Sermon for the 18th Sunday of Trinity: Persistent Prayer.

Romans 12: 9 - 16

Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. 10 Be devoted to one another in love. Honour one another above yourselves. 11 Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervour, serving the Lord. 12 Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. 13 Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.

14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. 15 Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. 16 Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited.

Luke 18.

1 Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. 2 He said: ‘In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared what people thought. 3 And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, “Grant me justice against my adversary.”

4 ‘For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, “Even though I don’t fear God or care what people think, 5 yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually come and attack me!”’

6 And the Lord said, ‘Listen to what the unjust judge says. 7 And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? 8 I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?’

In our reading from Luke Jesus told a story about prayer, even if the widow in the story is not actually praying. The widow wanted an urgent response to her plea for justice from a judge, but she was not getting one. Jesus says that the judge, ‘neither feared God nor cared what people thought.’

The widow, however, did not give up, and wore the judge down with her repeated petitions. English translations of this bible passage are usually a bit insipid, when the Jesus says that the Judge gives in because the woman is continually bothering him the actual implication in the Greek text is that the Judge is concerned for his safety; the Greek is ‘hypōpiazē’ – to harass, strike or exhaust. This was clearly a formidable widow.

We don’t often recognise humour in the bible, but this is a humorous story Jesus is telling, pitching the plucky underdog against the lazy authority figure. The idea of a Judge being afraid of a widow would have made Jesus’ listeners smile.

The story is told by Jesus to illustrate the point that prayer sometimes needs to be persistent, that you should ‘pray and not give up.’ If even this good for nothing Judge relents in the end and grants the widow’s request, how much more faithful will our loving Father God be in granting our requests? If we have to be persistent in prayer, there must be a good reason for God’s delay as he is not like the negligent judge, God does care.

I sometimes say that ‘God hears our prayers and answers in love’, that means at times God’s answer to our prayers may have to be ‘no’, or the answer may be ‘not yet’, and other times our prayers may be answered in ways that we did not expect or ask.

God answers out of His wisdom and love, just as any parent responds to a child’s requests, a child's requests are not always wise.

The last line of the passage is curious, Jesus says, ‘However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?’

Jesus often refers to himself as the Son of Man, and he often says that he will return, but the phrase ‘will he find faith on the earth?’ can seem disconnected from the story of persistent prayer, the story is about prayer not faith, but again, a close look at the original Greek is helpful; one good modern translation renders the line, ‘But how much of that kind of persistent faith will the Son of Man find on the earth when he returns?”

Persistent prayer and faithfulness are both about not giving up.

So why does Jesus want us to be persistent in prayer even if God is telling us the answer has to be ‘no’ or ‘not yet’?

Well, prayer changes things, and the thing it changes most is you. In persistent prayer we find out what we really want, persistent prayer is a process of refinement, over time it concentrates our minds on what matters, and we may find what we want changes. We actually can gain wisdom and insight.

When I was in my early twenties I had a friend who was besotted with a pretty young lady, he extolled her virtues and bemoaned her rejection of him in equal measure. At length he went to see the vicar of our church to ask why God had given him this love for a woman who would not love him back, was she frustrating God’s match making plans?

Apparently the Vicar listened to him for a while then told him to lie down in front of the altar, face down, arms and legs out, and he told him, ‘stay there, and I will stay with you, until either God answers your question, or you realise that you can in fact live without this woman.’

‘What happened?’ I asked my friend.

‘After about an hour I realised I was being a stubborn fool so I got up.’

I think that vicar had some nerve, but it worked. Stuck in apparently unanswered prayer my friend finally gained some wisdom. In any case, she was way out of his league and I told him as much, although he didn’t seem to take that as any consolation.

There are times when what we pray for is actually wise and good, yet we are denied. Such times are painful; they make us wonder if God is indeed like the Judge in the story of the Persistent Widow. When people say that they have lost their faith in God most often they have not stopped believing God exists, it is more that they have fallen out with Him, the relationship has been broken, they have stopped believing that God is a loving Father and is in fact more like an unjust judge.

That is why the Christian understanding that Jesus is the image of the invisible God is so important. God is like Jesus, not like the negligent judge.

Jesus said, “ I and the Father are one.”

The life of Jesus reveals the nature of God.

God the Father, and God the Son, are one in essence, or character.

Jesus said, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.”

This understanding enables my faith in God, the cross stands as a testimony for all time that God cares enough to bleed and die for our sake, and the resurrection shows that one day all our suffering shall be redeemed.

In the Garden of Gethsemane Jesus asked to be spared the cross, but for love of his Father, and for us, he went through with it. “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”

If my prayer is wise and good and yet the answer is still ‘no’, it must be that way for a good reason. Then my prayer must become, 'not as I will, but as you will.'

As I said prayer changes things, and most of all it changes you. Persistent prayer can change your perceptions of yourself and of your situation, as it did for my friend stuck in front of the altar, but persistent prayer can also give you the peace and strength to endure. In coming before God with your complaints and petitions, even if you don’t like the answer, the relationship with God is maintained and so you can receive His grace to get by. I have often wrestled with God, been angry and confused, but I have always accepted His grace and He has got me through.

One more thing, some people pray and pray not noticing their prayer has been actually been answered because it was not answered in a way they expected. People often hope for a miracle as an answer to prayer, but God would rather turn up in the flesh – Jesus came to us not as an angelic being but as an ordinary bloke, so expect your prayers to be answered mostly in the ordinary things of life.

Here is a modern parable. In the floods a man was caught in his house; he had to climb up to the first floor to escape the rising waters, so he prayed, ‘God

save me!’ A dingy came by and the boatman said, ‘climb aboard!' But the man said 'no', as he had faith God was going to save him. The waters rose further and so he climbed on to the roof, and a motor boat came by, ‘climb aboard!’ they yelled, again he said 'no' as he had faith that God would save him. At length he found he had to stand on the chimney to keep his head above water, and he became a worried, but when a helicopter hovered over-head and offered help he still declined and waited on for God to answer his prayer.

Of course, he drowned.

May you be, “patient in affliction, faithful in prayer”, and recognise the hand of God at work in your life.

Amen.