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October 21, 2007 Proper 24C Persistence in Prayer The Rev. Dr. Larry Hunter
We never learn her name, or what her grievance was, for that matter. We are also never told that she had any particularly religious aptitude or instinct, some quality that would make her stand out as an example of piety, leading Jesus to use her in this parable on prayer. She is a widow, a particularly vulnerable person in Hebrew society. That she was poor – without the support of a husband in a patriarchal culture – is a given. Her husband’s estate would have passed on to their sons or to his brother, but not to her. Unemployed and unemployable, a widow lived on the margins of society.
She would be “dependent on her sons or a close male relative to take care of her. She was especially vulnerable if the responsible males were indifferent to her welfare, or worse, had defrauded her. In such situations a widow would have recourse to a judge who was supposed to protect the rights of widows and the poor. “ But the judge to whom our widow turns had no regard for her plight and ‘neither feared God nor respected any human being.’ What chance would she have against a judge like this who disregards the basic commandments about God and neighbor?
This widow, however, refused to be merely a victim of her circumstances. She used the only things she has on her side – her voice and her persistence. She pestered and bothered and brought her case to the attention of the judge over and over again. This woman had what my high school coach called intestinal fortitude – she had guts. And she displays a persistent hope. She is a little like the woman in the following story.
The pastor of a small struggling congregation needed to raise money to put a new roof on the church. Having considered and tried many different fundraising approaches, he decided to appeal to the people’s musical interests. He announced that whoever gave the most to the new roof fund would be able to choose three hymns to sing on the next Sunday.
It apparently was not an Episcopal church, because the fundraising was done publicly and on a Sunday morning, rather like a second collection – offering plates and all. When the plates arrived at the pastor, he noticed that, among the ones and fives, tens and twenties, there was a crisp new thousand-dollar bill. He was so overjoyed. And he shared his joy with the congregation. “Who gave this?” he cried as he waved the thousand-dollar bill overhead. “I want to thank them personally.”
An elderly woman – a widow in the back of the church – shyly raised her hand. The pastor asked her to come forward. She slowly made her way to the front of the church. When she arrived, the pastor thanked her for her generous gift and asked her to pick out three hymns.
Her eyes brightened as she looked out over the congregation. She pointed to three of the best-looking men in the church and declared: “I’ll take him, and him, and him!”
Talk about guts!
And what of the judge? We never learn his name either. All we are told about him is that he is not religious and doesn’t give much of a thought to his fellow human beings either. He probably was a prime example of the need for judicial reform in his day.
So we have two unnamed actors in a secular setting with very few details provided to us. You know, Luke the evangelist probably thought he was doing his readers a big favor by interpreting that parable for us. “Jesus told them a parable, to the effect that they ought always to pray and not to lose heart.” And then the lectionary framers paired the parable with the Genesis story of Jacob wrestling with God.
Framed by the Genesis story and Luke’s commentary on the parable itself, the parable of the persistent widow and the unjust judge may lead us to misinterpret the intent of Jesus in telling it. OK. Lets see if we can get it. Jacob wrestled with God all night and things turned out pretty well, except for that dislocated hip business. After all, Jacob received a blessing, and later received a new name and went on to be the famous father of the twelve tribes of Israel.
A surface interpretation of the parable of the persistent widow and the uncaring judge may lead us to say that we are the widow and God is the judge and we just have to pray unceasingly if we want to get what we want from God. Keep at it and God will eventually give in…seems to be what the parable is implying.
This way of interpreting parables treats them as allegories – not parables. And look what such an interpretation does to our faith: it paints Gold as hard hearted and unjust, and our constant prayer like water dripping on the stone of a reluctant God, hoping to wear God down on our behalf – eventually. This kind of interpretation misrepresents God, who is just, not unjust, and who is most kindly disposed to hear our prayers. And it sets us up for the kind of failure that comes when we do not get what we want from God.
But what if there were another way of looking at this parable. What if the meaning for us lay not so much in that we pray, but that we pray regularly? What if the meaning lay not so much in how we pray, but in what we pray for?
In Luke’s gospel, this passage comes immediately after Jesus has answered some Pharisees’ question about when the kingdom of God was coming. In a private conversation with his disciples, he assured them that the kingdom was to come, they will not know the time and place, but they should simply be ready. Then the parable of the widow and the judge comes. Is prayer, then, to be the means of staying ready for the coming of the reign of God? If I wish to be more and more the person God created me to be, and therefore bring the reign of God closer in my life and in the lives of those around me, how can that happen unless I always pray?
Jesus had plenty to say about prayer. In Luke’s interpretation of the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, prayer is seen as the crucial dynamic in one’s relationship with God. For Jesus, prayer was not a performance piece. Remember that he cautioned against drawing attention to oneself in one’s spiritual practices. “Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them…when ever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners…but whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father in secret….” Prayer for Jesus was simply intimacy with God. It is the act of opening oneself fully to the power and will of God. It can happen at any time and in any place. It has been said that life, for the Christian, is to be an ongoing conversation with God; prayer is he word we use to describe that conversation.
The form of prayer that Jesus taught his disciples and that we inherit in our liturgy as the Lord’s Prayer is an intimate prayer. We pray to the one that Jesus called “abba” a word that is parallel to our word “daddy.” It is a child’s name for his or her father. It is a name signifying an intimate relationship.
The way Jesus taught his disciples to pray is as to a father who already knows and wants what is best for us – even if we don’t know what that is ourselves. The way Jesus taught his disciples to pray is not so much about begging for what we want as it is about asking for what we need. William Temple, a great archbishop of Canterbury in the last century, wrote that the proper outline for our prayer is not, “Please do for me what I want,” but rather, “Please do in me, with me, and through me that which you want.”
This kind of prayer does not give God a wish list of the things we want for ourselves.
This kind of prayer practices the presence of God.
This kind of prayer trusts in God’s unfailing faithfulness and good will towards us.
This kind of prayer seeks the good and not merely the convenient.
This kind of prayer seeks justice and not vengeance.
This kind of prayer seeks mercy and is not selfish.
Maybe this parable uses bad examples of human interaction to tell us something about what we are not to do or be and who God is not.
What if this parable says that our relationship with God is not like the relationship of the widow to the unjust judge?
What if this parable wants to say this to us:
If this judge, who is lazy, corrupt, and an unbeliever to boot, will grant justice to this persistent and powerless woman, how much more will your God grant to those whom God has created and who cry to God in their distress?
OK, so maybe Luke was right in interpreting the parable after all. Pray and do not lose heart. But how do I pray unselfishly, and for others? How do I pray that the reign of God will come near? How do I pray that mercy and peace will prevail? How do I pray to be a better follower of Jesus? How do I pray for that which I know is God’s will for me? What prayer can I always pray so that I do not lose heart.
Well, how about this for a way to begin:
“O Lord, help me today to be more like Jesus, and less like me.” Amen.