Ask, Seek, Knock — But Be Ready for a Surprise
Readings and Virtual Homily for July 27, 2025, Seventeenth Sunday of Ordinary Time; Blessed in SoCal
Readings for this Sunday:
Genesis 18:20-32
Psalm 138:1-3, 6-8
Colossians 2:12-14
Luke 11:1-13
Dear Friends and Family,
This week's Gospel passage is famous: "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you" (vs. 9). It is a passage that needs to be parsed carefully, if it is to be accurately grasped and understood. I know. I have decades of experience with this dynamic.
So, just to state the obvious at the outset. We do not always get what we ask for. In my experience, at least, we are disappointed in our requests enough to make the argument seem plausible that the whole thing is random, to make the argument seem plausible that you may as well not bother to pray at all, because maybe you will, maybe you won't get what you ask for.
I stress the words "seem plausible." For, again, in my long experience with this business of asking and sometimes receiving, sometimes not, I have concluded that there is nothing random in the way our prayers get answered. And I have concluded as well that, one way or another, our prayers always do, in fact, get answered. Prayer is conversation with our Creator. Conversation is dynamic, not static. Conversation is two-way, not one way. Conversation by its nature is open to possibilities.
It is a truism, a commonplace response to say that "God always answers our prayers, but not necessarily always in the way we want." I point this out simply to acknowledge the reality -- we can be disappointed in our prayers -- and to move on from it. For the deeper reality is that the way God answers our prayers is, in the end, just precisely the way we want them answered, though it can take us some time, grasping as much. Only in hindsight, sometimes, oft-times, can we appreciate the way the Lord has answered our prayers.
And before I go any further with this, let me acknowledge that both the first reading and the Gospel passage this Sunday strongly recommend persistence in prayer. Abraham is insistent in his plea for any just people who might be found to be living in Sodom and Gomorrah. Jesus assures us that the man who has turned in for the night but who has a friend at his door asking for bread will get up and give him the bread, in the end, if not out of friendship then out of the desire to be rid of his insistent knocking. The man inside will get the bread to his friend outside, simply to be able to get to sleep (vs. 8).
So let me just underscore that fact. Persistence in prayer is strongly recommended by today's readings. And let me say this, as well. If you are strongly motivated to pray for a specific outcome, there is solid reason to believe that your prayer aligns with God's will. You want what is best in the situation. So does God.
But what is best in the situation may involve factors beyond our understanding; it may involve people, places, developments beyond our immediate scope of vision. These possibilities are not beyond God's scope of vision. And God is always playing for the win for everyone. God sees the completed canvas, the whole picture. We see the next brush stroke.
This is where faith comes in. It may well be that the thing we are praying for is entirely within God's plan and design. It may also be that how this desired thing is to come about is not at all the way we have conceived of it. God will bring it about, in God's own way, and in consideration of factors of which we may well be entirely unaware.
As just one example from the storehouse of experience I have, dealing with this dynamic -- the dynamic of delayed answer to prayer, or even what seems an outright No. In the mid-1990s, I was a graduate student in philosophy at the Dominican School at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, preparing for entry to theological studies at seminary. I was "in a hurry" to move ahead with my studies, quite naturally assuming that God wanted to make a priest of me as soon as that might happen. I was vexed by persistent personal debt (both a car loan and credit cards) and could not advance to seminary studies until these debts were paid.
There were several avenues for getting my debts paid quite clearly available to me (one of them being that my literary agent in New York would succeed in selling one or more of my novels). Yet none of these avenues opened up for me; I remained in debt and in circumstances which precluded my advancing to seminary until my debts were paid.
Then came the offer, in the summer of 1995, that I take over the youth ministry position in the Marysville parish, a paid position which, three years later, substantially contributed to my retiring my debts and getting to seminary. Believe me, dear reader, I NEVER saw youth ministry coming. Never for a moment thought of working with teens as a part of my preparation for priesthood.
As it turned out, of course, working with teens has defined my priesthood.
And it would never have come about had God answered my fervent (and very persistent) prayers in the mid-1990s that my agent might start to succeed in selling my novels in Manhattan. That, among a couple of other possibilities, was how I understood that my financial decks might be cleared and how I might move on toward priesthood. God had another plan. A plan that involved not just the teens of the Marysville youth group in the late 1990s, but the teens at Bishop O'Dowd High School today. A plan, as well, that involved me, and God's desire to see me flourish in ways I could never have imagined. Youth ministry was God's dream for me; I never dreamt of it myself.
Yet as I say, my work with the teens, for over thirty years now, has defined not just priesthood but really, my life. And am I ever grateful. Grateful that THIS is how God decided to answer my fervent and insistent prayers, in the 1990s.
I could go on. Believe me, dear reader, I could go on and on and on -- I have abundant experience with this dynamic, the dynamic of how God may answer our prayers in surprising ways. Suffice it to say for this one that conversation with God, that is, our prayers, needs to be open, fluid, dynamic, trusting. He WILL answer our prayers. He will do it in ways that benefit the largest number of people in the deepest possible way. And this broader perspective -- God's perspective -- may require us to be flexible, responsive, open to surprises, to the way in which our prayers will be answered.
At fourteen paragraphs, this one is long even by my (written homily) standards, so I think I will close here. I have been in Southern California this week, advancing plans and projects with San Gabriel Media. Also spending some good time with SoCal family; I am feeling blessed, feeling grateful.
Take good care. God bless.
Fr. Brawn