Bargaining with God
July 29, 2007

Readings for the 17th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Reading 1: Gen. 18:20–32

Responsorial Psalm: Ps. 138:1–2, 2–3, 6–7, 7–8

Reading 2: Col. 2:12–14

Gospel: Lk. 11:1–13

Link to Readings

By Father Thomas Acklin, O.S.B.

Have you ever bargained with God? We often bargain with life, hoping we can speed one more time without getting caught, hoping we can get by until payday, hoping we will be forgiven one more time. Often we bargain with ourselves, promising that this time we will stick with the diet, that we will never fall into that sin again, that we will get around to changing our attitude and starting over again.

When we really get desperate, we can even start to bargain with God, like Abraham did. At least Abraham was bargaining not in his own self-interest but on behalf of the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. You or I may bargain with God, asking him to spare a loved one who is sick or dying, asking him for the means to support our family, or praying for the needs of the poor or hungry whom we have never even met. We can bargain for ourselves, for a job, for another chance, for someone to take away our loneliness.

When we bargain, we know we are begging. We know we are asking for a favor. Even if we promise to sacrifice something or to try harder, we know that God is giving us something we probably do not have the right to ask for.

Everyone Who Asks, Receives

Yet according to the readings in today’s Mass, God doesn’t seem to want us to beg, does not seem to mind if we bargain, and seems to want us to ask, indeed to keep asking! Jesus says, “And I tell you, ask and you will receive; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.”

But why does God make us ask? Doesn’t He already know what we need? Why doesn’t He answer right away? Is He baiting us? I remember, as a boy, how I would go first to my mother because she was easier to ask, and how if it was a big request she would send me to my dad. Now my dad had the disturbing habit, once I had managed to get up the courage to ask, of not answering! He would just stand there as if he had not heard. I did not know if he was deciding what he would answer or if he had decided not to answer at all! Usually he did not answer, but sometimes would later convey his response to my mother, who would tell me!

The way God sometimes seems to keep us waiting is not like this. We hear in God’s response to the bargaining of Abraham that God wants to shower us with mercy and to give us good things if we have the right attitude, if we are willing to make the changes necessary to receive forgiveness. God is willing to cut us slack, give us time, and allow us a break. This is why He lets us ask, lets us go on asking: to get us ready to receive more than we even know how to ask for, more than we even know how to want! Not only will He not give us harmful things—like a scorpion when we want an egg or a snake when we are hungry for a fish—God wants to give us better things than we have asked for, the best things for us!

The Greatest Gift

Even more than a loving mother or father, Our Father in heaven wants to give us the greatest gift of all, the Holy Spirit. In his encyclical on the Holy Spirit, “Lord and Giver of Life,” Pope John Paul II calls the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, “Gift in person, Love in person!” The Father has sent His Son to become one of us and His Holy Spirit to dwell within us!

St. Paul explains this Gift, this Love, this Life: “And even when you were dead in transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, HE BROUGHT YOU TO LIFE ALONG WITH HIM, having forgiven us all our transgressions; obliterating the bond against us, with its legal claims, which was opposed to us, he also removed it from our midst, nailing it to the cross.”

So, we can bargain, we can beg, we can ask, we can knock. What is important is that we keep knocking, keep opening our hearts, knowing that God does not just throw us something to satisfy us. Rather, He brings us to life along with Him, by giving us Himself. He gives us Love and Life in the Holy Spirit, and in the body and blood of his Son which we receive in the Eucharist.

Fr. Thomas Acklin, O.S.B., S.T.D., Ph.D., resides at St. Vincent Archabbey in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. He presently serves as a professor of theology and psychology at St. Vincent College and St. Vincent Seminary, and is a faculty member of the Pittsburgh Psychoanalytic Institute and Foundation. Fr. Acklin has written a number of articles and recently published two books: The Unchanging Heart of the Priesthood and The Passion of the Lamb.

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