Saturday 23 October 2010

ST MICHAEL’S. LIQUID FAMILY COMMUNION. 17 OCTOBER 2010. ROBERT.

This is rather a perplexing parable about prayer until we spot the fact that Jesus pitches his story almost as a joke. The judge and the widow are really like something out of a cartoon. A good modern translation (Tom Wright) has the judge fearing he is going to get a black eye from this impressively persistent widow who is simply not going to leave until he attends to her case. There’s an element of Tom and Jerry about it. Hopefully our imagination can stretch to the idea of these two formidable people having a stand-up fight, with the poor little old lady with her umbrella coming out decisively on top and the rich judge crawling under his desk to avoid her blows.

It is this ‘knock-about’ element to the story that helps to make it clear that we are to contrast God’s attitude to the judge’s. Verse 6 means: ‘If even this thoroughly rotten and probably corrupt judge agrees to achieve justice for the widow, how much more will the just and merciful God in heaven achieve justice for us, and for the world he has created.’

And Jesus uses this as an encouragement to us all to pray, and never give up – or, in an alternative translation, never to lose heart and become discouraged.

We have to make a distinction here between ‘perseverance’ and ‘pestering’. Consider a child pestering his parents. ‘I want an ice-cream’ while tugging at their coats. The parents have every right to say ‘No’ and to hold out as long as is necessary. We are not to be like children pestering God, and thinking that, if we keep on tugging at his coat-tails long and hard enough, he will eventually give us what we want, even if it’s not good for us. But consider with me two kinds of example of how faithful, persistent prayers are answered – the first personal, the second of world-wide significance.

Consider, firstly, the faithful prayers day by day, month after month, for someone’s healing, and then seeing the person slowly making a recovery. Or, of course, as we continue to pray regularly, persistently in the Spirit, gradually realising that our prayers need to be adjusted, and that full healing will take place on the far side of death. We are to pray and not be discouraged because God will answer our prayers in the way that is best within his sovereign will. Or, in another example, how faithful people pray for a person’s life to change, and for them to come to faith, and how those gently persistent prayers are answered often many, many years later – perhaps not even within the lifetime of the person praying. The people to whom Jesus was speaking had been imploring God for so many years to send his Messiah to deliver them. And God has heard their prayers and the Son of Man has come in answer. But many did not recognise in Jesus the answer to their fervent and oft repeated prayers. Sometimes our prayers are answered, and we fail to recognise it because it isn’t what we are expecting, and faith does not turn into thanksgiving and response.

Secondly, this passage points us to a bigger and longer term fulfilment in answer to the prayers of God’s people.

When we pray for peace and justice for our world, we don’t expect to see quick answers. And we may be tempted to give up, because it seems that war and evil continue to flourish. But here is the encouragement to continue quietly praying and never to give up – to persevere – because it is God’s intention that, one day, there will indeed be peace on earth, wrongs will be righted, and, as God promises in Revelation 21, there will be no more death or mourning, or crying or pain, and God will wipe away every tear from our eyes.

Because we had family in East Germany throughout the Communist regime, we knew at first hand how many people had quietly been praying for their families to be reunited. They prayed for more than forty years. And then, as quietly and suddenly as the Berlin wall had appeared, it collapsed – and without a shot being fired. You simply never know when or how God is going to answer our deepest prayers. But here is great assurance that our persevering prayers for justice in our world will one day be answered, and the deepest longings of our hearts will be fulfilled. Be encouraged to pray – and never give up. As the hymn tells us:

Have we trials and temptations/Is there trouble anywhere?
We should never be discouraged/Take it to the Lord in prayer.

Discussion

1. Are you sometimes tempted to give up your faith because your prayers simply haven’t ‘worked’? Can you share the circumstances?

2. Can you share examples of how God has answered persistent prayer, perhaps in ways you didn’t expect?

3. The Christian faith and hope is that, one day, God – the Judge of all the earth – will bring justice to those who are wronged, and peace to a warlike world. Do you find this difficult to believe? Do you pray for it regularly?

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