The summer after my high school graduation, I had the chance to do an amazing thing. I hiked down into the Grand Canyon and back up (in our young foolishness – we did that on the same day!). As a curiosity, how many people here have been to the Grand Canyon? Even after seeing it, it is hard for me to comprehend how massive this cavity in the rock surface of the earth is.
- 277 miles long
- 18 miles at widest
- At its deepest, 6,000 feet down
- Over 16 trillion cubic feet of space
- For me, it is hard to find words to describe its enormity.
Do you know how it was created? It was created by this. The Grand Canyon was created by the Colorado River… by water. Water is soft; rock is hard. Yet in a contest between rock and water, water always wins. Not at first, perhaps, but in the end. Just ask the Grand Canyon.
In today’s Gospel, we hear a story about a judge in a certain town who neither feared God nor respected any human being. A widow in that town would come to him for a long time. Eventually, like the water of the Colorado River, she wore down the unjust judge. He relented and she received a just decision.
When we think of how this Gospel applies to our lives, I suspect that many of us may think that God is the rock, and we are the widow (the water) petitioning God. And though that certainly is one way to pray into the reading, what happens when you switch that up. What happens when you pray about God being water, and yourself being the rock? What happens when you think of God as the widow and yourself as the unjust judge.
We are the unjust judge who seemingly won’t budge. God is the widow who faithfully comes again and again and again, the water that flows day-in, day-out inviting us to let go and become something beautiful. God is the mercy that wants to flow around us, softening our edges, creating a chasm, a pathway, a channel for grace.
So, when Jesus speaks of the necessity of praying always, it is not to change God. It is primarily to change US! It is to open us up to that steady, slow, carving and shaping of love that is like water flowing over rock. “Pray always without becoming weary,” Jesus tells us. Immerse yourself in that stream of love in such a way that it touches you and takes away all that is not of God and faith and love. And like the water carving the Grand Canyon in the deserts in Arizona, trust that God comes: steadily, faithfully, humbly; never giving up on us.
I wonder if some of the struggle that people experience when they pray is precisely because we imagine ourselves as trying to change God. God already loves us more than we can imagine. God already only wants life and goodness for us. God loves us so much that God wants to shape us into something even more wonderful.
Concretely:
- Is there some hard edge that – somewhere in the back of our consciousness – we know God is wanting to soften?
- Is there some way that we are too filled with ourselves that God wants to empty a bit?
- Is there some grudge we need to let go of?
- Are our fists clenched too tightly as we face the world?
It is easy to view this world/our lives at times, like this rock – seemingly impervious to any influence, unchanging and unchangeable. But if you have been to the Grand Canyon, you know a different story. This day, let us immerse ourselves into that stream of love who is God. And just as water always wins its battle with rock, so too, does God’s grace. So, as Jesus tells us: “pray always without becoming wearing…”