Part 3 – The Persistence of Prayer – Aug 19, 2018
Scripture readings: 2 Chronicles 6:19-21, Psalm 4, Hebrews 4:14-16, Luke 18:1-8
This morning we continue our series on Prayer. We began by acknowledging that the power that undergirds our prayers does not depend on us, does not depend on the words we use when we pray, on the status of our faithfulness or the closeness of our relationship with God.
Instead the power that undergirds our prayer is the power that flows from God’s mercy, from God’s gracious love, it’s the power that flows through the Holy Spirit who intercedes for us, who touches the heart of God on our behalf; and it’s the power that comes from the vine, comes from Jesus in whom we abide.
Last week, we considered the promises of prayer. We listened to the witness of Paul who assured us that the Lord, who is near, encourages us to ask, to let our requests be made known, and that the peace of God, holds us tightly, the peace of God guards our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus as we abide in the vine of Jesus, while we wait, while we live, and while we pray.
Now today, we give thanks for the words of Jesus who teaches us to persist in our prayer and calls us to not lose heart. He does this through a parable.
Remember that a parable is a simple story used to illustrate a moral or spiritual lesson.
The parable we heard this morning is tricky, it can be easily misunderstood, so let’s look at it more closely.
The first thing that we need to notice is that Luke tells us exactly what Jesus hoped would happen as a result of the parable: that the disciples would pray always and not lose heart.
Luke also makes it clear that it’s their need to pray always and not lose heart.
Their need – a deep ache in their hearts to be in a relationship with God, to bring their concerns to God. A need to seek God’s help, God’s strength to handle whatever they were facing, whatever would cause them to lose heart.
The solution that Jesus gives to their discouragement, to their anxiety, to their suffering, their pain, their struggle – the solution is to pray, and not just pray once – but pray always – to persist in their praying.
To make this point – Jesus tells them a parable about a widow and an unjust judge.
At the time of Jesus, a widow generally had no education, no job, no money, no property, no status, and no power. Her survival was critically linked to whether or not she had a son, a father, or a brother-in-law who would agree to care for her. If not, she would most likely become a beggar and she’d forever remain a social outcast to those in her community.
This uncertain future often left widows defenseless, poor, and oppressed.
To make an already challenging situation worse, the widow in the parable also faced a human adversary. She was battling some sort of villain and was losing. She has no good way to protect herself and so she goes before a local judge to plead her case and throw herself on his mercy. While this widow may have been defenseless and powerless in some areas of her life, she chose to be courageous when she approached the judge.
Now we’re told that the judge in this parable neither feared God nor had respect for people. Without fear of God, the judge had no sense of accountability. He did not respect God’s word, God’s wisdom, or God’s justice. As a result, he made his own justice and decreed whatever suited his fancy, whatever made him look good, whatever benefited him.
Without respect for other human beings, the judge didn’t care about how his decisions affected the people who seek justice in his courtroom. Since people didn’t matter to him, he felt free to use and abuse them. He saw them as irritating problems, interruptions, headaches, and hassles; one more item on his to-do list.
This was the type of person who would serve as the widow’s last resort.
We’re told that the judge refused to grant justice to the widow until finally, her continuous bothering, her persistence wore him out. The unjust judge didn’t grant justice to the widow because it was the right thing to do, no, the judge did this because of her persistence, her continuous bothering wore him out!
This parable can be easily misunderstood especially if we approach it as an allegory if we try to equate our loving God with the unjust judge – when we do this we might be tempted to think that our God gets worn out by our persistence – that our prayers, our persistence bothers God. And that our prayers are only answered because our continual persistence wears God out.
Now, we know this isn’t true, this isn’t the nature of the God we worship, the God who loves us.
So, instead of using allegory to understand this parable, let’s think about what this parable is saying about God, and us, and prayer.
This is a parable of contrasts –Jesus is contrasting the unjust judge to our God.
Jesus is saying that our God, is not like this unjust judge who gets worn out by our persistence.
Instead, our God wants to answer us, wants to hear our cries, wants to grant justice, wants to hear our prayers all day and all night.
In our prayers we may sometimes feel like the widow: alone, powerless, forgotten, abandoned, and with no status. The truth, though, is the opposite. We are God’s adopted children. We are in God’s family and we matter to God.
So, don’t tiptoe into God’s presence, trying to find the secret to attract God’s attention. Instead, boldly approach God. Be courageous and with all confidence come to God in prayer. Boldly let your requests be made known to God. And then know, know that God absolutely loves to hear your voice!
When God seems slow to respond, we may suspect a lack of concern. But Jesus corrects the misconception, pointing beyond how we may feel to an assurance of God’s mercy.
If even this widow got justice from a heartless judge, how much more will “God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night.”
Jesus tells us that God will quickly grant justice. Quickly. I don’t about you, but I haven’t experienced many quick answers to my prayers. Sometimes, the answers aren’t evident until after a situation has been resolved when you look back and say. Oh, so that’s how God answered my prayer.
To help us with this word “quickly”, I look to 2ndPeter 3, where Peter writes:
8But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day. 9The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance.
So today, Jesus calls us to persist in our prayers so that we do not lose heart. Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem, on his way to the cross, when he told this parable. He anticipated that the disciples, that we, would become discouraged, would lose heart, as we face the ups and downs of life. And so, he calls them, he calls us, to persevere, to persevere in faith, to persevere in hope, to persevere in prayer. Because the God of peace, is holy and tender, responsive and sympathetic, and willingly hears our prayers and is eager to act on our behalf.
Let us pray…