Scripture: Luke 18: 1-14
Our Good News this morning is not conveyed in broad universals which are obvious to all people regardless of history or culture. We need to get inside the very specific cultural context in which Jesus and the disciples lived, thought and did the things they did. The fact that Jesus and the disciples were Gallilean Jewish peasants in the Roman Empire was definitive. Being Gallilean Jewish peasants in the Roman Empire meant living a subsistence level life, just barely squeaking by. It also meant being marginalized from wealth, influence and opportunity.
The disciples, their families, friends and neighbors, would have been repeatedly stepped on by two of the main parabolic characters this morning, unjust judges and tax collectors. Even we who may well have friends who are judges can imagine what the power of a judge in the Roman Empire would mean to a poor peasant. And while we may not love the IRS, tax collectors in Roman Palestine were extortionists who squeezed as much as they could out of the vulnerable peasantry. They made their living from whatever was left over after they sent off the required amounts to Herod and Rome. The harder they squeezed, the greater their profit.
In short, unjust judges and tax collectors embodied all that was oppressive in the lives of Gallilean Jewish peasants. The disciples would have had strong, emotional, negative responses to characters like these in stories. Jesus was choosing his character types intentionally.
They would have also personally known Pharisees. Some of the disciples may have been Pharisees themselves. We know that the Apostle Paul was. While Pharisees may be mere stereotyped characters in the Bible to us, for Jesus’ audience they were just one kind of devout Jews, people who took their personal piety very seriously. Pharisees were neighbors, relatives, friends. That a Pharisee should be portrayed as praying at the Temple was about as unremarkable as seeing someone from Dover at a Patriot’s game. Not only should the Pharisee be at the Temple, but they would know how to pray correctly.
So this is about trust then? That we’re supposed to let go of our own strength and accomplishments and cast ourselves upon God’s mercy, steadfast love and grace? But where does the persistence and not losing heart come in then?
I am not going to be the self-righteous Pharisee this morning, touting my righteousness, but I do have some experience with prayer. I have been a pretty serious prayer for 25 years, not serious before that to outright non practicing outside Sunday service. As a pastor, I have prayed more prayers than I care to count that haven’t been answered, at least not that I could see. At hospital bed sides, with families in deep conflict, with addicts, for peace in the Middle East. I have also had plenty of these prayers answered.
What I have noticed over a quarter century of praying, is how long it took me to figure out what Jesus means by praying. To pray, we first have to learn who God is and what God does and promises to do, which, in case you're wondering, is not a mystery. It is found on just about every page of the Bible, so yes, you’re going to have to gain a reasonable acquaintance with the operating manual for the capacities and applications of the Lord our God, aka The Bible. Then you pray for those things.
What I’m trying to say is “God give me a million bucks,” or “God make me the smartest man on earth,” or “God make me as handsome and debonaire as Cary Grant,” well now that would be a miracle, wouldn’t it? But seriously, that’s not what God promises or is interested in. As you become acquainted with God and start praying that God do what God does and promises to do, you find not God changing so much as yourself changing. What seems at first to be outlandish or impossible, like say, oh I don’t know, what would God want to do here in Dover?....offering homeless families a warm bed and meals? Or, let’s see, some other outlandish God promise? Pay for 85 kids in Haiti to go to school? No, how about…fund a hospital for the poorest of the poor?…oh, maybe…put solar panels on the church for clean and free energy… well, now you’re praying. Those are exactly the things God does and promises to do and in praying those thing you find your heart and mind being transformed to more closely correspond to the heart and mind of God. In a way, you find yourself becoming the answer to your prayers. The very things you prayed for you find yourself doing. But it takes time and you have to stick with it, day after day until you the prayer are transformed and conformed into the doing of the prayer. Like the miserable tax collector as opposed to the self satisfied Pharisee, it's not about how great we are but about how great God is and doing that.
So where does this hit home for us right here and right now. It might seem like a leap, but I think it brings us to stewardship which is right where we are right now. Stewardship is, in my opinion, a form of this persistent, transformative prayer I am describing. I know many of you think that stewardship is about raising money to pay bills, but I would disagree and I would say that the ratio of stewardship shortfalls over the years would be in direct proportion to our giving out of that frame of mind. God is no more interested in paying bills than he is in turning me into Cary Grant. God does not want a church to be here just to be a church here paying its bills. God wants a church to be here living out God’s promises and purposes.
If we prayerfully align our purposes as a church with God’s purposes, something that takes time, well God will answer our prayers. The beauty of our congregational way is that all of us get to pray about our alignment with God's purposes and give accordingly.
In case you doubt me, I have seen it in this church with my own eyes. Jesus said, “Let the little children come unto me for to such belong the Kingdom of God.” Well, last year we did something we hadn't done in a number of years, we let the little children come with an improved Sunday School and a youth chorale and sure enough, the little children came. Lots of them. I admit we have made some missteps and it looks like we’re taking a few steps back right now, but the answer to our prayers was clear for anyone with eyes to see.
Or how about our primary purpose in worship, which is to glorify God with thanksgiving and praise, to make a joyful noise to the Lord? I'm not saying that what we do on any given Sunday isn’t that, but on the Sundays when we have gone out of our way to really shout GLORY, on the Sundays when we have been fullthroatedly joyful, when Michael has hired additional instrumentalists and augmented the choir, when Stacia has sung solos or when we have had a band play diverse music, when we have had moving guest speakers, well, the old meetinghouse has filled up and you can feel the glory. The joy is infectious. Am I right? Can I get an Amen?
Persistent prayer. Being the hectoring widow punching God in the eye, the tax collector who knows he needs God, we are at that time of year again when each of us as individuals and all of us as the church of Jesus Christ in this place decide whether we're going to pray persistently and transformatively for the coming of God's kingdom here in Dover, on earth as it is in heaven. Amen.
And finally, the village widow would have also been familiar to anyone who lived in a village as Jesus and the disciples did. In a society without a safety net in which people depended on their families for support and protection, the widow would have been the most marginalized and powerless, living on handouts from her neighbors, maybe sleeping in someone’s shed or back room, scurrying here and there to keep alive, open to insult and abuse because she had no one to stand up for her.
So there you have a little context to better see where this story might have hit home for the disciples and where it might hit home for us. Jesus starts, “Let me tell you why you need to pray always and not lose heart." Not ought to or might, but “need,” not Sundays at 10:35 for five minutes, or when you wake up or before you fall asleep, but “always,” remembering that devout Jews like the disciples would have prayed three times daily, but their prayers would not have resembled a poor widow hectoring a judge, “and not lose heart,” which is easy for any of us who have prayed prayers that just weren’t answered do either temporarily or permanently depending on how disillusioned we might be or how deep the loss was or still is which we hoped to avert by our prayers. “There was a wicked judge and a widow who wanted him to help her get justice. She badgered him until he finally gave in, saying to himself, “This pain in the neck widow is going to punch me in the eye if I don’t help her” (our Bible chooses the polite translation, “tire me out,” but "punch me in the eye” is also accurate and I think Jesus would have winked at that).
Can you imagine what the disciples thought? They would have been astonished. God is like a wicked judge? When we pray we need to nag God? They probably slapped their knees and laughed out loud. Preposterous! Of course it's preposterous, Jesus says. The judge only does what he is supposed to do in the end, which is provide justice. God who is good will do what God has promised, which is bring justice and righteousness, love and new life, harmony and peace, well being for all. Don’t lose heart, even though it looks impossible right now. But the question is, why don't you ask?
And then he follows it right up with yet another preposterous vignette. From the disciples’ point of view, the Pharisee’s prayer was spot on. Run up a list of all the ways you’ve been pleasing to God and encourage God to show you the love in return. After all, you’ve earned it. That's a very popular piety right now in our country. But a tax collector just throwing himself at God? Without one thing to justify himself? That’s uh…proper? Eh…the prayerful attitude God wants?
And they would have sat back and thought for a minute or two, which is what parables are supposed to do, make you think, not give you the answers. So where's the learning here? It must have something to do with the widow and the tax collector? What do they have in common? Oh, they’re both totally dependent on the goodwill of the powerful, the judge and God, both of whom are only being asked to do what they are supposed to do in the first case.
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