Year C
Luke 18:1-8
The Rev. Denise Vaughn
The Persistent Giver
Have you ever felt in need of a good chuckle or laugh? Of course, we all do from time to time. I can just image Jesus’ followers throwing back their heads and laughing at this story Jesus tells of the woman who pounds and pounds on the door of a corrupt politician, a person who could care less about her plight, until he finally sticks his head out the window and shouts, Ok! Ok, already! I will give you whatever you want just stop – please! They laugh because this powerless woman annoys the guy who everyone loves to hate until by being persistent the woman causes him to do something good in spite of himself. Good story they say laughing and then they may have sighed because they remember that Jesus told them this is what prayer is to be like. They are “to pray always and not to lose heart”.
To help us understand Jesus’ reason for telling this story, we need to look at the verses in Luke just before this parable where Jesus informs the disciples that he is going away but will return to establish God’s kingdom on earth, in the meantime, they will survive and remain faithful by praying. Prayer was and still is the key to faith today! We are to persevere in prayer until he returns and keep asking God for what we need until God answers. Yet, how many of us have pounded at God’s door, and have not felt our persistent prayer answered? We all want to believe that God will intercede at our urging and do what we want God to do. God has been given credit for selling homes, finding jobs, winning the lottery, finding a parking space and a host of other things, and yet, we also know those other times when God does not do what we ask.
The parables answer to this painful reality is quite simple: God’s will, will eventually be done. God is still worthy of our worship, despite the reality that we may not see within our lifetime the justice that is promised in this text. So what hope is Jesus offering us today? What is the Good News? The good news and the hope we have, when we look at the whole picture of the Old Testament and New Testament, is God’s persistent, unshakable, everlasting love for each one of us. God loves and works on behalf of those who say yes to God through Christ. We can trust in this God and be sure God hears our prayers, even though we may not see the results yet.
Jesus says God has not forgotten us. “God will not delay. God will help. God will grant justice.” By praying continually, and not giving up hope, we live trusting that God has not abandoned this world, and because we know of God’s persistent love in Jesus shown to us in the resurrection, and Jesus’ persistent prayer and trust in God right to the cross, we the faithful today, can be persistent in prayer, living in hope for the peace and justice that will come. God’s will, will eventually be done. Don’t give up! From the start, Jesus sets out not to resolve the mystery of answered and unanswered prayer, but to teach his disciples the kind of persistence that becomes an expression of deep faith, the kind of faith Jesus hopes to find when he returns.
The widow kept coming to the judge, hoping against all odds, persistent, determined and relentless. She is a model that prayer is not the last resort but the first and primary task of Christians. Believers then and now keep praying not because we are such perfect Christians or because we possess such great faith all the time or even because it is the gratitude which God requires of us, but because the Spirit gives us the courage to pray continually in a broken, fearful world and God promises to be at work in our lives and in the world. The work or mission of the Church is to be a people with grateful hands and hearts; that happens when they are persistent in prayer. We know that God acts differently than the unjust judge and God calls his disciples to act differently by giving up their lives to practice persistent faith which makes for giving lives full of hope and trust.
And yet sometimes we need emergency instructions when we are faced with challenges or crises. Like the directions given on the back of a cleaning product bottle to use in case of an emergency. The verses from 2 Timothy, our Epistle today, are emergency instructions for Christians. Follow these directions: proclaim the message, be persistent, convince, rebuke and encourage. Remember that all scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, so that everyone who belongs to God may be equipped for every good work. We are reminded of what is central to our faith that salvation is through faith in Jesus Christ and as the body of Christ we are to proclaim this to the world.
Paul is challenging Timothy to “be persistent” in good times and bad because the work of an evangelist requires all the virtues a Christian can muster. And even in rejection, Timothy is not alone because he is surrounded by others who love the Lord. All those who through the centuries have been persistent and have trusted in the promises of God, those whose faith and trust in God can be our example and help us be with the Spirit, persistent in practicing faithful, grateful, giving lives. In the past several weeks, we have heard Jesus talk a lot about what it means to have giving lives. A giving life is the act of offering everyday life to God. It is making Christ the center of our lives and trusting the God who gives all to us, by giving all back in gratitude, knowing that God is with us each and every moment.
As God’s children, we the believers are called to join God’s work, equipped with the Holy Spirit: resisting and persisting in prayer, of which the stubborn and enduring hopeful widow is an example for us of prayerful faithfulness. We are to keep beating at the heavenly doors for the sake of our neighbor in this city and in the world. When active faith is at work, a faith that is lived, then hope remains alive and when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth? Yes, as long as we “pray always and not lose heart” for our God is with us and God’s will, will eventually be done.