Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost
Luke 18:1-8; Genesis 32:22-31; 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5
"How does it work?" she asked. "Just push this button to turn it on," came the reply, "and then follow the directions printed on the screen." "How does it work?" he asked. "Turn the key, put in the clutch by squeezing this lever, shift it to first gear and then slowly let the clutch out while you provide a little more gas with your right foot." We live in a world where it seems we are forever learning how something else works. From programming the thermostat to cleaning the oven, operating a photocopier or using a digital camera, it is rare to have a week pass without some new technology entering our lives and causing us to wonder how it works. Pushing buttons. Turning dials. Clicking on the right sequence of commands. Most of us learn how things work best by using them.
Of course some parts of our world are beyond easy comprehension. How do you make democracy work? While we can offer many definitions and descriptions of our favorite governing form we are learning in various places around the world just how difficult it is to bring to a functional level a political theory or formula. How does it work? When a child asks that question we provide one answer. When an adult asks, it requires something far more detailed and complex. So the question that hovers above and around our Gospel lesson for today can be answered in many different ways depending on who is asking. The topic is prayer.
There was a time when whatever Jesus commanded was accepted as the divine directive to be obeyed without question. Pray always and do not lose heart. No problem. Only our children are products of the cynical generation that birthed them. We ask "Why?" and "How does that work?" While it may be true that prayer never hurts, the question we have is "Does it help?" So Jesus told a most curious parable or story about a widow pressing her case before an unjust judge. The New Testament scholar Kenneth Bailey tells a contemporary version of this parable. Dr. Bailey lived in the Middle East for 30 years and is convinced that life and the culture has changed amazingly little over the centuries. He tells of a western traveler to the small village of Nisibis in Iraq several years ago before the war. He notes that "Immediately on entering the gate of the city on one side stood the prison, with its barred windows, through which the prisoners thrust their arms and begged for alms. Opposite was a large open hall, the court of justice of the place. On a slightly raised dais at the further end sat the Kadi, the judge, half buried in cushions. Round him, squatted various secretaries and other notables. The populace crowded into the rest of the hall, a dozen voices clamoring at once, each claiming that his cause should be the first heard. The more prudent litigants joined, not in the fray, but held whispered communications with the secretaries, passing bribes, euphemistically called fees, into the hands of one or another. When the greed of the underling was satisfied, one of them would whisper to the Kadi, who would promptly call such and such a case. It seemed to be ordinarily taken for granted that judgment would go for the litigant who had bribed highest. But meantime a poor woman on the skirts of the crowd perpetually interrupted the proceedings with loud cries for justice. She was sternly bidden to be silent, and reproachfully told that she came there every day. 'And so I will,' she cried back, 'until the Kadi hears me.' At length, at the end of a suit, the judge impatiently demanded, 'What does that woman want?' Her story was soon told. Her only son had been taken for a soldier, and she was alone, and could not till her piece of ground; yet the tax collector had forced her to pay the tax, from which she, as a lone widow, was supposed to be exempted. The judge asked a few questions, and said, 'Let her be exempt.' Her perseverance was rewarded. Had she had money to fee the clerks, she might have been excused much earlier." [ Through Peasant Eyes (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980), p. 134]
Jesus then draws a contrast between the judge and God. Stressing that surely God is superior to the judge in responding to the petitions of those who come seeking justice. The challenge we face is striving to understand what this parable says about prayer. The operative form of our petitions to God. To be sure. Every prayer is a statement of faith. If we did not believe in some form of God we would not pray. Without a God to hear our prayers we are talking to ourselves. And while this has proven to be helpful in refocusing or looking for your keys. Most of the time talking to yourself is considered a sign of questionable mental stability. So we pray with the clear assumption that God is listening. But listening is no guarantee of hearing or a response as Pastor Chris reminded us all in her sermon on "mommy deafness" in children and spouse. Yet Jesus says to pray always and illustrates this constancy with the perseverance of the widow petitioning for justice. It would seem that the immediate and simple lesson we are to take from this story is that perseverance pays off.
From our daily experience this is no surprise. We have all witnessed the situation with a two year old that has decided they want a certain store item, be it candy or toy. And have let the entire store know repeatedly of their expectation. The whine becomes a mind piercing drain on our whole being. We find ourselves thinking, if not saying, "Let them have their way. Just so they will be quiet." Such a payoff for the nagging leads of course to the creation of an adolescent who expects to get their way in their constant requests for clothes, privilege and favoritism. Sometimes we are just too tired or don't have the time to hassle with the constant requests. Like the homeless or hungry person who stops by the church office looking for a little help. Sometimes it is just easier to give them ten or twenty dollars to send them on their way. Surely God the almighty creator of the universe cannot be so easily manipulated by our constant prayers. And yet why else pray if not to have an effect on God. Of course, it is at this point that many give up on God because they have not seen the effect they had requested or expected.
This is the moment that Jesus encourages us to be most constant in our prayer. It is for this reason that our lessons for today also include the Old Testament lesson. A story of one who held on through the struggles of the dark night of the soul. When we read the book of Genesis we encounter numerous figures and stories that are more then what they appear to be on first reading. While the details of some of the stories offer interesting historical perspectives on the lives of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph. There are also other levels to the stories. Take for example our lesson from Genesis for today. The covenant promise God made with Abraham has been passed to Isaac and then stolen through deception by Jacob from his brother Esau that leads to our Old Testament lesson for today where we find Jacob camping along the river Jabbok the night before a meeting with his long estranged brother. Jacob is worried that his brother might be planning him harm out of revenge for his stealing his father's blessing so Jacob sends his family and all that he has to safety on the other side of the river and prepares to spend the night alone before meeting his brother. But instead Jacob spends the night wrestling. With whom we are not clear. We are only told he wrestles with a man until daybreak. Was it God or an angel or maybe himself? Filled with guilt and doubts Jacob wrestles with the forces that surround him but without prevailing or losing. He does not escape the night without being injured. There is a price to such a struggle. But there is also a blessing that he exacts. A night of doubt. A night of prayer.
To sit by the hospital bed watching the struggle for life. There is nothing more to do than pray. But for what. Jacob held on fast. He would not let go even when in the struggle he discovered new pain. Jacob held on. Made it through the night. And in the morning he received a blessing. The end result is that immediately after our lesson reading ends the story continues with the joyful reconciliation of Jacob with his brother Esau. We struggle with our guilt. Our fears and anxieties. Prayer is an act of faith. Believing that God is there. Listening. And maybe more. Maybe what Jacob found was that God is also there to struggle with us. Not just listening but also responding. Embracing us. Trying to get us to listen also. To hear what God would have us do. Say. Believe. What if our persistence was not just a way to get God to hear us but to keep us open to hearing God?
It was John Wesley who once observed that "even though prayer does not always change God it can often change us." When Jesus said "pray always" I do not think he meant that we should have no end to our nagging but rather that there should be no end to our prayerful mindset. Prayer is not just the times we bow our heads and close our eyes and fold our hands. Prayer may be every moment of life lived as an offering to God. A prayer filled life becomes a prayer full life. That does not mean that every request is granted or every dream fulfilled. If that were the case there would be no war in Iraq. No genocide in the Sudan. No AIDS in South Africa. No unemployed or homeless or hungry in America. Every one of my prayer requests is not answered. That may be true for you also. Yet still I pray. Because prayer is an act of faith. That God does hear.
Most of you know that I visit Bill Lynn most every week. Bill is a quadriplegic. He cannot even move his head let alone any part of his body below his neck. I think as a congregation we have prayed for Bill in the prayers of the church every Sunday since Pastor Chris and I came to Holy Spirit as your pastors some 13 years ago. Every Sunday since Bill suffered his life-changing stroke 14 years ago this church has prayed. Prayed him through his time on a ventilator breathing for him. Prayed him through various reversals and complications. Prayed for him as he learned to talk again. As he was taken off the ventilator and became mobile in a wheel chair. Joining us for worship and the beef and lobster dinner. Prayed for him as he took control of his mobility using a puff and blow straw to control his wheel chair. Prayed for him as he learned to use his voice-activated computer. Recently Bill suggested that maybe it was time he came off the prayer list because he knew there had to be others who needed our prayers and he didn't want us distracted from praying for them. He said he could pray for himself. He really didn't have a whole lot more to do then pray each day. I assured him he could pray for himself and the rest of the world. And that we would remain equally constant in our prayer for him. "All right," he said, "You never know what might happen. God's funny that way." Right, I thought, God is funny that way. And Jesus said, "pray always. How do you suppose that is going to work?"
Amen