Exodus, Tertullian

Exodus 34:
"I will drive out before you the Amorites, Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. Take care, therefore, not to make a covenant with these inhabitants of the land that you are to enter; else they will become a snare among you. Tear down their altars; smash their sacred pillars, and cut down their sacred poles . . . Neither shall you take their daughters as wives for your sones; otherwise, when their daughters rendert heir wanton worship to their gods, they will make your sons do the same."

I'm amazed at how the Sciptures continually take on new meaning throughout our lives. Once I might have used this passage as evidence of God's unjustness. "What did those Amorites and Jebusites do to deserve being driven out?" I'd have asked myself, rejecting the possibility that a loving God could be at work in this way. Later, I reached the point of asking God, "Why would you do such a thing, Lord?" Then I could see how the faithfulness of God's people might have served as a sign of God's love and fidelity for those around them, so they too might be drawn into the faithful love of the Lord. When God's people failed to heed this warning, their faithlessness bore a negative witness, instead.

But when I ask the Lord what significance this passage could possibly hold for me today, three millenia after his people entered the promised land, a whole new window opens up. "With what natives of this world have I made a covenant?" I must inquire. "With what influences have I joined my flesh, rather than driving them out of my life?" In our baptism, God delivers us from the death of sin into his kingdom of life, but there remain many things around us that are not his desire for us. When we take them to ourselves and hold them dear, they keep us from experiencing the full, abundant life God has promised us.

Tertullian:
"Prayer cleanses from sin, drives away temptations, stamps out persecutions, comforts the fainthearted, gives new strength to the courageous, brings travelers safely home, calms the waves, confounds robbers, feeds the poor, overrules the rich, lifts up the fallen, supports those who are fallings, sustains those who stand firm."

We mustn't misunderstand. It isn't that by our prayer we accomplish any of these things. "Prayer," as an action that we undertake on our own, couldn't do anything. Rather, God does them all, and as we open ourselves to God and allow him to draw us into true prayer, in spirit and in truth (last Sunday's cycle A gospel), we are brought in touch with God's grace. The more we embrace the aforementioned worldly or sinful influences, the less able we are to pray well and to experience the resulting power of God to transform our lives. But when we allow God to free us from the influence of the "natives" in our lives, he accomplishes all of the wonders St. Tertullian mentions, and more. It is through prayer that God moves in and through our lives most powerfully.