Proper 24

Preparation

    Please begin by reading Luke 18:1-8 in your Bible. If you do not have one at hand, we have provided that text for you at the end of this reflection.

Reflection--The Power of Persistent Prayer

   This parable, or teaching story, from Jesus is fairly simple.  A widow, who won’t take no for an answer, finally wears down a cold-hearted and arrogant judge by her persistence and gets justice.  Perseverance pays off, it seems.

On the surface, it’s an odd illustration for what Luke tells us is the point, being persistent in prayer.  A few thoughts about the characters and the setting may help. 

There was a huge difference in power between the two characters in the story in Jesus’ day.  There was the judge, who stood at the top of the social heap, and the widow, who was at the opposite end of the social spectrum.  In a time when it was thought that women should be seen and not heard (and not even seen too often!) it was extremely difficult for a woman alone to provide for herself at more than the most marginal level.  Most widows had to depend on community and family charity.  So there was a huge gulf between the widow seeking justice and the judge who had the power to grant it.  The widow used the only lever she had, persistence. 

The choice of characters is apt, because there is also an enormous difference in power between us and God.  That gulf can seem intimidating as we approach God in prayer.  Do we dare approach the One whose power created and upholds the universe? 

Jesus’ story tells us that we should be no less bold in approaching God’s throne than the widow was in approaching the judge.  In fact, it takes far less courage, because there is a big difference in the One whom we approach and the one whom the window approached.  The judge was apparently cold and arrogant.  We approach One who is not cold and distant, but who loves us intensely.  We are, as Jesus says, God’s chosen ones. 

It is that persistence part I keep having trouble with as I go along on my faith journey.  If God knows our needs and the needs of our world before we even put them into words in prayer for the first time, why should we have to continue to “pray and not give up”?  Why doesn’t God just take care of things and let us get about our business?

The core of the story is in the first and last sentences; in the phrase “not give up” and the question “when the Son of Man* comes, will he find faith on the earth?”  In other words, the lesson is really about faith. 

We live in a world that has a miniscule attention span and wants instant gratification.  Those who don’t get it too often take the easy way out and just give up.  Is it any wonder that Jesus wonders whether he will find any faith on earth when he returns?   Jesus tells us to “just keep on keeping on.”  God’s time is not our time.  God, who loves us, will work things out when the time is right in a way that’s right.  In fact, since God acts “quickly,” it is likely that God is already engaged in bringing justice.  It is just that we can’t see it yet. 

While I do not understand the mechanism of it, it is clear to me that prayer has power and that God uses the power of our persistent prayer to work things out.  We are in some way partners with God in that process. 

Jesus really poses these questions:  Are we faithful to God, as God is faithful to us?  Are we willing to be God’s partners in bringing justice to the world?  Have we built our lives on shifting sand that collapses with every shift of the tide, or are we solidly grounded in Christ, knowing that God will bring about justice for God’s chosen ones who cry out to God in prayer day and night?

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Luke 18:1-8

    Then 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.’”