Luke 18.1-8
Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart. He said, ‘In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people. In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, “Grant me justice against my opponent.” For a while he refused; but later he said 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.” ’ And the Lord said, ‘Listen to what the unjust judge says. 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 yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?’
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This passage from our Gospel reading today reminds me of one that I recently quoted a couple of weeks ago. Matthew 7:9-11.
“Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!
This is a passage that I have used often to describe what God is like, his character; a loving father who loves to give good things to his children.
There is hope in these verses that the one we pray to listens to us and care for us. There is the knowledge that we can trust our heavenly father, that he will eventually vindicate us from all the wrong and the darkness and the doubt and the despair that we go through. Our faith (even though it may be the size of a mustard seed, which I spoke about last week) is not, and is never in vain.
Now to our current passage.
If a man who doesn’t acknowledge men or God will do what the woman asks and grants her justice, just so that she will stop nagging him, how much more will God grant Justice to his chosen ones who cry out day and night, the one who is justice and peace and love itself?
How much more will God give us justice if we ask him. How much more, will we be vindicated from injustice, our pains, our sufferings, our sins, our failings?
Jesus is speaking into a time when the Jewish people are crying out for justice; they are after all under occupation. They have been longing for decades, for centuries to be free from the yolk of their oppressors, first the Babylonians, then the Romans. They are desperate to be redeemed and restored by him.
Yet it doesn’t happen, or at least not in the way that people expect. A few decades after these events, there is an uprising from the Jewish people which is stamped on by Rome. Jerusalem is besieged and the temple is destroyed. Only the Western Wall remains, which you can visit to this day.
How are we to square what Jesus says then? that God will bring vindication to his people. How are we to square this with our own struggles here and now? How are we to still ask, seek and knock, and as Saint Paul says, pray without ceasing, and it not be in vain? How do we square these verses, with the reality of the injustices that always happen in our world, and when our own personal pains?
I say this as somebody who has lost heart in praying for certain things. There is one particular situation In my own life, if I ignore it day to day and don’t bring it before the Lord in prayer I can cope with it. But if I start to pray about it and think about it, the situation tends to get worse. I don’t know what to do about that. I don’t know what to do about that when I am confronted with this passage. I read it as a believer, but I look at the world, and at myself and think ‘how long Lord?’ as so many of the psalms do.
This passage comforts me in the knowledge of who God is, but it confronts me, and it confronts all of us.
So what are we to do?
In the film shadowlands we hear about C S Lewis’ relationship with his Wife Joy who is dying. And he is praying fervently for her. One day, he hears news and it’s possibly good news…
One friend of C L Lewis says ‘I know how hard you’ve been praying,’ he says, ‘and now, God is answering your prayer'
Lewis responds:
‘That’s not why I pray, I pray because I can’t help myself. I pray because I’m helpless. I pray bec—I pray because the need flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping. It doesn’t change God, it changes me.’
Is prayer then less about the God we pray to and more about the way that it affects us, enabling us to cope with our difficulties? A psychological crutch Perhaps? Maybe it does help us, 'come to terms' with things but what about the woman in our story, crying out to God? And Jesus’ saying that she received justice from a man who doesn’t care about God, how much more will God, justice itself, give it to his people?
There’s a story from the Old Testament that may shed some light onto this whole situation, and what our attitude to prayer should be. In the Old Testament there is the story of the Persian King Nebuchadnezzar, who makes a statue of himself that all must worship. But Daniel the prophet, and three others, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, all Jews, refuse to do so, and they are threatened with being thrown into one of Nebuchadnezzar’s furnaces. When challenged they say this:
“King Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from Your Majesty’s hand. But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.”
They do this because they know that worshipping a false idol is foolishness, no matter what it is, no matter how much the temptation is to put hope in it, and actually no matter the consequences for them, worshiping a false idol, whatever it is, leads to death. Yet in God, there is the hope of vindication, even if it’s not in this life. Even if we must go beyond this life to see it.
That is the great risk of those with faith, but it is also the great Joy, the knowledge that ultimately, death is not the end.
And the proof of this? The resurrection of Jesus from the Dead. The people in Jesus’ time didn’t find political vindication, but they did find the hope of the restoration of all thigs, when Jesus rose again from the dead, conquering sin, and giving them the Holy Spirit, the new temple living within us and within the Christian community.
If we follow the Lord, persisting in prayer, even though we may not see an answer this side of the grave, we inherit a living hope, we are sustained daily by him as we travel through life, we are a part of God’s New Creation, his plan to restore all things. Sometimes we do experience the miraculous, sometimes we are disappointed. But we still have firm knowledge that Good will prevail, we will see our loved ones again, and that God, our good and loving heavenly father will look upon us, and wipe the tears from their eyes, and restore all things.
There is a wonderful passage that I use a lot at funerals. It’s from Revelation 21, a vision of the end of all things. John the Apostle says…
Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now
among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people,
and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” He who was seated on the throne said, “See, I make everything new!”
Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”
May we continue in this hope, all of our days.
Amen.
