Last night was the polka service at Christ the King (here’s that sermon), but we still had our regular Sunday worship services this morning at both congregations. Today’s readings are Jeremiah 31:27-34, Psalm 121, Luke 18:1-8, and the theme of today’s service is persistence, both our call to persist in prayer and God’s persistence in pursuing us. Thanks to Pastor Ann Wilson for her comments on this parable in the ELCA Clergy Facebook group.
Here’s the livestream and sermon audio from CTK, including special music from the handbell choir – my first time getting to play handbells in over a decade!
At the summer camp I worked at in college, we started each day with First Word. Before breakfast, we gathered all the campers together for a quick Bible reading, a skit, and a couple of songs.
One of the songs we occasionally did goes like this: “In the morning, we’re persistent. In the morning, we persist! When we pray, we’re persistent (no ceasing!). Rejoice always!” It’s not the most lyrically complex song, but it works for helping campers wake up before breakfast.
I’m reminded of that song every time I hear this parable. In the morning, we persist!
Sometimes when Jesus tells these parables, these stories with a point, we have to dig for the meaning, right?
Not this one—Luke begins today’s Gospel reading by telling us the moral of the story, telling us what the parable means. According to Luke, Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not lose hope.
Once upon a time, Jesus says, there was a judge. Now, a judge is supposed to be someone who cares about the law, right? Judges make decisions about how to apply the law to tough situations, making sure everyone gets treated as fairly as possible. Well, not this judge.
I don’t know if he was a political appointee, or if he was elected, or maybe judging is the family business, but something went wrong, because this judge is not very good at his job.
This guy has no respect for justice; he doesn’t care about fairness, which ought to be the baseline for being a judge. He doesn’t fear God, Jesus tells us, and he has no respect for people.
Next, we meet a widow, who has some kind of a legal problem. Jesus doesn’t say anything about what her particular issue is, but it’s something that this judge ought to be able to fix, at least, if he were any kind of a decent judge. But he’s not. He’s unjust, and he really could not care less about this woman’s problem.
But she’s persistent. This widow refuses to give up in her quest for justice, even though the one with the power to help her refuses to care. She comes back, over and over, again and again, petitioning him to grant her justice against her opponent.
Eventually, he gets so tired of listening to her, so worn out by her persistence, that he gives in and does the right thing.
If persistence can wear down even a terrible, unjust judge like this, Jesus says, imagine how much more God will give justice. It’s not that God is an unjust judge who gets worn down by constant prayer petitions; Jesus’ point is God is so much better!
We don’t need to manipulate God with particular prayer formulas, or wear God out with long-winded prayers. We keep praying because we trust the promise: God is listening to us and working for justice.
And yet, we don’t always get immediate, instant answers to our prayers. In fact, it’s a lot easier to find examples of injustice, broken parts of the world, places where we’d like God to act, than it is to find examples of clear, obvious answers to prayer.
So what do we do as people of faith? When we see problems in the world, when we encounter challenges in our own lives, how do we respond?
Where do we look for help? Do we keep calling on God, or do we give up and look elsewhere?
Psalm 121 says, “I lift up my eyes to the hills—from where will my help come?” Where do we look for help?
“My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.” The God who created the universe, who set the world in motion, has the power to act, to intervene.
And I love the promise in verse 4: “He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.” That’s a powerful promise. God doesn’t grow tired of watching over us. God doesn’t grow tired of listening to our prayers. We need that promise, because there are times when it feels like maybe God has fallen asleep, or gotten distracted.
That’s why the widow in Jesus’ story is such a great example for us. As a widow, she’s in a terrible position in her culture.
Similar to the Israelite slave girl in last week’s story, this widow has no power, no public position. She can’t change whatever injustice is happening to her and around her. Ever felt like that, powerless to do anything about what’s broken around you?
And yet rather than give up, she comes back again and again, seeking justice, refusing to give up. In the morning, she’s persistent. She’s a holy trouble maker, refusing to accept that the world is stuck the way it is. When she prays, she’s persistent.
That’s what we’re called to do, in all circumstances. We’re called to keep praying. We’re called to be faithful, and to back up our prayers with actions.
Listen to this prayer from Thomas More, a 16th century Roman Catholic English martyr. He prays:
Give us, Lord, a humble, quiet, peaceable, patient, tender and charitable mind, and in all our thoughts, words and deeds a taste of the Holy Spirit.
Give us, Lord, a lively faith, a firm hope, a fervent charity, a love of you. Take from us all lukewarmness in meditation, dullness in prayer. Give us fervour and delight in thinking of you and your grace, your tender compassion towards us.
The things that we pray for, good Lord, give us grace to labour for: through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The things that we pray for, good Lord, give us grace to labour for. What a great thing to pray!
May the injustice around us disturb us into laboring for justice, working for reconciliation, for the building of God’s kingdom. May we continue to persist and never give up, trusting God is at work in and through and around us!
And yet, as much as we do our best to remain faithful, as much as we try to follow the widow’s example of persistence, each of us eventually falls short. We give up. Our persistence has its limits; that’s human nature. In the morning, we’re persistent. But sometimes the days get awfully long.
Hear the promise in the first reading from Jeremiah.
“The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.” God’s making a covenant, an agreement, formalizing a new relationship.
“It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke.”
God’s made covenants, treaties, formal agreements with people before, but the people always break them. We always fall short.
“But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the LORD,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the LORD; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.”
God persists even when our persistence falls short. When we fail, God forgives, and remembers our sin no more. God does not tire of forgiving. In the morning, God’s persistent. In the morning, God persists. And in the day, and in the night. Will not God grant justice to those who cry out day and night?
This might be dangerous to say, but I wonder if Luke was wrong? I wonder if perhaps this parable about the woman persistently pestering the unjust judge isn’t about our need to pray always and not lose heart so much as it is about showing us a glimpse of God’s character.
What if the widow in the story is the one illustrating what God is like, not the judge?
No matter how unjust things in the world get, God refuses to give up. God keeps crying out for justice, crying out for peace, crying out for the unjust to act with justice, for the powerful to use their power to help the weak. God does not grow tired or weary in the way that we do; God persists.
God persists in bothering the sinful, calling them—calling us—back to repentance, back to faith, making a new covenant that depends solely on God.
God persists like a good shepherd in seeking out the lost sheep. God persists in calling us into action, to work for justice and reconciliation.
Jesus persists in proclaiming love into a broken, violent, sinful world, persists even when that world condemns him to death.
Thank God that our salvation depends on God’s faithfulness, not on ours!
May the Holy Spirit give us the strength to persist in faith, not losing heart but looking to God for help.
And may the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Amen