WE HAVE TO ASK

He made her ask.  At the wedding at Cana, Jesus made his mother ask for what everyone could see was needed in order to save the party.  When the wine ran out, Mary simply informed Jesus, “They have no wine.”  Jesus’s first response was as if to say, “Yeah that’s too bad, but what can I do about it; what can anybody do about it?”  Mary didn’t have the direct answer to that question, but she knew that Jesus could do something to make things right.  But he had to be asked. “Do whatever he tells you,” Mary said to the servers.  And once he had been invited into the situation, a miracle occurred in the transforming of water in to wine in abundance.  But Jesus first had to be asked. 

Mary can be a most excellent model for prayer here, because she hasn’t already decided in advance what Jesus ought to do and how he should make his mercy shown.  “Do whatever he tells you,” she says. 

Most of us, I think, when we pray are really quite good at asking for things, but our prayers can sound different from Mary’s.  Instead of praying, “Lord I will await whatever you do and however you choose to answer,” we can spend time more like delivering a list of expected results from God.  Instead of simply laying the problem at the feet of Jesus and trusting, “Lord, they have no wine,” we often add another clause to the sentence, “Lord, here is the need, and here’s what I expect you to do about it.”  And when Jesus doesn’t respond in just the way we expect, disappointment and cynicism can set in.  He needs to be asked, but he doesn’t need to be told what to do.  That would be making God the servant of us, rather than the way it should be.

We should never be afraid to ask for God’s help, provided we are patient and trusting enough to let the answer come in its own way and in its own time:  God’s way. 

“They have no more wine,” she said long ago.  Today we might add:

• There’s a pandemic that is killing millions of people
• There is senseless violence in our city and around the world
• Nations and cultures are at war
• Racism is making us something less than human
• So many people in the world are isolated and alone, or abused, or unloved

Merely stating our need in prayer is its own request for God to help us.  But he has to be asked.  Even with our best human efforts, the tasks are simply too great for us to make right all by ourselves.  We need God’s miraculous grace, but we have to ask for it.  God is a respecter of our freedom; he will not barge into our life situations where he has not been invited.  When Jesus saw that they had run out of wine at Cana, he knew that there was a need, and he knew that he could do something about it.  But his first response was, “What does this concern of yours have to do with me?”  He made them ask; he made them articulate the problem, and then to they waited for him to act. 

That is an excellent model for all of our intercessory prayers, both as individuals and as a community.  May we be courageous enough to ask, rather than trying to do everything ourselves.  May we allow God the freedom to respond as he sees best, rather than requiring that God conform to our expectations.  And may we be sensitive and alert enough to recognize the grace that he gives us when at last he arrives.