Pray Without Ceasing
Sermon text for August 12, 2007:
Luke 18:1-8
Right now a worried mother is waiting outside the entrance to a mine in Utah. Her son is somewhere deep beneath the earth and she doesn’t know if he is alive or dead. But she’ll wait and hope and as she waits her prayer is as close as her breath, “Lord God, let him be alive!” She breathes in. Lord God I’m desperate now. Please let my son be safe.” She breathes out. No one doubts that her presence there is a prayer.
A half a world away an old orthodox rabbi is shuffling toward the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. He has spent a long time trying to write exactly what he wants to say on a piece of paper – it is a prayer that he will put between the stones in the wall. He hopes that God will see his prayer and answer. Actually his “hope” itself is a prayer.
In a neighboring congregation is a man who has been having a hard time adjusting to the things that life has thrown at him. He is frustrated beyond belief yet he holds out hope that God will somehow enter his life in a decisive way. If he ever had any eloquence in prayer he lost it years ago and now his prayer is simply, “God get me out of this!” He hopes God will hear because he is just about out of faith. Something needs to happen. Like the Rabbi, his “hope” is itself a prayer.
In a retreat center not far from here the participants are learning an ancient prayer that has sustained multitudes. Some call it the “Jesus prayer” It goes like this, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon me.” They are told that the prayer can be prayed anytime – when they are caught in traffic, when they are stressed out a work or at home. When the prayer is offered over time God somehow seems nearer.
“Jesus told his disciples a parable to the effect that they should always pray and not lose heart.” Those who aspire to “pray always” often discover that some form of prayer is as close to them as breathing in and breathing out. In fact, life itself can be a prayer that is addressed to God.
To illustrate his point, Jesus told a parable that was for all intents and purposes a word cartoon. He tells us of a heartless judge and a woman who is persistent to the point of being obnoxious. The judge we are told has no regard for either God or humanity and the woman has a case which she insists must be adjudicated.
I think the crowd must have laughed as Jesus talked about the woman who went to the judge’s chambers every day saying, “Vindicate me against my adversary.” Maybe some of them knew a judge like that or a woman with the assertiveness to press her case.
According to the story the judge refused to hear the woman’s complaint for a long time. But finally he said to himself, “Though I neither fear God nor regard people, yet because this widow bothers me, I will vindicate her, or she will wear me out with her continual coming.”
Clearly Jesus is not suggesting that God is like the crotchety old judge who doesn’t care about people. Or that God will give in just to shut us up. Rather Jesus is using a common method of argument that takes us from the lesser to the greater, from the ridiculous to the sublime. The argument is that if a crotchety judge finally does the right thing, “will not God (who is not crotchety) vindicate his elect who cry to him day and night.”
God is seen as the faithful One who hears our prayers and answers. But the passage ends with a probing question, “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”
The answer to the question lies in your heart and in mine. But this we know: a mother sits outside a mine in Utah and her breath has become a prayer; a Rabbi in Jerusalem is even now placing a prayer in the space between the stones on the Wailing Wall; somewhere there is a man crying out “Lord get me out of this”; and in a little Presbyterian Church in Lakewood Colorado, week after week the members offer prayers for one another and for the world.
Copyright © 2007 by Dwight R. Blackstock
Luke 18:1-8
Right now a worried mother is waiting outside the entrance to a mine in Utah. Her son is somewhere deep beneath the earth and she doesn’t know if he is alive or dead. But she’ll wait and hope and as she waits her prayer is as close as her breath, “Lord God, let him be alive!” She breathes in. Lord God I’m desperate now. Please let my son be safe.” She breathes out. No one doubts that her presence there is a prayer.
A half a world away an old orthodox rabbi is shuffling toward the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. He has spent a long time trying to write exactly what he wants to say on a piece of paper – it is a prayer that he will put between the stones in the wall. He hopes that God will see his prayer and answer. Actually his “hope” itself is a prayer.
In a neighboring congregation is a man who has been having a hard time adjusting to the things that life has thrown at him. He is frustrated beyond belief yet he holds out hope that God will somehow enter his life in a decisive way. If he ever had any eloquence in prayer he lost it years ago and now his prayer is simply, “God get me out of this!” He hopes God will hear because he is just about out of faith. Something needs to happen. Like the Rabbi, his “hope” is itself a prayer.
In a retreat center not far from here the participants are learning an ancient prayer that has sustained multitudes. Some call it the “Jesus prayer” It goes like this, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon me.” They are told that the prayer can be prayed anytime – when they are caught in traffic, when they are stressed out a work or at home. When the prayer is offered over time God somehow seems nearer.
“Jesus told his disciples a parable to the effect that they should always pray and not lose heart.” Those who aspire to “pray always” often discover that some form of prayer is as close to them as breathing in and breathing out. In fact, life itself can be a prayer that is addressed to God.
To illustrate his point, Jesus told a parable that was for all intents and purposes a word cartoon. He tells us of a heartless judge and a woman who is persistent to the point of being obnoxious. The judge we are told has no regard for either God or humanity and the woman has a case which she insists must be adjudicated.
I think the crowd must have laughed as Jesus talked about the woman who went to the judge’s chambers every day saying, “Vindicate me against my adversary.” Maybe some of them knew a judge like that or a woman with the assertiveness to press her case.
According to the story the judge refused to hear the woman’s complaint for a long time. But finally he said to himself, “Though I neither fear God nor regard people, yet because this widow bothers me, I will vindicate her, or she will wear me out with her continual coming.”
Clearly Jesus is not suggesting that God is like the crotchety old judge who doesn’t care about people. Or that God will give in just to shut us up. Rather Jesus is using a common method of argument that takes us from the lesser to the greater, from the ridiculous to the sublime. The argument is that if a crotchety judge finally does the right thing, “will not God (who is not crotchety) vindicate his elect who cry to him day and night.”
God is seen as the faithful One who hears our prayers and answers. But the passage ends with a probing question, “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”
The answer to the question lies in your heart and in mine. But this we know: a mother sits outside a mine in Utah and her breath has become a prayer; a Rabbi in Jerusalem is even now placing a prayer in the space between the stones on the Wailing Wall; somewhere there is a man crying out “Lord get me out of this”; and in a little Presbyterian Church in Lakewood Colorado, week after week the members offer prayers for one another and for the world.
Copyright © 2007 by Dwight R. Blackstock
posted by Dwight Blackstock | 6:28 AM
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