Tenacious Faith – sermon on October 16, 2016
Luke 18: 1-8 Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart. He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people. In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Grant me justice against my opponent.’ For a while he refused; but later he said to himself, ‘Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.’”
And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them. And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”
Sermon: Tenacious Faith by Rev. Doreen Oughton
Does anyone else here ever get upset with God? Maybe you feel like Eeyore with a cloud of gloom constantly overhead. You, or someone you know and care about, has the worst luck, never catches a break. Some might worry about superstitions – did I break the mirror, neglect to throw salt over my shoulder or knock wood, fail to forward this blessing promising e-mail to ten people. Others might wonder what they did to tick God off, or what God has against them. Their lives seem full of injustice despite their efforts to be good people, despite their fervent prayers. So when I read this scripture passage where Jesus asserts that God will quickly give justice to those who are persistent with their prayer, well, I have to pause for a minute.
When I was a student chaplain, we had a seminar on visualization and healing energy, how to direct it. We heard amazing stories of miracle cures and speedy recovery. After that, every day as I took the shuttle to work, I spent the 15 minutes doing a visualization exercise, sending healing energy to my sister, imagining the sun pouring God’s light and power through me out to her as I said to myself over and over, “only healthy cells, only healthy cells.” And still at her next appointment, the cancer had spread. It was discouraging, and I confess that I didn’t do my visualization practices much after that.
This passage begins with Jesus telling his disciples about how important it is for them to pray always, and never give up. He offers a parable where he seems to be equating prayer with nagging. There is a widow, one of the most powerless people in that time and place, in a dispute with an enemy. She knows she has gotten a raw deal, and will not accept it, will not make the best of it, will not resign herself to it in any way. She will not be deterred in her quest for justice. So she follows this callous judge around, approaching him day after day after day. She made it impossible for him to ignore her and go about his business. And finally, he says to himself, “it’s not like I care, I just need to get rid of this woman.” And so grants her justice.
Jesus tells the disciples that God is not like this judge. God is not callous towards people, will not grant wishes just to get rid of you. But God will hear and respond, and quickly, to those that pray night and day. Again, in terms of lived experience, I haven’t always found that to be so, at least not in the way I understand justice. How many years did the American slaves sing their spirituals and pray to God for release from captivity? And yet the legal enslavement of God’s own children continued for centuries, and their oppression long after that.
And I wonder about how Jesus is framing prayer here. Is prayer about making requests of God to fix things? Certainly that is part of our prayer time here – we seek healing and comfort and opportunity and rebuilding. We seek God’s intervention in our lives and in the lives of those we love. But there is more to it, isn’t there? I know many believe the best prayer is the one Jesus said in the Garden of Gethsemane – “not my will, but thine, be done.” Though he came around to that after asking God to remove the cup of suffering from him. More and more I think prayer is not primarily about getting God to pay attention to us, but about shaping and forming us to pay attention to God. Prayer can remind us that God is active in our lives, and God is not callous. It strengthens our relationship with God, and our relationship with ourselves. It helps clarify what it is we really want. It reminds us that our power rests in God.
There is a danger in this passage in that people can be blamed for their misfortunes and hardships because, obviously, they haven’t been praying hard enough. But I don’t think that was what Jesus, or the gospel writer Luke, had in mind. Both Jesus and Luke were addressing people who were being persecuted, and, especially for the disciples, would be facing much harder days to come. I believe Jesus wanted to help them stay in relationship with God, and to trust that they would find power there no matter how bad things seemed. Just before this reading, the disciples have asked when the kingdom of heaven will come. And his response is quite apocalyptic. He says don’t be fooled by the people say the kingdom is here when things are looking good and easy – not when people are enjoying banquets and parties and weddings; or carrying on business as usual. That’s not the time. He says the kingdom is already within their reach – it is within and among you, he says. And when the Son of Man returns, he will interrupt business as usual and parties with lightning flashes across the sky, just as when Noah’s boat set sail. He warns them things will not look like they expect.
That’s the danger of praying our wish list. We don’t always recognize God at work. And we are impatient, aren’t we? I gave up my visualization prayers after maybe a month or so just because of one doctor’s visit. But my sister lived another 8 years after that appointment. There was so much grace and blessing through all of it. And I continued to pray, but not in that way. I grew in my understanding that I didn’t know the best things to pray for. I grew in my understanding that the point of my prayer was to change me, to align myself with my God, who I know in my inmost heart is good and caring. I don’t always pray the “your will not mine” prayer. There are still situations that I feel strongly should not be accepted, that are unjust, that I believe are not willed by God. One commentator suggested that the unjust judge, who neither fears God nor respects other people, may be a stand-in for the forces of this broken world that run counter to God’s way of being; the people with power who abuse their power; those who exploit the marginalized and ignore injustice all around them. Perhaps we are called to join the tenacious widow in wearing down those trying to ignore things and get them to pay attention even for a minute, even if its just to make us go away.
I mean think of the changes in our society in a fairly short amount of time – a matter of decades. Changes that were made because of the tenacity of those crying out for justice. Legal segregation – gone. Women in the workplace – common. Women in positions of power – increasing. Child labor – illegal. There is marriage equality across the country! Tenacity matters.
We can keep seeing injustice around us, name it, refuse to collaborate with it, call and call for justice and never give up. We can pray night and day as we witness and write letters and protest and vote. In that way we clarify our vision. We seek to align it with what God’s will – not just for me as an individual, but for all of us, for God’s beloved community. Prayer will help us see that even the powerful abusing their power, even the unjust judge, are still a children of God, not people to be hated or damned. I can’t imagine being able to get to that place without prayer. It is beyond my power to love my enemy, unless my power rests in God, accessed through prayer. Perhaps that is the only way to bring true justice to this world, to truly love our enemies, to see them as siblings, precious in God’s eyes. And I tell you, it is easier to prayer for justice in the abstract, than to pray to love my enemy.
Perhaps that is why Jesus questions whether he will find faith on earth when he returns. Even those who are closest to him do not understand what he is about. They want an overthrowing of their enemies. They want to be seated on thrones, enjoying the banquets and parties. And that is with him there to guide and teach them! How quickly will they give up if he is not there and they don’t stick with prayer? So he tells them God is where the power lay. Pray night and day. God will listen, God cares, God will respond. Do not lose heart. Even if you are angry with God and you don’t understand why these things keep happening, keep turning to God. It will change you. It will strengthen you, it will bless you. May it be so.
