find you guilty of some human-made violation, but “He set aside, [that guilt], nailing it to the cross.”  The cross turns out also to be the means by which God “disarmed the rulers and authorities…” rebuking and triumphing over them.  Therefore, do not be distracted by those who want to use human authorities and “way of thinking” to judge you.  Persist in growth “that is from God.”

• Luke 11: 1-13

Luke addresses the form and function of prayer.  Seeing Jesus at prayer, his disciples ask how they ought to pray.  Jesus gives them a short, but very specific outline, (which is pared down from Matthew’s version).  The proper address is just one word, “Abba” (Father”).  The first petition is “your kingdom come.”  The second regards a daily need: send us our daily food.  Followed by another (daily?) need: forgive our sins just as we have forgiven those who are indebted to us.  These three simple, direct phrases conclude with a petition just as short– “Save us from the time of trial.”  Only Luke then follows-up with a story.  In the middle of the night, you go to a friend’s house and wake him up because some of your friends have arrived in the middle of the night and you do not have your daily food supplies on hand.  Your friend tells you to go away, it is late and everyone is already in bed.  But then he relents and finally gets up, due to your persistence and out of friendship.  He gives you what you need.  If such a friend is capable of responding to your needs, Jesus asks, just try to imagine “how much more will the Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”  Ask, and it will be given yo you; seek and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you.

Biblical narratives move seamlessly between the past, the present and the future.  Because they remember God’s goodness in the past, they can confront any current need with an openness to hope for the future.  Psalm 85 sings: “Show us… Your loving kindness once again.”  Because Psalm 138 opens with an acknowledgment of God’s steadfast kindness and truth, the text can conclude with a plausible plea for the future: “do not abandon Your handiwork.”  Living between God’s past extraordinary promise about the future– (Abraham and Sarah  have been promised by the Lord that they will be the progenitors of a great nation through whom all humankind will be blessed)– Abraham is emboldened in a current crisis to “step forward” and persistently haggle with God.  He now has reason to believe that by persistent petition with the “judge of all the earth, ” he can nudge God to be true to God’s-Self and spare two cities notorious for their unjust treatment of the poor and disadvantaged.

In God Without Being, Jean-Luc Marion ponders how the memory of God’s goodness in the past enables an appeal today for hope for the future.  Marion writes:

“It is a question of making an appeal, in the name of a past event, to GxD [in the original text, Marion puts an “X” through the “o”], in order that he recall an engagement (a covenant) that determines the instant presently given to the believing community.  Whether it be a question of crossing the Red sea or of the conquest of the Promised Land, ‘the memorial of the Messiah’… the event remains less a past fact than a pledge given in the past in order, today still, to appeal to a future– an advent, that of the Messiah– that does not cease to given this day from beginning to end.”  (pp 172-173)

It is this past/present/future dynamic which enables we who live in the present between past and future to pray daily.  Marion continues:

“Immediately, one sees how the temporalization of the today, by its past, intimately refers to an even more essential temporalization– by the future.  For the memorial itself is valid only as a support in order that prayer may implore the Father the innovation and completion of an eschatological event.”  (p 173)

Luke’s consideration of the form and function of prayer seems to inculcate this same dynamic.  The first word of the model prayer is “Abba”  “Father,” a term of endearment that presumes a history, a relationship of trust built up over time in the past.  Then  comes immediately an expression of a deep longing for not just any future, but a very specific future, an “eschatological future”– “Your reign begin.”  Luke’s model prayer nods to the past, squints into the future– God’s future–  and now turns to today, “this day.”  “Give us this day our daily food.”  This is followed by another (daily?) essential request– wipe the slate clean for our sins as we have for those indebted to us.  It concludes with a request to keep us from future temptations with a certitude that, due to Christ, our full guilt, (in that extraordinary phrase from Colossians), already has been “nailed to the cross!”

Marion bears down further on the immediacy of daily renewal when he writes:  “‘Give us this day our daily bread,’ our bread of this day and which this day alone can give us, at the same time that this very day is given to us.”  (p. 175)

The routine of daily prayer on the model given by Jesus in Luke acknowledges God’s past goodness and then longs for the inauguration of Gods reign as soon as possible as well as in the daily actions that “gives us this day.”  The psalmists (85 and 138) and the story of Hosea lead us to believe that no matter how dark the present, because of God’s past goodness there is hope for the future.  The example of Abraham teaches us that persistence in prayer is fundamental.