October 21, 2007 - Luke 18: 1-8 Proper 24 C
The Rev. Stephanie E. Parker

Jesus told them a parable about the need to pray always and not to lose heart.

Jesus has many teachings on prayer. He even has other teachings besides the one he offers today about persistence in prayer. But today his focus his very specific. Many of God's people are suffering from injustice. They cry out for deliverance and ask how long, oh Lord, how long? This kind of suffering can make time seem like a prison and make it feel as though God has gone silent. So Jesus tells us a story about God's love for us...

He tells us about a "certain judge in a certain city" and a widow. The judge mentioned here is most likely one of the infamous paid magistrates appointed by the Romans. That they were corrupt was common knowledge and indeed the people called them the "robber judges." As the disciples were hearing the parable from Jesus it is certain that they would have had no confidence in this judge's desire to be just or compassionate toward the widow and her plight.

This judge is no man of the people; he does not seek to raise the social conscience or right wrongs where he finds them, he makes no pretense about who or what he is, he is just that corrupt. So into his courts comes the widow. In the widow we find the very symbol of all who live on the margins of life, the poorest of the poor and without doubt the most defenseless member of society.

We are not told the exact nature of her grievance or why he refuses to hear her case. What Jesus wants us to understand most about this judge is that he is not a man in whom anyone, especially this widow, could place any hope or faith.

In the end of course we read that the widow wins her case, not because the judge has suddenly become enlightened after watching an episode of Oprah or because he has had a transforming spiritual experience, he simply gets tired of her persistence and gives her what she wants just to get her off his back!

And then we hear Jesus say "Listen to what the unjust judge says" and he brings home the meaning of this story: "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 finally the meaning is clear...If such a man as this corrupt judge will finally hear the widow's plea how much more then will God, who is the very essence of mercy and justice, hasten to give us the justice we seek? So we begin to understand about why we should pray and not lose heart. Now, omitted in our reading is the last line of this verse that says: "And yet, when the Son of Man comes will he find faith on earth.

So while this parable initially appears to be a general encouragement to pray and to strengthen our belief that our prayers are heard and answered--- something that is very central and important to all of us in our relationship with God--- we begin to understand it is even more than that. We begin to get a glimpse of the complex nature of the relationship between prayer and faith.

Henri Nouwen, in his book With Open Hands, describes the experience of praying as spreading out our hands to embrace God, nature, and our fellow human beings. He tells us this not only means that we are ready to look at our own limitations by seeking God's help, but that we believe that with God in the picture, we can expect something new. For this reason, Nouwen tells us, every prayer is an expression of hope.1[1]

You see if we expect nothing of the future, our prayers, like our lives, dry up. Without expectation and hope, life stands still. For the widow and for all of us in those times that will try us, Jesus reminds us that there can be new life and movement when we put feelings of defeat to flight and refuse to accept things as they are.

Jesus invites us to look ahead toward that which is not yet. Whether in times of personal crisis or if we are feeling overwhelmed by a world locked in war and madness, Jesus wants us to know that our cries for peace and justice will be heard and that pain and despair need not have the last word. Jesus teaches us to be like the widow and persist, not only in prayer, but also in hope.

He is driving this one point home: God hears and responds to the cries of God's people-God hears our yearnings for justice and for peace. Our yearnings for justice are encouraged by the promise that God does indeed hear our prayers. ---Our challenge is to trust this promise. This trust is rooted in faith-- and by extension-- hope.

So, to treat this passage lightly as a simple reminder to pray is falling slightly short of the mark. It is so much more. It is, as Henri Nouwen said, the expectation of something new; it is about feeding our hunger for change. Because let's face it, just as the widow represents our poverty and vulnerability, this story also reminds us of the hard truth of the world's ability to shape us by its cruelty.

We find this cruelty and injustice in the form of avarice and the abuse of power like the judge in this parable. We see it in the world's broken economic system where the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer---everywhere across the globe. And even in America, the land of promise, the middle class is being added to the bulging ranks of the working poor while the corporations they work for are netting billions.

And, as often the case in times of economic stress and war, humanity's fear begins to give way to hatred of the "other." We've seen a reemergence of hateful symbols like the noose and a rise in the kind of fundamentalism, in all religions, that is punitive to people that society places on the margins. We know that the world sometimes gives birth to hateful things.

It can be so easy for us to see despair, it is easy to identify those things and people that oppress and frighten us--- but often we find it so much harder to identify God's justice and mercy at work in the midst of our lives and our hope and faith can become paralyzed by despair.

So as we see or experience the injustice life sometimes holds, Jesus encourages us not to let our faith retreat. More than that Jesus is telling us today that we have access to God's unlimited justice and compassion.

When we root our lives in the belief that the power of God is stronger than any other force in the universe--- the shadow of fear is cast away and we become the very instruments of God's deliverance.

Like Moses leading God's people out of Israel, those who trust God have the power to lead the world out of injustice and oppression. Do I over speak perhaps? Well then let's remember what Nelson Mandela and Bishop Tutu helped to accomplish in South Africa. Is this too large a feat for us ordinary people to contemplate?

Then how about a 6-year-old boy named Ryan who heard in school that children all over the world were dying simply because they had no access to clean water. Ryan is now 16 and he has raised the money to build over 266 wells in 12 countries that now provide fresh drinking water to over 435,000 people.

This is the power of hope, this is the power of faith, and this is the power that Christ left to us when he promised us the Holy Spirit. We are the people of God with God's help we can work wonders. Because God loves us with such an everlasting love there is no injustice that can withstand the power of prayer as we lift our petitions to God ----and then with confidence in God's grace-- we become the very people who rain down justice and mercy on the world in which we live, flooding it with light and hope.

What might this look like in action? It can be as simple as changing the way we think about giving Christmas gifts. The season is about to unfold in which millions is going to pour out into our retail markets.

What if instead of spending $40.00 dollars for a tchochke for a friend who already has more baubles than they'll ever need, you went to the Heifer project website or to Episcopal Relief and Development and for that same $40 dollars you bought a goat, in their name, for a family in the Appalachians or a village in Africa-a simple, but meaningful gift that will help to bring people out of the injustice and oppression of poverty-all from a few minutes on your computer. Think about the impact if just those of us gathered here this morning gave just one such gift---we could make an amazing difference! We have the power!

Through faith and hope we persist in prayer and we rest firm in the knowledge that God does indeed hear our cries. Resting in the certainty of this promise, we as a people of faith can be in touch with the struggles of this life and not just close our eyes and hope they will go away.

In our belief that God does deliver us, we can look at the pain in our own lives and in the world and not say cynically "that's just the way it is." But, instead we can look at injustice where ever we find it and say: "uh huh-no way-not while I still have breath in my body to pray and faith to wait patiently for God's answer-and then courage to act when that prayer is answered.

We are the people of God and we have the power to change the world because this is who God formed us to be and because Christ has shown us the Way. So pray always and don't lose heart, for God's justice is always at hand! Amen.


1[1] Henri Nouwen, With Open Hands.