Sermon: Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost

October 21, 2007

Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost

Luke 18: 1-8

The 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?”

Good News: God desires to be in relationship with us

Take Time to Hear God Sneeze

It was still. Very very still. The only sound that I could hear was the continuous trickle of the baptismal font the kept flowing into the pool of water below. The floor was stone. The windows were high. And yet, it wasn’t cold. It was comforting, comfortable. And there I sat, simply being in the Presence. Simply being with God. My mind wandered from thing to thing as I sat. Sometimes I closed my eyes. Sometimes I kept them open. I could see no one else as I sat there, in the dark of that sanctuary, and just listened to my heartbeat. Listened to God, enjoying the relationship that comes with having a God who desires to be personal.

And then I heard a sneeze.

It startled me from my meditation and I looked around. I couldn’t see anyone. It was dark. I couldn’t hear anyone either; not a sound. And for a moment, for a split second, I thought to myself, “Perhaps God has a cold.”

Of course not.

But being in the Presence there, not seeing or hearing anything but that sneeze, I slightly wondered.

Today we have a parable about coming to God and being in the Presence. Jesus encourages his disciples to come to God in prayer often and without getting discouraged. In many of the parables found in Luke, one person is supposed to be us, and the other person is supposed to be God. But this one is different. You see, this judge is not supposed to be seen as God.

In this parable, this judge is the opposite of God.

How do we know? Look back again at those first few lines. Go ahead, turn back. Jesus says, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people.”

“Neither feared God nor had respect for people.”

This is not God; this is the anti-god. God has respect for creation. God has so much respect for creation, that God came down in the person of Jesus to stand with creation against evil and sin, to obliterate and save God’s people as was promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This judge who somehow, probably by deceit, became the judge of people without respecting them, is not to be seen as God.

Another way we know that this judge is not God is because this judge is egotistical. Look at his reason for granting the widow’s pleas. It is not because he actually wants to help the widow; it is because he wants to get the woman off his back, to get her to leave him alone. His actions are for his own well-being, not hers.

No, this judge is not supposed to be God and we should not make the mistake of seeing him as God.

So what does this parable say, then, about God and specifically with respect to prayer?

This parable tells us that God is everything this judge is not. See, Jesus is setting up the anti-model. He is saying that, if this judge who cares nothing for others and who is totally consumed with himself will grant this woman’s request, how much more then will God, who is totally consumed with creation and salvation listen to the requests of the ones God loves? Especially the requests for justice in this world toward the disenfranchised of God’s people.

And so we pray as Jesus instructs us, not because if we badger God enough God will listen, but because God wants to listen to us! God desires to be with us, to be near us, to be in relationship with us, and that happens through prayer.

And so, the question is now not, “Will God listen?” Jesus already answered that. The question is now, “Will we pray?”

Will we pray? Will you pray? When the Son of Man comes, will he find people in faithful prayer?

Carlo Carretto, an author and brother in the Catholic Order of the Little Brothers of Jesus wrote a fantastic book on prayer and the need for prayer in the late 70’s. The title of the book is The God Who Comes, and in it he writes about his own struggles with prayer. His struggles are not so much in finding time to pray himself, but in finding ways to convince others, even his Catholic brothers and sisters, to find time to pray.

On one side of the aisle he finds people who don’t believe that God listens because they don’t see their requests come to pass. I would say these people expect God to be an ATM machine, conveniently dispensing requests each time we go to God in prayer.

On the other side of the aisle he finds people who don’t have time to pray because they are too busy doing work in the world, even good work in the world to help humanity. They see God in the face of others, and therefore spend all their time helping others, and no time praying.

So why pray? Why pray when it seems sometimes that God is not listening? Why pray when it seems that there is too much work to do in this world, too much help to give, and prayer is time spent sitting when we can be doing?

Why pray?

We pray, as Carlo points out, because we have a personal God who desires to be in relationship with us. If we don’t pray we are not searching for that personal relationship with God. If we don’t stay with long hours in order to know God, to talk to God, to study with God and understand God then, little by little, we start to forget God. Our memory of God weakens and we no longer will recognize God in the day to day, hour to hour life that we lead.

Carlo uses this analogy: “A person calls their spouse to tell them, “I’m sorry, this evening I’ll be coming home late because I’ve got so much work!” There is nothing wrong with this. But if it is the thousandth time that this same call is made, and they have not seen each other in weeks on excuse of work, or busyness, or frustration, then it is more serious because it becomes more and more clear that, if they love each other, they are not acting on it.

If they love each other, they are not acting on it.

God loves you, and we see that so clearly through Jesus. God loves us enough to come to be with us, to promise to always be with us. We have a God who desires to act on that love, to meet you in conversation, to hear about your struggles, your hopes, your fears, your desires. We have a God who longs to speak to you about these things, speaking through the Word, through the sacraments, through the voice of other people.

And we, as people who love God, must tap into that relationship intentionally. Because God desires to be with us, God gives us the permission to call upon God with our thoughts and concerns. And God does not have an answering machine, but listens in the real time.

But what about those excuses? What if we tire from prayer because it seems like it gets us no where? To that I would ask, “ What are you expecting?” Are you expecting a relationship with God, or expecting God to do what you ask? If we expect God to simply do what we ask we become the judge in today’s parable, egocentric. Relationships involve give and take, work and effort.

And what about the other excuse? That there is too much to do in this world to take time for prayer? To that I would ask, how long do you think you can keep doing good works without plugging into the force that drives our good deeds? We cannot keep doing the good work of this world without knowing why we do it. We do it because God has given us love and asked us to extend that love to others. If we lose touch with that loving relationship, it will be hard to do that loving work for others.

God loves you and desires to be in relationship with you. Prayer is a way to center yourself around that love, around that relationship; to let it flow in you, through you, into your thoughts, words, and deeds. And pray without ceasing because God is working in this world to bring justice and peace. Perhaps, through prayer, we can better see how God can use us to be the answer to that prayer.

So, as we have a God who desires to be with us, who came in the form of Jesus to demonstrate the desire, I encourage you to go this week and pray without ceasing. It will change your days. Perhaps, just perhaps, you will hear God sneeze. Perhaps you will hear more. Amen.