October 20, 2019

 October 20, 2019              Luke 18:1-8         Genesis 32:22-31              2 Timothy 3:14-4:5

                The first time my son said “daddy” he and I were coming home from the farmer’s market and my husband opened the door to welcome us back home and Sterling, who was about 10 months old, said, “Daddy!”  It was a joyous moment, that we’d been anticipating since before he was born.  For such a long time the baby communicates with snorts and giggles and cries and funny facial expression we all try to interpret the way we like.  But one day, he gets language and communication is taken to a whole new level. 

                Prayer is communication with God.  It might or might not involve words, but when we communicate with God our thanks, our dreams, our desires, our hopes, and our fears, I have to think that God feels like when a parent is addressed by their child for the first time.  Now at our house, the communication is more like this, “Mom! Mom! Mom!” or “Dad! Dad! Dad!”  Everything is so urgent.  But I treasure this time because my son wants to communicate with me and his dad.  He wants to share about what’s important to him.  He wants to have a conversation.  And frankly I am aware the time will come when he keeps things more to himself. I hope to keep the communication open as long as possible. 

                Prayer is communication with God.  It is listening.  It is sharing.  It is building a relationship.  It is showing up every day to exchange ideas and hold each other accountable.  Like any other relationship it takes intentionality and persistence.  Jesus is telling the disciples, his followers, about their need to pray.  Prayer isn’t just important, it’s a necessity.  And not a necessity to get God to listen to us.  I believe God knows what’s going on with us and cares about it whether we pray or not.  But prayer is a necessity for us, to help us take a look at ourselves and focus on God.  Sometimes I pray and I think, “Do I hear what I’m even saying? Is that really what’s best in this situation?  How can I be open to other ways of seeing this?  What is the bigger picture from God’s point of view?”  Prayer makes us take a look at what’s really going on, past our assumptions and self-righteousness and open ourselves to new insights.  Prayer makes us look at our expectations and ask ourselves—is this realistic?  What more is God asking of me in this situation?  And prayer encourages us.  It keeps us going when the odds are against us or it seems impossible.  I think Prayer also helps us tell our story—why my particular need or my neighbor’s need is important, how did I get to this point, what are the possible outcomes, and what does God have to do with it?  What might God see here that I don’t see?  What gives me the strength and determination to go on, despite all that I’ve faced? And when we pray for someone else, especially if we let them know we are praying for them, we can hear their story of how they got to this point, what is most important to that person, what gives them strength, and what is God asking of them.  When we can ask some of these questions without judging or presuming an answer, we can invite our neighbor into a deeper conversation with us and God about faith.

                Some have said that the story of Jacob wrestling with God is one of prayer.  Do your prayers sometimes feel like a wrestling match?  It’s ok if they do, because Jacob wrestled with God.  He was in turmoil because he was about to meet his brother Esau on the other side of the river.  He hadn’t seen him in years.  The two were estranged partly because Jacob had deceived his brother and stolen his birthright.  Now the two were about to meet.  Jacob sends his wives and children across the river ahead of him to his brother and waits behind on this night wrestling.  He’s wrestling with what he did to his brother.  He wrestles with the consequences of what he’s done and what kind of reception he should expect from a brother he’s wronged.  And he’s wrestling with God, who he is accountable to for his actions.  He wrestles and he comes away scarred.  He wrestles and he comes away with a new name, a new chance.  And sure enough when he meets his brother across the river, he finds love, forgiveness, and new relationship, something that he doesn’t deserve.  He wrestles with God and his brother and he finds new life.

                There a couple of things to clarify in this Gospel.  One is the word, “justice,” that the widow is seeking.  When we hear it, we might think of the justice system and think of punishment.  But here the word justice has to do with a reorientation of life toward equity for all people.  When justice is achieved, people are heard, they have what they need, no one is cheating them or using their power to hurt them. This woman believes she is wronged, and she wants it corrected, not just for her at this moment, but going forward for all people, to make it right and to ensure that it doesn’t happen to anyone again. 

                Luke’s audience would probably be thinking of a specific example of justice they are seeking.  They are thinking of the suffering Christians.  They were being oppressed—dragged out and locked up for questioning, banished from their families, persecuted.  The persecuted Christians are the one crying out for help.  And they are asking God to grant them justice.  Turn this world around God.  And that’s part of the end of the parable because it seemed like it was taking a long time for God to set things right.  Yet here it seems to be arguing that God does not delay long in helping them. 

                In response to the persecution of the church and all theirs suffering, Jesus tells this parable.  God is not like this judge, but if this unjust judge can get it right because he’s sick of dealing with this woman, how much more will God, who loves us and is just and caring.  This judge couldn’t be more different than God.  This judge has a lot of power over other people, however, this judge is isolated and alone.  He is so alone that he’s talking to himself.  “Listen, me, although I couldn’t care less, still I’m sick of this, so I’m going to get this woman off my back by granting her request.”  He, literally, has no one he is relationship with that he can talk this over with. He has no one to relate to.

                That’s the complete opposite of God.  God wants to be in relationship with us.  God is constantly seeking us out and listening to our pleas.  Even when we’re silly, or selfish or sinful or argumentative, still God wants to hear it.  Even when we fight God, or wrestle with God, like Jacob, God can take it.  God wants to know us, and one of the best ways for God to know us through prayer—communication, relationship.  It’s the same with our kids, right, or our siblings, or nieces and nephews.  They may be grouchy or hurting or annoying, but we love them and we want to hear from them, we want to be in communication with them and know how they are doing, for the most part. 

                I think sometimes we agonize about whether our prayer is worthy of God’s attention, or how to word things.  Should we be specific and ask for certain outcomes or should we simply say, “Thy will be done!”  We shouldn’t let our uncertainty about getting it right stop us.  We don’t have to have the right prayer or the right way of saying it.  We don’t even have to use words.  God can decide what to do with that prayer, and can still affect us, will still love us however our imperfect communication comes out.  Don’t let your fears and insecurities stop you and even if its been a long time and really awkward, pray.  God’s been there the whole time.  This parable is not saying that we are bothering God with our prayers.  It is just saying that we can persist in prayer, without giving up even if it seems like nothing is changing, even when you hear a big “no” from the world and you wonder if God is also saying no.  That’s what faith is.  It is hanging on to the hope we have in Jesus Christ.  It isn’t hanging on to the hope that we’ll get everything we want or that things will go our way, it is clinging to the promise that God is always in relationship with us, giving us love and new life, and always listening and present.

                Another part I’d like to point out about this parable is that prayer takes action.  This woman could have sat home and prayed and hoped that things would change.  Instead she got up day after day and went to a place where she was despised to plead her case before people who didn’t care about her.  She left the house and she went and spoke truth in the halls of power.  Our faith must be accompanied by action.  Our prayers must be active.  They must make us ask, why is this unjust thing happening in the first place and how can we get at the source of the problem.  We can’t just put bandaids on people and patch their wounds.  We need to ask, why are they getting wounded in the first place?  We need to go to the source of the injustice and confront it.  Why are these people hungry in the first place and how do I participate in a system that oppresses hungry people and keeps food out of the mouths of little children?  How can I use my gifts that God has given me, my voice, my influence, to state the truth—that this is not how God would want this world to be ordered, where widows and orphans suffer—and to articulate a vision that we read about in Revelation that we can all work toward where every tear will be dried and every belly have enough to eat and new, abundant life will come to all who have been oppressed and neglected.  How do we work together toward that vision, locally, to make changes that bring justice and hope?

                My final thought is that maybe Jesus is the widow. He keeps coming to us again and again, pleading his case, trying to build relationship, urging us toward justice.  We’re distracted, we’re talking to ourselves, we’re focused on other things.  But if you’ve tried to ignore Jesus, or the Holy Spirit, you know how persistent they can be.  Even when we rejected him and killed him for seeking justice for people we’d rather ignore, Jesus still claims us as his own and gives us new life, forgiveness, and hope.  So may Jesus pester with you all with love and grace and the truth, and because his persistence may you find relationship and hope and justice.