PRAY FOR CHANGE

A Sermon for The Twenty-First Sunday after Pentecost
October 21, 2007
by Pastor Laura Gentry

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.’” And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them. And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” (NRSV)

Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Before the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian author Alexander Solzhenitsyn spent many years in the prison camps of Siberia. Along with other prisoners, he worked in the fields day after day, in rain and sun, during summer and winter. His life appeared to be nothing more than backbreaking labor and slow starvation. The intense suffering reduced him to a state of despair.

On one particular day, the hopelessness of his situation became too much for him. He saw no reason to continue his struggle, no reason to keep on living. His life made no difference in the world. So he gave up.

Leaving his shovel on the ground, he slowly walked to a crude bench and sat down. He knew that at any moment a guard would order him to stand up, and when he failed to respond, the guard would beat him to death, probably with his own shovel. He had seen it happen to other prisoners.

As he waited, head down, he felt a presence. Slowly he looked up and saw a skinny old prisoner squat down beside him. The man said nothing. Instead, he used a stick to trace in the dirt the sign of the Cross. The man then got back up and returned to his work.

As Solzhenitsyn stared at the Cross drawn in the dirt his entire perspective changed. He knew he was only one man against the all-powerful Soviet empire. Yet he knew there was something greater than the evil he saw in the prison camp, something greater than the Soviet Union.  He knew that hope for all people was represented by that simple Cross. Through the power of the Cross, anything was possible.

Solzhenitsyn slowly rose to his feet, picked up his shovel, and went back to work. Outwardly, nothing had changed. Inside, he had received hope. [From Luke Veronis, “The Sign of the Cross”; Communion, issue 8, Pascha 1997.]

What that skinny old prisoner did for Solzhenitsyn, Jesus does for us today in telling us about the insistent widow and the unscrupulous judge. As Solzhenitsyn desperately needed a renewal of hope, so we need encouragement from time to time if we are to continue in prayer and not lose heart. The skinny old prisoner made lines in the dirt. Jesus does something different: he gives us a very important story.

There is this judge, Jesus says, who has neither decency nor conscience, a corrupt official interested only in his own advantage. A widow appears in his courtroom. She is poor and powerless, somebody not noticed by the movers and shakers in her town. She has no money to bribe this crooked judge; she cannot afford a lawyer to speak up for her. So you know what she does? She speaks up for herself! GRANT ME JUSTICE AGAINST MY OPPONENT! she shouts. When this does not bring her immediate results, she remains undaunted. She keeps returning to that courtroom, and refuses to be silent. GRANT ME JUSTICE AGAINST MY OPPONENT!

It is no surprise that the judge soon gets tired of this. In the original Greek, he compares her in-his-face attitude to getting a black eye. To spare himself further annoyance, the judge decides not simply to hear her case, but to grant her justice to spare himself annoyance. Now is this a portrait of God? That doesn’t seem to be what Jesus has in mind, though certainly that is how some people look at the practice of prayer. They hold a picture of God as an unscrupulous judge or a petty bureaucrat or an abusive parent. With such a picture before them, it’s startling that they ever pray at all.

God is not like that. Instead, the Lord is the author of all justice and compassion. It may be that we are to imitate, in our prayer, the persistence shown by the widow, but if so, it is not because God is hard-hearted and uncaring.

Let’s take another look at that judge. What do we know about him? We know that he is unscrupulous, without decency or conscience. He doesn’t respect people; there is no fear of God in him. He is a closed universe. This judge always has it figured out; he leaves no room for the possibility that God may have a more creative answer to questions his life presses upon him.

Do we know anyone who matches this description? Hmmm...how about you and me? Each of us fits that description and times, and some of us may make a career of doing so. There are those times, all too often, when each of us lives entirely unto ourselves. We refuse to allow that God may have a creative solution to problems that beset us, that God may offer us better things than we can ask for or imagine. Our decisions about life then leave no room for God, and no room for other people who have needs and wishes different from our own. The universe, as we understand it, becomes very small; we are its sole inhabitants.

If then the judge represents us, who does the loud-mouthed woman represent? Could it be that this poor and powerless woman, who demonstrates unlimited courage, is there as a reminder of God?

Certainly, this fits. God is ever attempting to break into our closed universe, to draw us into relationship, makes us recognize what our relationships with God and neighbor demand of us.

God is not the unjust judge, but the widow who wears him down. Where, then, is the unjust judge to be found? Listen carefully: that judge is inside each of us, and the purpose of our prayer is to wear him down, to wear him out, to force him to do justice. Prayer is the widow’s voice, strong and persistent, insisting that things be different.

Many people have trouble with prayer, or even give up the practice, because they think that praying is an exercise in telling God what God already knows, or persuading God to do what God wouldn’t do otherwise, or somehow changing God in one way or another. Prayer, any prayer worthy of the name, is quite the opposite. The primary effect of prayer is not on God, but on us. God’s love is already unconditional, God’s justice is already perfect, God’s compassion has always been will always be without limit.

God recognizes our needs even before we do. It’s not God who needs to change, it is up to us to get in line with God’s program, and prayer is a large part of how that comes about.

Prayer is our declaration that we don’t want to be a closed universe, dependent only on ourselves and our own solutions. Prayer is our desire to be open to God. In our prayer, the Holy Spirit speaks in the voice of the poor widow who demands justice from the unscrupulous judge. The miracle of prayer is that the judge’s resistance breaks down and for once he does what is right, and may even do so again in the future.

That loud-mouthed widow would not have succeeded had she not been persistent, confident, and unconcerned with what others thought of her. Our prayer needs to have that kind of determination, not because God is deaf but because opening our hearts to God is no easy matter.

There are many things in each of us that can keep God out. Sin is not the only obstacle. Attitudes of mind may keep the door shut and bolted. We may doubt that God hears us; we may consider ourselves unworthy; we may think God has better things to do than intervene in our lives. These attitudes can be driven out by persistent prayer, the voice of the widow who refuses to take no for an answer.

The story is told of a girl who watched a holy man praying at the riverbank. Once the man had finished his prayer, the girl approached him and asked, “Will you teach me to pray?” The holy man studied the girl’s face, and agreed to her request. He took her into the river. The holy man instructed her to lean over, so her face was close to the water. The girl did as she was told.

Then the holy man pushed her whole head under the water. Soon the girl struggled to free herself in order to breathe. Once she got her breath back, she gasped, “What did you do that for?” The holy man said, “I gave you your first lesson.” “What do you mean?” asked the astonished girl. He answered, “When you long to pray as much as you long to breathe, then I will be able to teach you how to pray.”

May each of us long to pray, and learn to pray, and to persist in our prayer—not so that we can change God, but so that God can change us, and help us enjoy that fullness of life God intends for us.

Now, may the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.

© 2007 Laura Gentry

PRAYER LICENSE

A Sermon for The Ninth Sunday after Pentecost
July 29, 2007
by Pastor Laura Gentry

Luke 11:1-13
Jesus was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples." He said to them, "When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us. And do not bring us to the time of trial."

And he said to them, "Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say to him, `Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.' And he answers from within, `Do not bother me; the door has already been locked, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.' I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, at least because of his persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs.

"So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish? Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!" (NRSV)

What do you say when you pray? Do you get uncomfortable when someone asks you to pray out loud in a group setting? Do you worry that you won’t have words that sound right to the other ears? Even if you have been praying all your life, you may have doubts about your ability to pray. Your pulse might start to race if I had you stand up here and offer a prayer right now.

Even Jesus’ disciples felt this way. One of the important questions they asked Jesus was: how do we pray? Teach us, they begged him. And so he tells them. In Luke’s Gospel, he relays a shorter version of the Lord’s prayer, as a model prayer.

But in this Gospel, Jesus seems more interested in telling them how to pray and than simply telling them what to pray. Prayer, it seems, is not about having the perfect words to say. It is about having a relationship with God. It is about being intimately connected to our Creator. Jesus explains that we can call upon God anytime, anywhere, as we would call upon a loving parent in time of need. God is never far from us and is eager to help and to hear us when we pray. We do not need to fear imposing upon God—that’s exactly what God wants.

Then, Jesus launches into a funny anecdotal story that would have made the disciples chuckle. He says, "Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say to him, `Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.'" Now this could certainly happen since many travelers in ancient Israel traveled by night to avoid the extreme heat of the desert sun. And without modern conveniences like telephones, it would not be unlikely to have an unexpected guest. But what an embarassment to be caught without any food to serve him! Hospitality was so important. So of course, you'd have to run to your neighbor's house in sheer desperation to find some food.

Now in order to ask a neighbor for bread at midnight, you'd have to knock on the door, which was considered an impropriety. If the door to the house was closed in ancient times, it meant that the family had gone to bed and did not want to be bothered. The typical Palestinian house consisted of just one room, with a low platform taking up about a third of the room. On the raised platform was a charcoal stove that burned all night. The whole family would gather around the stove to sleep. And oftentimes, people would bring some of their livestock into the house at night to protect them from the cold night air. So when a family settled in for the night, they would shut and lock the door and expect to remain undisturbed until morning. But in this story, Jesus suggested that you would knock anyway—that is if you REALLY wanted to get some bread to serve your guest.

Certainly the neighbor would be annoyed and would reply, “Do not bother me; the door has already been locked, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.” Of course he can’t get up—if he would, it would wake everyone up and it could really become a zoo if that happened! But if you really wanted bread, you'd keep right on knocking. Eventually, the groggy man would get up, open the door (probably with bed head) and give you the bread you asked for.

So what in the world is this story supposed to teach us about prayer? Like other stories Jesus tells, this is a parable, which means that it is a story laid alongside a teaching to further illustrate a point. Jesus point with this parable is not that God is like an grumpy neighbor who doesn’t want to answer—who must be coerced into giving us what we want. The point is that if persistence can even cause a tired neighbor guy to wake up all his children, chickens and goats and go give his neighbor what he wants—then how much more will God, who is our loving Father, generously supply all our needs when we ask?

In telling this simple parable, Jesus is showing his disciples a whole new way to approach prayer. We’ve been praying this way for so long that I think we miss the revolutionary nature of this teaching.

In the Old Testament times, people did not refer to God as their father. In fact, they revered God so much that they dared not call God anything, lest they blaspheme the holy name of their Lord. And when they prayed, it was only through strictly calculated rituals. That’s why Jesus’ disciples want to know exactly how they ought to pray. First, Jesus shocks them by giving them the term Abba with which to address God. Abba was very familiar term that trusting children used to address their loving fathers. Abba was not something they would have dreamed of calling the Most High God. And names were very important—to know someone’s name was to really know that person’s character. So to call God Abba, was to know the tender character of God, who was as accessible as a loving parent. This was an intimacy they had never dreamed they could find in their relationship with Almighty God.

And then when Jesus goes on to tell them this parable of the man in search of bread, he reveals that you can not only address God as your Abba, but you can be bold in your prayer requests—as bold as you'd be if you had to beg your neighbor at midnight for bread. Jesus gives them permission to pray to God with that kind of boldness and urgency!

Jesus says to them, “Ask, and it will be given you; search and you will find; knock and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.” (Lk 11:9-10)

This kind of prayer implies an intense hunger on the part of the person praying. This is no stale, droning prayer here. Someone who asks and searches and knocks is really seeking wholeheartedly. But I wonder if we seek the kingdom of God with that same urgency. Do we really want God’s kingdom to become a reality here on earth? And do we actually want our wills to be bent into the likeness of God’s will? Are we hungry to be buried with Christ in baptism so that we will be raised up with him by the power of God, as today’s reading from Colossians describes? (Col 2:12)

Remember how exciting it was to turn 16 and get your driver license? It was the ticket to freedom, even if you didn’t have a car of your own. We were warned to drive safely and sent off into the world behind the wheel all by ourselves.

Here in this scene, Jesus’ teaching is so powerful and unique that I imagine it like he is giving them a ‘prayer license”. Only this prayer license doesn’t say “pray safely”—in fact, it says just the opposite: “pray boldly!” Ask! Seek! Knock! Hunger for God with your whole self! Yes, in fact, you can even pray aggressively because God is your Father and knows what is best for you so you can’t pray wrongly. There are no heavenly patrol men who will pull you over on the highway of life and give you a ticket for reckless praying. Even if you pray for things that aren’t right to pray for, at least you’re in dialog with God and God’s not going to grant any prayer request that would be bad for you.

And guess what? We, too have been given a prayer license. But do we ever take it out on the road? Are we praying boldly? Are we hungry for God’s kingdom to come? Are we willing to do long-distance prayer trips? To keep knocking until we get our answer? Well, if we’re not, then a very valuable license is going to waste.

Jesus says, “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Lk 11:13) God gives us the gift of the Holy Spirit—that is God’s answer to our prayers.

May we be inspired by the hearing of this Gospel to use our license to pray more vigorously, to pray with urgency and with boldness and with familiarity—for Abba, our tender Father, is not far from us. We know that if we truly ask, search, and knock, our heavenly Father will freely give us the Holy Spirit and all that we need to transform this world into God’s kingdom. Happy praying! Amen.

Now may the peace of God which passes all understanding keep our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.

© 2007 Laura E. Gentry