Amos 7:12-15/ Ephesians 1:3-14/ Mark 6:7-13
The Lord’s Prayer is a powerful prayer that we are all very familiar with. Not just familiar, but we should know by heart.
It’s a simple prayer, yet it is also a very deep prayer, a prayer that can and must be used for any occasion and in any kind of need.
Yes, we need to pray that prayer seriously and also understand the meaning of that prayer.
Talking about serious praying, tell me who prays more earnestly? Is it the prayer of the one in church or the prayer of the one in the casino?
Jokes aside, the prayer of the one in the casino may be more earnest?!?
Nonetheless, we need to pray the Lord’s Prayer seriously and even slowly, because haste is the death of devotion (St Francis de Sales).
And when we begin to reflect and meditate on the Lord’s Prayer, we may come to one particular portion that we might find rather mysterious and intriguing.
Have we ever wondered about that part of the Prayer that says: Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil?
The immediate question would be: Why would God want to lead us into temptation?
To begin with, God cannot be tempted and He tempts no one. That must be made clear first.
Yet, when we ask God not to lead us into temptation, it means that we are asking God “not to allow us to enter” or “not to let us yield to” temptation.
It also means that we are asking God to block our way into temptation and to give us the Spirit of discernment.
And because temptations can just spring up all of a sudden, we need God’s help to stop us from consenting to temptation and from falling into sin.
One example would be that you are on the Titanic which was sinking fast, and there is one more place in the life-boat and you are about to take it, when you see a pregnant woman next to you.
So what are you going to do? Let the pregnant woman take your place? Or just think about saving yourself first? That springs up the temptation which requires an immediate decision.
Or, we may remember 9/11, and the crumbling Twin Towers (World Trade Center). People were running out of the building to save their lives, but there were also people running INTO the building to save lives.
What would we have done there and then?
That is just another case of temptation that requires an immediate decision.
So, when we pray “Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil”, it means that in that critical moment of temptation, we ask God for His help and salvation.
In the Gospel, we heard that Jesus sent forth His disciples. He also instructed them to bring practically nothing with them.
His power and authority will be the source of their preaching of repentance and deliverance and healing.
All that will sounds challenging enough as the disciples listened to Jesus in the safety of their comfort zone.
But when they are out there in pairs, when they experience discomfort and rejection, when they face difficulties and danger, things will be different.
Any sensitive situation can explode into a temptation.
Well, they can get into a disagreement with their travelling companion and end up parting ways.
They can get homesick, discouraged, frightened, disillusioned…anything.
Anything can happen the moment they give into temptation.
More so in the face of fear and terror we can all snap easily and turn from our cherished beliefs and principles and turn into something else.
In the first reading, we heard of Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, and the religious leader of the people.
Yet, in the moment of temptation, he chose to rely on the support and acceptance of the king and the people; hence he drove away the prophet Amos.
If it can happen to priests and religious people, then it is obvious that no one is spared.
Yet, let us also remember that the prayer “Lead us not into temptation” is also immediately followed by “deliver us from evil”.
In that moment of temptation, where fear and even terror may besiege us, God is also there to deliver us from the evil one.
We just have to reach out for God and trust in Him, otherwise we will be consumed by fear and terror.
There is this movie titled “Of Gods and Men”, which gives us a glimpse of religious life and its mission.
Based on a true story of a group of French Trappist monks who lived among the people in a rural village in Algeria.
All was well and peaceful until fundamentalist terrorists started creating terror in the country in 1996 and began targeting and killing foreigners.
That was when the faith and unity of the Trappist monks was put to the test.
As fear and terror began to grip that religious community, the temptations were clearly expressed in statements like:
“I didn’t become a monk to end up being killed by terrorists” or “I am not going to stay and get killed in a foreign land”.
The immediate instinct was to leave and go back to their home country.
Yet, they eventually stayed on and in the end, they lost their lives.
The words of the Prior was profound as he told his fellow monks: When we became a monk, we have already given our lives to God.
Yes, the disciples were called not just to follow Jesus but to give their lives to Jesus so that they can be sent to preach repentance, to cast out evil spirits and to heal the sick.
The temptation will be to take the easy and safe road, and to look for support and acceptance from people.
The temptation would be to follow the desires and dictates of their own hearts instead of trusting and relying on God’s grace and power.
The repentance that we need to undergo is from self-reliance to relying and trusting in God.
The evil that we need to cast out is the selfish desires of our heart, so that our heart will be healed and recreated to love.
May God save us from being overwhelmed by temptation, especially when fear and terror wants to pull us away from relying and trusting in God.
May Jesus deliver us from all evil and also cast out all evil from us, so that we belong to Him and Him alone.
Our lives are already safely in the hands of Jesus. Let us not turn to anything else.