Pray and Do Not Lose Heart
II Timothy 3:14 - 4:5
Luke 18:1 - 8
Text: ". . . so that she may not wear me out by continual coming."
. . . Luke 18:7
A man was wondering if his wife had a hearing problem. So one night, he stood behind her while she was sitting in her lounge chair. He spoke softly to her, "Honey, can you hear me?" There was no response.
He moved a little closer and said again, "Honey, can you hear me?" Still, no response. Finally he moved right behind her and said, "Honey, can you hear me?"
She replied, "For the third time, Yes!"
Sometimes we may wonder if God can hear us. Our lives can get pretty messy sometimes. We may feel as if we are in a pressure cooker, and sometimes it blows up, and things get pretty messy. Yet our prayers, if we ever get around to them, don't seem to be getting through. They bounce off the ceiling. Is God deaf?
And then something happens, and we realize that we are the ones who can't hear. God has been answering us all along, and we've been too deaf to hear, too blind to see.
Well, the Gospel writer Luke moves us back to one of his most central concerns - prayer. In today's gospel, Jesus tells a parable about a persistent woman who harasses an unjust judge until he finally gives in and gives her the just judgment she demands. This is said to be a parable about how we ought to "pray always and not lose heart."
But the parable raises questions. Is this a story about God? Must we beat upon God's door, harassing God day and night until God finally gives in and gives us what we want? Or is this a parable about us?
Jesus tells a parable about a very persistent woman. She is a widow, which means that she is very vulnerable. In that day and in that culture, she had no one to look out for her interests, no one to protect her.
She has a case against someone. Perhaps someone has taken advantage of her in business, someone has used her vulnerability in order to get something out of her. She knows she has been a victim and now she wants her due justice. So she takes her case to a judge. He is not a very conscientious judge. In fact, this judge "neither feared God nor regarded people." He was as corrupt a judge as could be imagined. Even worse then the DC judge that took the Dry Cleaners to court for millions of dollars for losing a pair of his pants. At any rate, he basically tells the pleading widow, "Get lost!"
But this woman is not so easily put off. She keeps banging on the door, calling him, leaving messages on his answering machine, in short, making a general nuisance of herself until finally the judge says, "Though I care nothing for jurisprudence or the fine points of the law", (and perhaps under his breath "and I really don't care about this woman"). Therefore, I will give this woman what she wants to get her out of my hair!" I doubt the first century Bar Association gave this judge an award for exemplary performance, but the widow got her justice.
Now, Jesus reasons, if a jerk like this judge will finally succumb and do what is right, how much more will God vindicate those who pray?
What is the point?
One of the ways we interpret parables is to try to figure out which character represents God. On first blush we may want to have the judge be God - the only alternative would be the widow. Well, the judge changed his behavior and finally gave in. Does this mean that God will change if we keep persistently ask him for something?
That is a tempting thought. I mean, who wouldn't like to be able to influence the Almighty!
I think the key here is the phrase, "how much more will God vindicate those who pray." It isn't that the judge is representing God, but "how much more will God vindicate those who pray. No, prayer is not so much an attempt to influence God, much less to get God to change God's mind. No, it is an act of opening oneself to God Who is already present.
I think Jesus is reminding us that in every circumstance we need to continue to pray. It is a parable, not just about prayer, but about persistence in prayer. The key in this parable is not who represents God, but that the widow represents us and how we are to pray! In prayer, in the religious life, in our relationship to God, we are to keep at it. We need to continue to open ourselves to the presence of God and remind ourselves that God can put things right. Be persistent! Persevere!
Persistence and perseverance just are not popular in our "instant" world. Instant oatmeal. The three-minute boiled egg. One hour dry cleaning. Twenty minute pizza delivery. An oil change in less than an hour. A meal in a microwave in four minutes. Excellent health in just 20 minutes a day, only three days a week. A sense of well-being after only a weekend in a seminar to gain enlightenment. And now an internet search engine (Ask.com) that promises "Instant Get-ification."
And while we're at it, let's be confessional. A relationship with Christ in only an hour a week? Why not?
Persistence is a virtue not often lauded by us preachers. Too often we depict the Christian faith as a matter of momentary encounters with God, all done at God's initiative, pure gift without anything to be done by us. We are saved, we rightly claim, not by our earnest works, but rather by the sheer grace of God in Christ.
True. But having said that, we must also hear Jesus' exhortation to "pray always and not lose heart." Perhaps many lose heart because they have neglected the virtue that the poor widow had so much of - tenacity. Persistence. Importunity.
Oh, it's true, we cannot save ourselves. We do not have it within ourselves to secure our relationship with God. It is by God's saving grace that we are saved. But we cannot only depend on God in this relationship - we are able to do something.
Jesus says that we ought to be persistent in regard to prayer. Prayer is more than the words that we say to God. Prayer is all the things that we do and say in our relationship with God. In fact, our relationship with God is prayer. So this is not so much a story about the right technique, but our side of a right relationship with God. God, in Jesus Christ, has already done all that needs to be done to fulfill God's part in the relationship. God sent his only Son Jesus to us, who taught us, healed, lived among us, suffered for us, and died, then rose again from the dead. He came back to us, and he forgave us. That is God's part of the deal.
But what about our part of the deal? I think this is a parable about that. Our part of the deal is persistence. We are saved by God's grace, not by our work, but still there is an appropriate response to God's free and gracious love for us. That response is persistence.
Therefore, we must be persistent. You will notice that in church, despite the variation in our Sunday services, that our Sundays here are characterized by ritual, habit, and repetition. This is not simply because Christians are inherently traditionalists, though in many ways we are. Rather, we are persistent. Jesus has urged us to keep at it. We are formed, in the world, by so many different habits and rituals. Therefore we must come to church on Sunday and gain different rituals, allow ourselves to be formed by other habits.
We live in a society of instant gratification. There are people who expect to have the fruits of the Christian life - joy, peace, trust, courage, confidence, and all the rest - without the disciplines of the Christian life. There are people who think that they can "get" the Christian faith in a weekend. But beware of a promise of an easy, quick payoff when it comes to our relationship with God.
Nor is it any different in sports. Consider this about why millions of us enjoy sports of various kinds. We live in a superficial culture where many of us find any sort of discipline or struggle difficult. We want instant results, immediate gratification.
And yet, deep down we know something. In watching a great three-point shot in basketball, or victory at the end of an eight-hour stock car race, a long pass in football, we realize that we are watching the fruits of hours of practice, days of disciplined work, physical pain, intense focus, and persistence.
This is why we cheer (- well, for most of you it is "Hail to the Redskins!").
I have found in friendship with other people that one of the reasons we have so few friends is that friendship takes time. There must be hours, years, of being with one another, hanging out together, conversing with one another, hearing stories about life, and exploring the richness of another human being. You can't have a really good friend overnight. It requires time. A good friend reminds me that "the best friends are old friends."
Persistence. Perseverance.
The same is true in regard to our friendship with God. God is totally available to us. But we - due to our sin, our distractions, and the numerous cares of the world - are not totally available to God. Therefore, we must keep at it. We must keep focusing, listening, and tuning our souls to God's gracious incursions among us. We must keep at it - Sunday after Sunday.
Well, there you have it. This is not a glamorous sermon. It has no cute story to remember and hook your imagination. I really don't know any funny jokes about persistence. I can't even come up with a nice question to leave you with to ponder the rest of the week.
You may even have noticed that this sermon has been rather repetitious. My usual style of three stories in search of a point has been reduced to one point repeated three times. Persistence. Persistence. Persistence.
This is just a plow ahead sermon. Keep at it. Be persistent. Pray always . . . and don't lose heart. Don't give up.
God won't.