God of our days and our nights, of our coming and our going, bless we pray thee, the words of my lips and the meditations of our hearts and by them and the power of your Holy Spirit, make us more fitting servants of your most Holy Will.
Perseverance is a trait that is much admired in our society and with good reason.
Those who do not try - and try again - until they succeed - are bound to fail. While those who persist, who labour unceasingly, who hang in, generally accomplish a great deal.
The bible is full of examples of perseverance - from Jacob wrestling with the angel at the River Jabuk and refusing to let this much stronger opponent go until he receives a blessing, - to Paul - who despite being imprisoned, stoned, flogged, beaten, and shipwrecked and having to endure hunger, thirst, nakedness, and rejection - went to all the known world and preached the gospel and so brought to completion the job to which Christ called him.
The Gospel today seems to be a classical example of the link between perseverance and blessing; between unflagging doggedness and achieving one's goal.
Luke sets the story in the context of a challenge Jesus makes to his disciples to pray always and not lose heart. His story describes a widow who wouldn't give up until she got what she wanted from an uncaring - an unjust - judge. Jesus concludes the story by saying: "And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night?"
The lesson seems clear - persevere and you will be blessed.
Today I want to challenge you by questioning that teaching. Indeed I want to suggest to you that Jesus was trying to tell his disciples something entirely different.
We believe, you see, in a God of grace, a God who freely gives his people what they need.
Jesus says over and over again: "I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners". And over and over again we are told by him and by the Apostles that he went to the cross for us, he died for us, while we were yet alienated from him, while we were his enemies.
Indeed the essence of the gospel is found in the scripture that says: "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that is not your own doing, it is a gift of God."
So how can we take this passage of scripture and assert that if we do something
- if we work at praying hard enough
- if we just hang in there and pester God without mercy
then God will roll over and give us what we want?
This kind of assertion reduces the gospel to a mere matter of works and it makes a mockery out of any statement that tries to assert that God is loving and giving.
Furthermore - because it reduces the gospel to a matter of works - it lays guilt trips on some people and creates pride in others:
"If you try hard enough - God will give you stuff - see what I have..."
And,
"If you don't try hard enough - God will not listen to you - you will not get what you want or need...."
How can we say such things and look one another in the eye?
How can we tell the person who is suffering from cancer - "You haven't prayed hard enough"? How can we suggest to the person whose son has been killed - "If you had remembered to pray to God every day this would not have happened?" And how can we stomach the person who suggests - that everything they have is because they worked hard and prayed to God till they got it?
Persevere and you will be blessed is not gospel!
It is important of course: fidelity, commitment, and hard work do take us places in this world, but it is not the good news we celebrate here each week.
Think for a minute of the gospel story we heard here a few weeks ago - the story of the man who goes to neighbour at midnight to borrow food for an unexpected guest. Think of the punch line of that story - how Jesus says that the neighbour will get up and give the man some bread, not because he is a friend but because of the man's persistence. And think of today's story and of it's punch line - how the unjust judge says: "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."
Though both stories sound as if their lesson is "persevere and you will be blessed" the reality is that they are told to draw a contrast: - a contrast between God and the reluctant neighbour - and between God and the uncaring Judge.
If a corrupt and unjust Judge will render justice because the plaintiff is so persistent, how much more is God, who loves us and is concerned about us, willing to answer us when we call to him?
Which leads to the point of the parable - to the reason Jesus told this story. The words with which the story opens - and indeed the words with which it closes.
To remind you - the opening line was: "Then Jesus told them a story about their need to pray always and not to lose heart"
The concluding line is "I tell you, God will quickly grant justice to those who cry to him day and night.... and yet when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?"
Jesus calls us, with the example of the widow and the unjust judge, to have faith, to trust that God in his goodness will bring about the justice we all seek, the blessing we all require - and that we should continue in prayer for these things till they happen.
It is simply a matter of timing.
I head a story which illustrates how we often confuse God's timing with our own.
A rural newspaper overseas had been running a series of articles on the value of church attendance. One day, a letter to the editor was received. It read:
"Print this if you dare. I am trying an experiment. I have a field of corn which I plowed on Sunday. I planted it on Sunday. I did all the cultivating on Sunday. I gathered the harvest on Sunday and hauled it to my barn on Sunday. I find that my harvest this October is just as great as any of my neighbours' who went to church on Sunday. So where was God all this time?"
The editor printed the letter, but added his reply at the bottom: "You're mistake was in thinking that God always settles his accounts in October."
That's often our mistake as well, isn't it? Thinking that God should act when and how we want him to act, according to our timetable and according to our desire.
The fact that our vision is limited, that we are unable to see the end from the beginning, somehow escapes our minds. That our desire, while often very good, runs against the freedom that God has given, for good or ill, to all people...
Bad things happen my friends. And Sometimes it seems to us that God doesn't care:
- that he doesn't make a difference in our lives
- that justice will not come about,
- that evil will prevail
- that death will have the last word.
This is why Jesus says we ought to pray always and not lose heart. This is why he asks "when the Son of Man comes will he find faith on earth?"
Persistence in prayer is part of what faithfulness is all about.
It means refusing to give in to appearances and continuing to trust God to act in his way and in his time. It may appear that we are alone. It may appear that God does not hear. It may appear that injustice and evil are prevailing. BUT faith dares to go on praying, it dares to approach the reality we cannot see and live by it.
This is what makes people of faith different from other people. We are willing to live by what we cannot see, but believe to be real, rather than by what we can see, and what the world tells us is real.
Many people pray my friends - And mostly they pray when they are in a jam and are desperate because they cannot come up with some fast and efficient human solution.
- They pray because they have an incurable disease
- They pray because they cannot figure out any way to help themselves.
And when they don't get the answer they expect when they expect it, the
temptation is to stop praying and start asking "Why?"
That is not faith my friends.
It is not faithful living.
It is not what Jesus calls us to.
Jesus calls us to pray always and not to lose heart.
God has a blessing in mind for us.
He has promised to stand by us and to vindicate us.
He has promised a new heaven and a new earth.
He has promised to save and deliver those who trust in him, - those who are joined to his people, those who have faith.
The real lesson of today's gospel is not - persist and you will get a blessing.
That is not in doubt for those who believe.
The real lesson is found in our reaction to the world around us - in our reaction to our trials and tribulations and to the trials and tribulations of this world.
Do we trust God. Do we believe? Do we pray always and not lose heart? Or do we see this world as all there really is - and only go to God when we can't do anything else, and then abandon God when things aren't happening as we think they should.
Where is the point in your life at which you need to let go of your fears, your frustrations, your impatience, your anger, and sink down into patient trusting in God's timing and his way of working?
Where is the point in your life at which you need to stop asking Why and instead trust God to bring about that which He has promised? That which he calls us to pray for and to look for and to expect during the time when it doesn't seem to be happening.
When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?
That is the question this parable asks of each of us. May you be blessed in your own answering of it, day by day, till the day our Saviour returns. Amen
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