A sermon by Senior Minister John B. McCall, October 28, 2007
Luke 18:1-8
We all need strength for the journey. No matter how grounded you are, or how well you handle life’s challenge, you can’t do it on your own. I think that’s the main shortcoming of any theory of humanism. We can mess it up all by ourselves, but we can’t straighten it out without God’s help.
Whether it’s storms and tidal waves in your personal life, or much greater forces that overwhelm us, we all wrestle with questions of how we can make it through, and get to a better place.
Take a quick look around at the kinds of things that can overwhelm us:
• in California the worst forest fires ever have destroyed whole neighborhoods, including many that were only recently rebuilt after fires four years ago
• In the southeast, state governors met this week, trying to reach some agreement on how to divvy up dwindling water resources that threaten to leave communities without drinking water within a few months.
• In New Orleans, eight inches of rain brought new flooding and a feeling to terror to many who have not yet recovered from the devastation of Katrina
Add to this the unsettled market conditions, a stagnant housing market, the rising cost of gas and heating oil – no wonder we’re all skittish. And we show it in our anxieties about almost everything – even our caution about pledging to the church when so much is uncertain.
Nothing new, is it? Jesus showed us a strategy for dealing with anxious times when he told a parable about a determined widow who wouldn’t take “no” for an answer. She took her case to a judge who cared neither about God nor about other people. We can easily surmise that he cared primarily about himself. The widow wanted justice. He kept postponing the decision. Believing in the rightness of her cause she refused to give up and returned again and again. Finally the judge gave in, hoping that would bring him some peace and quiet!
Jesus gave the punch line: if an arrogant oaf like this judge can finally be persuaded to do the right thing, how much quicker will God be in giving us what we really need?
Still, Jesus continued, at the end of the age when Messiah returns to usher in the realm of God, will he find that you persisted faithfully, or will he find that you gave up and tossed in the towel? Certainly our well-being here and now matters. But just as much – perhaps even more – we know God wants us to act for justice without giving up. If you want to live this kind of discipleship you need patience, persistence, and prayer.
We all know a little about Jesus’ time and culture. We know women were second-class citizens. They were property – dependent on their father and then, when they married, dependent on their husband. When a woman lost her husband she was virtually powerless. It’s less so today, so we might better draw a parallel with a single mother on welfare.
And the judge in the parable represents “the system,” all the hard-hearted bureaucracies that measure their effectiveness by how little they give away. Think of the public welfare system in any town or city. Think of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, after Hurricane Katrina.
Think of how many lose heart as they lose their homes, their livelihood, and their dignity. That’s the way it is. And that’s the way it was when Luke wrote his Gospel some 40-50 years after Jesus’ death and resurrection. He was addressing the first generation of disciples who were indeed losing heart.
They’d been waiting for Messiah to return to clean up the mess and they were tired: tired of the injustice, tired of the oppression. Everyday life was hard, hard work. They knew Jesus’ promise to come again at the close of the age. They were still waiting.
So this parable spans the ages because it applies so clearly to the human condition any time and any place. In writing this parable for the early Church Luke wanted to remind them to be people of patient and persistent prayer, and to face injustice.
This kind of prayer helps us imagine the world as it should be; to see creation as God intends it; to hold up a vision toward which we can work.
We, today, need to hear the same message because we ask the same questions; questions like “why does it seem some prayers are answered and some aren’t?” I think that’s one of the toughest faith questions: I ask it every time I see someone healed whether in body or in spirit. And I ask it every time I see someone not healed – at least not in the way we’ve prayed for.
No, this parable doesn’t answer that question. Nothing really does. But like the Gospel as a whole, it points us back to God who loves us, hears us, and holds us; a God who wants wholeness and peace for us; but still a God who doesn’t act in the world simply on the basis of what you or I most passionately desire.
Jesus’ parable says we can expect great things from God – but still we need to develop persistence, patience, and perspective.
First, we need PERSISTENCE. As Emerson once observed, the hero is no braver than an average person, but is brave five times longer. When we try to make a decision, identify a need or express a concern, how often do we bring it to God in prayer just once and then give up? How often do we set on a journey and encounter some obstacle and quit? How often do we face hard times and instantly wonder whether God has abandoned us? We need persistence.
Persistence is the only option when you face something, as the old spiritual says, “so high you can’t get over it, so low you can’t get under it, so wide you can’t get around it…” Do you have the ability to keep looking, keep asking, keep approaching God to discern the answer? The parable says persistence is rewarded. Helen Keller said simply: “we can do anything we want to do if we stick with it long enough.”
Second, the parable says we must have PATIENCE as we seek God’s will. Things take time. Remember one of the Top Ten prayers is: “Dear God, I want patience and I want it NOW!” Yet look at Creation: nature is slow and almost infinitely patient. When we look at the mountains to the north or the shoreline to the east we realize the millennia over which the forces of nature have carved and shaped the rocks. Glaciers and changing seasons have shaped the earth.
When nature does act swiftly and dramatically, like California forest fires, or hurricanes sweeping into the Gulf, we’re humbled again by the patience it takes to push forward, to rebuild, to start anew. Shakespeare wrote: “how poor are they who have not patience. What wound did ever heal but by degrees?”
Scripture says those who wait upon the Lord will renew their strength. They will rise up with wings, as eagles. Trusting in the love of God, and waiting for God’s own time to come, is a test for many souls. It’s also the sign of the faith and maturity that come with the passing years. Patience means to believe that God is at work even when it seems nothing is happening!
In the words of a favorite hymn: “Teach me to feel that thou art always nigh; teach me the struggles of the soul to bear: to check the rising doubt, the rebel sigh; teach me the patience of unanswered prayer.”
Third, the parable reminds us to keep our PERSPECTIVE. By contrasting God to the arrogant judge, Jesus tells us that most things that bend us out of shape are relatively small matters. God knows what we need in the long run. And, indeed, we receive the essentials in the long run. But in the short run it may feel we’re being ignored. In this present moment it may even seem we have been singled out for suffering.
One way to keep perspective is to remember that we’re a small part of a large world. The Bantus of Africa have a saying that the one who never leaves home thinks mother is the only one who can cook! When our world view is small and narrow, we can get pulled into the whirlpool of our own concerns and forget the daily battles and disappointments with which every one of us must deal.
Another way to keep perspective is to avoid that common game we play of coveting what our neighbors have. We pick and choose: “If only I had a car like his, a bank account like hers, a nose shaped like his, a great job like hers…” We select what appears to be the best from other lives and then, of course, our lives pale by comparison.
But would you swap your life for another’s in every aspect, including the hidden sorrows and burdens? If you get their money, would you also take their bills, and their heartaches, and their illnesses and their in-laws? We can keep perspective by remembering that our lives are unique; but birth and death, sickness and health, success and sorrow shape all of us.
Persistence, patience, perspective – these were some of the many attributes Jesus taught his followers. Human systems of justice will break down. Others will disappoint us and we’ll certainly disappoint ourselves.
But Jesus says God loves you and has a will for your life. Trust and never lose heart.
A poet unknown to me, named Annerika Fries, writes:
Rebellious heart in the grip of fate,
Have patience, wait!
Calm you, and hark to the great wind’s blowing,
bearing winged seed to your hands for the sowing.
Drive deep the plow of sorrow and pain,
turn up the rich soil for the golden grain,
Spare not the tears; they are needed as rain;
Too long, too long has the field lain fallow,
Now well prepared and no longer shallow,
Please, God, a soul is growing!
Souls are growing, in the midst of life as it is thrust upon us, and life as we fashion it; souls are growing, in the decisions we have made and the events which seem to have befallen us.
If the corrupt judge, who respected neither people nor God, finally gave justice to the widow, how much more will this loving God give you all you need?
In the midst of it all, we must keep the faith, with patience, persistence and perspective. If we do, we will live – not just exist – but really live in the presence of our loving God.