Father Tim Lemlin
The disciples of Jesus have a great deal of trouble understanding him. They accept his invitation to be his disciples - to learn from him - but they struggle. They have a mindset that allows them to perceive the world only from one perspective, and their perspective is different from the perspective that Jesus has.
Albert Einstein, the German born mathematician, once told a group of people that the same consciousness that creates a problem cannot solve it. Somehow Jesus seems to know this to be true. Prayer, therefore, becomes a central part of his life.
We are used to hearing about prayer. Many of us attempt to use prayer as a means to get what we want - to change a person or situation. Or, we attempt to use prayer as something like an insurance policy. We unconsciously believe that the more we pray, the more protected we are; much like the more we pay for insurance, the more coverage we have. When we pray in this way we are using our minds to pray. We are at the center of our prayer. God is removed - somewhere out there. Our intent when we pray is to get God's attention and to help God see that what we want is important and our prayers should be "answered ."
When Jesus prays he goes outside of his mind. The purpose for his prayer is to come to the awareness that God is the center, not him. He prays not to get God's attention but to get out of the way so that God can use him as an instrument - a conduit. Jesus doesn't seek salvation. He doesn't seek to plead his case before God to get what he wants. He prays so that he can fall through his life (with all its trappings) into God.
We most often identify with our life's trappings, instead of being aware of who we truly are. We do this because we rarely simply observe ourselves - the way we act, how we relate to others, the feelings we have. Instead, we identify with these things. True prayer helps us to observe and stop identifying so that we fall through all of these things (our trappings) and become aware that God is at the center of who we are.
Our gospel reading from Luke is a wonderful example of the disciples identifying with trappings and Jesus inviting them to simply follow his example. James and John take offense when the people of a Samaritan village would not welcome Jesus (and them). They want to "call down fire from heaven to consume them." Whenever we feel offended by something done or not done by another person, we most likely are over-identifying with a part of our lives rather than being aware of God dwelling within us. (I do it all the time.) Feeling offended or being scandalized are good indications that we are living in our minds and we are the center of our attention - awareness - and it is we who created the problem. Transformation is not possible because we are the cause of the problem.
Prayer gets us outside of our minds by helping us to become God's consciousness, a different consciousness than the one who created the problem. Then, change (transformation) is possible. This is the simple message of Jesus - a message that we call "good news."
