“What father among you would hand his son a snake when he asks for a fish or hand him a scorpion when he asks for an egg?”
About a decade ago, a woman was walking down a New England street at twilight. She was pushing a stroller with her baby, and her young daughter was walking along beside her. A man in his mid-twenties suddenly ran up to her and stabbed her about 13 times and left her to die in the view of her two children. Her husband came soon after when a neighbor called him about what had happened. The perpetrator was caught close by and sentenced to life in prison.
This story was related to me by ‘Jack,’ the person who committed this horrible act. He told me that he was high after spending the weekend taking drug after drug. He saw this woman and thought that she was his mother who had abused him for most of his life, and finally wanted to get the justice that he so often prayed for but never received. Then from his pocket, he pulled out a tattered and well worn piece of paper and began to read to me. It turned out to be a letter from the husband of the woman he killed.
He told me that her husband wrote him that, at first, he had prayed to God that his wife’s death be avenged—basically that God would take Jack’s life. As the trial and sentencing went on however, he came to realize that he could only find healing for himself by forgiving Jack and that the reason he wrote was to ask for his forgiveness for wanting God to take his life.
As Jack got to this point in the story, he was in tears, because after he sobered up and realized what he did, he also prayed that God would take his life. At the moment he received the letter, he told me that he saw something different. He saw the miracle of the justice and mercy of our personal God at work.
In the midst of all of this, he saw—and helped me to see—what God is saying to us in our readings today. In our first reading from Genesis, we hear of the story of Sodom and Gomorrah and Abraham’s pleas to God to spare the cities even if only 10 innocent people are left. These were two thriving cities on the Jordan Plain in Southern Israel, roughly equivalent to Dearborn Heights and Plymouth, linked by a common river with other cities in between. In these two cities, immorality had taken over their societies and God was truly displeased and wanted to destroy these towns. Abraham, interceding for the righteous in the cities, pleaded for God’s mercy. As we find out soon later, not even that many were found, so the single righteous family was able to leave—with the exception of Lot’s wife who disobeyed God. The point here is that God listened to and answered Abraham’s prayers on behalf of His created people. The ones who perished decided that they would rather not follow God and made their choice.
In our Gospel today, things are explained a bit more in-depth and it is here where Jack’s story fits in. Here is where Christ teaches us how to pray. He also says that if we are persistent our prayers will be answered and that if we seek we will find, etc… Many of us take this to mean that everything that we ask God for will be granted. When we find that our prayers are apparently not answered, we get discouraged and may even give up praying—or in some cases give up on God. Jack’s story gives us a new perspective on this, though. If the husband’s prayers would have been answered, Jack would never have received God’s grace of being forgiven. If Jack’s prayer was answered, he never would have been forgiven and the husband would carry that regret for the rest of his life.
Where Christ says, “What father among you would hand his son a snake when he asks for a fish, or hand him a scorpion when he asks for an egg,” this can also be read as, “What father wouldn’t hand his son an egg when he asks for a scorpion?” In other words, if Christ knows that what we are asking would be bad for us—or even worse serve to draw us away from Him—He isn’t going to give it to us. He is going to give us what we need to draw NEARER to Him.
Many of us have had the experience of praying for healing for a dying family member. When our loved one passes despite our prayers, we naturally conclude that God didn’t answer our prayers. In effect, in His infinite and eternal knowledge of the universe, He DID answer them. He allowed to happen what needed to happen to further His ultimate goal of drawing all people unto Himself. As difficult—if not impossible—as it may be for us to understand, what He has done is what is best for all of our souls in the long run, even that of our now deceased family member. While it may be of little consolation for us in the moment of mourning, it helps us to understand the mind of God just a tiny bit better. Since that is the case, it would be wise for us to thank God for His answer to our prayers, even though it may not be what we wanted that answer to be, since He always gives us an egg instead of a scorpion.
While hopefully none of us will ever find ourselves in a situation similar to that of Jack, perhaps we can still learn a lesson of prayer from him. Our prayers won’t always be answered in the manner we want them to be—but we can be assured that God WILL always answer our prayers in the way that is best for us—even despite our own best efforts to the contrary.
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