Praying Always (Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost)
Sermons on YouTube…
This year in Confirmation class, we’re spending most of the year studying the Lord’s Prayer. That may seem like kind of a lot of time to study a prayer that takes only a few seconds to pray.
But when we study the Lord’s Prayer, we’re not just looking at the words Jesus taught his first disciples to pray. And we’re not just studying the deeper meaning of a couple of the words. Rather, whenever we study the Lord’s Prayer – whether in Confirmation or in adult study – we’re looking at prayer in a bigger picture. We stop to consider, what is prayer all about? What should be our attitude in prayer? What do we expect prayer to do? And indeed, why do we pray at all?
In fact, these are the issues Jesus is bringing up when he tells his first disciples this parable about a widow and an “unjust” judge. The parable really isn’t about either widows or judges, but about prayer in its deeper sense – why should we pray and why shouldn’t we just give up if nothing appears to happen right away.
And Jesus told this parable because even many of his first followers wondered about many of the same questions we often ask. And like many of us, many of those first disciples did pray, and considered prayer a good thing. But also like many of us, they probably got stuck on the idea that prayer was:
- Telling God stuff he already knew about … (why tell God what I need or want? Doesn’t God already know that? And after all, do I like it when my inbox get filled with copies of emails I already have? So why bother God?!)
- Folding your hands, closing your eyes and sitting still … (that is, they got stuck in a kind of rote ritual; Besides, doesn’t God have other things you’re supposed to be doing? And if you’re an extravert, sitting still with your eyes closed doesn’t sound all that appealing anyway…)
- Maybe even pointless … after all, doesn’t God do what God wants anyway? Isn’t God’s good and gracious will done whether I ask for it or not? And do I really think I can make God do something he doesn’t want to do?
I suspect that’s what a lot of folks thought about prayer back then. And that’s what a lot of folks still think about prayer today. And so it was in the context of those ideas about prayer that Jesus told this parable. And Jesus sets up a story in which the protagonist is one of the most vulnerable and weakest members of the society and the antagonist is one of the most powerful people, and a total sociopath to boot!
The contrast between these two characters is striking. Yet the most striking thing about this parable is the way in which the widow “prays”. What the widow is doing may not look like any of our conventional ideas about what prayer looks like. And that’s precisely the point. Jesus sets up a scenario in which prayer is:
- An active thing you do – the widow doesn’t sit in her house and hope; she gets up and gets in the face of the judge, over and over again; in today’s first reading, Jacob’s “prayer” is his act of wrestling with God; and often for us, prayer is about being actively involved in what we’re asking for … (Luther’s comment about praying for daily bread …)
- About seeking “justice” – the widow doesn’t simply ask for what she wants; she asks for what’s “just”. Often, folks get hung up about prayer because they focus on what they “want” rather than about trying to figure out what’s right for them and for others; but prayer is also about listening, not just talking to God … (Luther’s comment about God’s good and gracious will …)
- Confidence in the final outcome – the widow frankly knows that the judge is a sociopath; but she figures if she keeps bothering him, eventually he’ll give in because he’s tired of dealing with her; so, Jesus says, are we as confident in God’s love and care that we’re absolutely certain that in the end, God will take care of us and the whole world? If you’re not confident, it’s better to keep your hands folded and your eyes closed. If you are confident, even a little bit, you can open your eyes and raise your hands, and get on with the real work of prayer that God calls you to…
In the end, the only way to “pray always” is to live our prayers. And Jesus teaches us in this parable that prayer is supposed to be a way of life. It’s a way of life in which we’re willing to be God’s instruments in bringing about the things we pray for. It’s a way of life in which we’re willing to listen for what God is saying to us and how God is guiding us. And it’s a way of life in which we come to so trust in God’s love and goodness that God is seen through our confidence in his love instead of through some kind of pious demeanor.
Amen.