“When To Hold On”

Luke 18:1-8

September 12, 2004

St. Paul United Methodist Church

Rev. John A. Fleming

I was just wondering. Are you the kind of people who like to know what is going to happen before it does happen? Are you the kind of people who try your best to figure out the end of the movie before the end of the movie, perhaps even asking someone who sees it, how it ends? Or are you the kind of people who would rather be a part of the plot as it unfolds? I was just wondering. Are you the kind of people who have been caught or who could be convicted of starting a new book, reading a few pages of it and then turning to the last pages, to the last chapter, and reading its words to see how the book ends? Or are you the kind of people who do not cheat like that, who would have never thought of doing such a thing if it were not for the opening words of this sermon?

If you are that kind of a person, then I salute your honesty and your integrity and your honor. But, on the other hand, if you are the kind of person who likes to figure it out, who likes to know how the story is going to end before the ending arrives, if you have ever peeked at the ending of a book, then our lesson for this morning is for you. Luke tips his hat and tells us what the story is about even before Jesus says a word. Luke tells us this: “Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart.”

By the way, they teach you in seminary that you are not supposed to do that. In the preaching courses that I took at Southern Methodist University, they taught two things that still stand out in my mind. One of my professors talked about the importance of sermon titles. To make his point, he told us about the preaching professor who gave one of his students a failing grade because his sermon title was so boring. He told him that he would change his grade if his sermon title was better. He said this, “Your sermon title needs to be so great that people riding on a bus, driving by your church, will see your sermon title on your outside sign and want to get off the bus.” The student did get the highest mark for his sermon and his sermon title. His title was this one: “There’s A Bomb On Your Bus.” So sermon titles are important, and I work hard at the titles I put on my sermons. I was also taught that it is important to get your congregation’s attention from the first line of the sermon. Sometimes I a am able to do that. My professors also taught me that good preachers are supposed to keep their listeners sitting on the edge of their seats, wondering what will happen next. I do not know that I have ever done that.

Here is Luke who tells us what Jesus’ sermon is going to be about even before he begins it. And yet, the story is so intriguing that it pulls us in and causes us to wonder how it will end. Jesus tells us that in a certain city, there was a man, a judge, who is being bugged and bothered by a woman who keeps coming to his courtroom asking for justice. Jesus gives us this detail in the story. He tells us that the judge neither feared God nor had respect for people. To say that he didn’t fear God means that when it came time for his court decisions, never did the laws of God enter into the picture. To say that he did not respect people meant that he did not rule with compassion for the poor in mind. Jesus does not tell us this, but because of the words that he does give us, I get the idea that this judge is not above a bribe; most likely he favors the rich because of the things that they can give him in return.

One day, while court is in session, and this judge was sitting at his bench, hearing cases, a widow interrupted things. This is not the first time that she has done this. What she cries out for is always the same. Her words never change. She always says, “Grant me justice against my opponent.” Jesus does not tell us what she is looking for and so we can only imagine what sort of justice she seeks. Jesus does tell us this; he lets us know that she is a widow. Widows, in Jesus’ day, had no legal right to inherit the land of their husband’s estate. If her in-laws did not like her in the first place; If they thought that their son had no business marrying this woman, then that complicated matters. So when he died, his family could have had her evicted. So staying in the house that she and her husband built together could have been what she was after. We do not know what she was seeking. What we do know is that the judge refused to hear her case, ruling in favor of the plaintiff instead, with whom he might have had a golf date the following day. Whether her cause is a just one isn’t really important for this story of Jesus. What is important is that she demands to be heard and this judge refuses to hear her. He ignores her. She shows up in his courtroom every morning, she pleads without ceasing, she never gives up.

I think that I know how this judge feels. A few weeks ago, we had a man calling seeking assistance for his utility bill. Such a thing is not out of the ordinary. We help with such bills all the time. My secretary, Kathy Crane, whose ministry it is to work with those needing help was on vacation. I told this man that and that he would have to call back. By the time she returned, he had called six more times. We agreed to pay the bill and because the payment did not arrive in a timely matter to the electric company (which wasn’t our fault) this man called again and again. I don’t mind telling you that he was wearing me and my staff out. So to a small degree, I understand how this judge felt. Like the guy who called and called us, this widow kept going. She showed up in the courtroom every morning. When there was a recess, she followed him to his private chambers, banging on the door. Maybe he had a back entrance to his chambers and had to use it to get away from her. By the way, there are three different ways to get out of my office if the need arises. She follow him to the restaurant and then to his club where he plays golf. She probably also goes to his house and camps out in his front yard. At all of those places, at the top of her lungs, she cries out for everyone to hear, “Grant me justice against my opponent.” Finally it dawns on him. This widow is not going anywhere anytime soon, if at all. If it were a bribe that caused him not to hear the case, the money is not worth his hassle. Sometimes, friends, it is easier to give in to something than to stand against it. So he thought 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.'" The biblical word “wear me out” here literally means to give a black eye or to strike the face. Because that is the word, Eugene Peterson can translate the verse this way, “I better do something and see that she gets justice - other wise I’m going to end up black and blue by her pounding. That is the parable. And here is the lesson: if an unrighteous and possibly corrupt judge will finally hear the case of the widow, how much more will God grant justice to those who cry to him day and night. So the point is this: God is not like that judge. God is not anything like that judge. So how much more will God hear you? So pray without losing heart. That is the lesson.

I think that I should tell you this. The parable, this story of Jesus was first intended to be a word of encouragements for the early church, who had been taught to pray (as we have been taught to pray) “Thy kingdom come” and yet did not understand why it had not come. We are living some two thousand years later. I am not so sure that we do anything but say those words when it is time for the Lord’s Prayer to happen in our order of worship. Do we know what we are praying for when we say those words? So this scripture was originally intended for the early church. That is the reason that verse eight seems out of place: “So when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

That is the context, but how does this lesson speak to us these days? Let me ask you this. What is your prayer life like? “Jesus told them this parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart.” Do any of you have prayers that you have prayed over and over again without receiving an answer, or at least not the answer that you thought you should receive? Life, friends, will sometimes drive us to our knees. But that is not always a bad place to be. The last time I preached about prayer, I told about a prayer that JoAnn Snelgrove prayed. JoAnn was a member of the church I served in Camden. She prayed for her husband over and over and over again. She prayed for his salvation. One Wednesday evening, in a private worship service, I baptized JoAnn’s husband, Wayne. When the service was over she said, “I’ve been praying for this night for thirty years.” Do you have prayers like that, ones that you bring to God’s attention time and time again. Do you have prayers that you wonder why God won’t answer? Have you thought about giving up, not just on the particular prayer concern, but on the one who you have prayed to? This prayer life, this persistent prayer life is a tough business.

Barbara Brown Taylor is a great preacher whose sermons I like to read. In one of them she tells about her seven year old, by marriage granddaughter, Madeline. Barbara tells that she is the blond, skinny and tall for her age. Barbara says this. “What I want my grand-daughter to know is that the best thing about prayer is the relationship itself. I want her to know that whether or not she gets what she asks for, she needs to keep asking. I want her to pester God the way that she pesters her mother, thinking of twelve different ways to plead her case. I want her to long for God the same way that she longs for her father, holding fast to him even when his recliner is empty. And when she complains that none of this does any good, I am going to ask her to tell me the difference between how she feels while she is praying verses how she feel when she thinks that she is giving up. And if I am lucky, she is going to tell me that she feels more alive when she is praying, and that is when I will tell her the story about the persistent widow.”

You see, friends, prayer, answered the way we want them to be or not, isn’t the most important thing. The most important thing is to believe in a God who loves us and who wants more than anything else to have a relationship with us. It takes faith on our part. And faith, if it really is faith, lives with the limits, settles down with the silence, and knocks on the door knowing that the one on the other side of it wants the very best for them. Let us pray.

(Special thanks to the writings of Barbara Brown Taylor. The quote that I used in his sermon can be found in a couple of different places. I found it in Homiletics Magazine when I searched for ideas for this scripture lesson, Luke 18:1-8. May God bless you in your persistent prayers).