“Jesus told them a parable
about their need to pray always and not to lose heart.”
I
tell you, it’s hard not to lose heart when I read through the Post-It Notes that
the HHOPE ministry volunteers place in my office box each Saturday after one of
their distributions. The Post-It Notes contain the prayer requests, in their
own handwriting with a ball-point pen, of the HHOPE guests, those people who
are receiving food from our own church narthex. From its beginning, that
ministry has sought to listen to and pray for the specific prayers of the
people it helps, not just hand out food. On one of their tables is a stack of
Post-It Notes and those who have prayer requests write their concern down and
hand it to the volunteers, who then include those prayer requests when they
hold hands and circle for prayer at the end of each distribution. Afterwards,
one of the HHOPE volunteers then traditionally deposits them in my box, and I
have to say it is moving to come into the office on Sunday and read through
prayers of these people in our community, although, I have to say after reading
them for almost three or four years now, I’m still seeing the same desperate
appeals.
That’s
where it’s hard not to lose heart. Some of the requests are vague and general, but
some are very specific, and it makes me wonder: when will relief come for the
woman who prays for her child with special needs? When will resolution come for
the person who conscientiously scribbles down her request month after month for
settling a dispute with a landlord? The persistent, relentless faith of these
individuals is inspiring, even as I, their eavesdropper, wonder if I would ever
have the nerve to enlist my own prayers so fervently.
The
heart for trying, the heart for believing: Jesus knows his disciples run the
risk of losing just that—of getting discouraged with the tasks of faith and
witness. They are about to be sent out into a world that will not readily
receive them where they will often feel vulnerable and unwelcome. They are
about to be sent out as ambassadors of a kingdom that is often not visible. It
won’t have borders or boundaries or strong castles to defend it. It will occur
right in among them in a moments of love and forgiveness, where the cruel ways
of the world are momentarily turned back and God’s grace reigns. That is the
particular kingdom they offer their lives for, they seek and strive for, and
the cruel ways of the world will often roll right over them.
Jesus
knows they will feel a lot like the ancient Israelites did as they made their
way up to the holy city of Jerusalem for pilgrimages, having to pass through
the hills and mountains of the surrounding countryside. Those hills and
mountains were the territory of the pagan enemies who off and on threatened
them with war. Those foreign peoples would build their shrines to unknown earth
gods on the peaks of those distant hills and the Israelites would sing and
wonder aloud as they trekked to the Temple of the one Lord, coming up out of
the shadowy valleys where it is always easy to lose heart, “I lift my eyes up
to these mountains which loom over me, threatening
my journey…from where will my help come? And the Israelite faithful would
answer themselves, “My help comes from the LORD, the maker of heaven and earth,
the maker of even those looming
mountains.”
 |
| "Pilgrimage to Jerusalem" (Roberts & Hauge) |
Yes,
Jesus knows they could lose heart and so he gives them a remedy, a bulwark as they traverse their valley: pray
always. It will be taking a
ball-point pen and ripping off yet another Post-It Note and placing it in the hands of caring people who will pray with
you. It will be repeating, in various
and creative ways, sometimes even only to themselves, that the LORD is more powerful than the mountains that tower over
us from time to time.
And
to give them an example of what he means Jesus
tells them a parable of a people engaged in a kind of dialogue, except for it is a very one-sided
dialogue. It is the unjust judge
versus a widow. It is the person who
occupies a privileged place within the community, tasked with using his voice to create new realities for people versus the person who has no place at
all, and who has no voice, since that’s the Hebrew root word for
“widow”: silenced.
The
judge, we find out, is a downright shameless character, concerned neither with how his behavior affects those around him nor how his decrees ignore or damage
the community. The widow is seeking
some sort of justice. Perhaps it’s a
landlord issue, too. Whatever the
case, it must be related to be the
one small shred of legal standing she has.
She persistently calls on him, stands
outside his office every single day. She
is on first-name basis with his receptionist, and when the people in the office see her coming each day they start to roll her eyes, shuffling
their papers to look busy. Over and
over she does things to get his attention,
but he won’t listen, sends her straight to voice mail.
 |
| (Eugene Burnand) |
Finally
the judge caves, but not because he
cares about her, but because he’s
worried that she may end up making him look bad. He says he’s concerned she’ll “wear him out,” which is a Greek boxing term which, directly translated, means, “give me a black eye.” The judge only listens to her because
of what it might mean for him if he doesn’t.
That is, he’s never really willing to be engaged in what she’s going
through. He stays outside of it, even as he grants her request.
Don’t
worry, says Jesus, once he finishes with the story, you’ve got a God who comes to
this dialogue of prayer as a partner. You’ve
got a Father in heaven who cares, who
doesn’t stay outside of it, who wants
to be involved somehow. You’ve got a
God who ultimately will get a black eye—and in fact, far more than that in order to grant justice and bring
about his kingdom.
It
is tempting to think of prayer as
something like writing Christmas wish lists to God. We think that since God is listening and has all the power of the
universe at hand, we can just lob our requests out there into the air and see what happens. And I know even as I say this that I’ve
spoken with people who have lost
their faith in God because they’ve
prayed and prayed and what they felt
they wanted didn’t come true. So I
speak with great caution here, but we
can forget that prayer is a dialogue, even
a whole-body affair at times. We
can forget that the models we have of
people who engage with God are like this widow, who does far more than just go through the motions. She gets up and tries again, maybe
shifting her tactics slightly, rephrasing
the request. They are models like
Jacob by the Jabbok, who, tormented
by his past and fearing his future, grapples
with his Creator mysteriously almost as an equal and is forever changed as a result of it. He comes away very different than he started.
In
his novel, Jayber Crow, author and poet
and farmer Wendell Berry wonders at one point, “Perhaps all the good that ever has come here has come because
people prayed it into the world…Prayer is like lying awake at night, afraid, with
your head under the cover, hearing only the beating of your own heart. It is like a bird that has blundered
down the flue and is caught indoors and
flutters at the windowpanes. It is
like standing a long time on a cold day, knocking
at the door.”
We
don’t always know where our praying will take us, but one question Jesus’ parable asks of us is where are we ultimately looking for vindication? The mountains around us, the temples of those gods who stand
aloof, like the capricious ones who supposedly affect the outcome of football
games? Or perhaps within our fickle
selves? Do we only look there for the answers? Techniques offered by self-help programs and achieving inner peace
may work for some things, but at the
end of the day issues that have to do with justice, that have to do with the needs of the widows in our midst, of establishing that real reign of
peace and joy of Christ will come
only from God, of standing sometimes
a long time and knocking at the door. At the end of the day, being
an ambassador and witness to that kingdom will come only from looking to
Christ.
It
is looking to the model of all model, the
example of all examples, who once prays
so hard we are told his sweat turns to blood. He is the one who reminds us more than anything else that God engages us in our striving and
in our losing heart to the point that
he comes down to lose heart with us, who
prays, on the cross, “Where have you been, Lord? Can you even hear me?”
Ultimately,
you see, prayer should change us, too,
and not because we give up or grow frustrated but because, in engaging the One
on the cross, we come to see how God
can still be at work even when the
tides of injustice roll right over us. We
come to see the world outside ourselves, the
places where God is showing up to establish justice. We receive what God knows we really need: Suffering that gives way
to growing. Dying that gives way to
living. A Lord that preserves us from
all evil and keeps our life, who
watches over our going out and coming in from this time forth forevermore.
A
funny little story about the going out and coming in, about praying always and not losing heart and being changed:
Each night before bed we pray the same stock prayer with our daughters. We’ve done it for years. It was the same one I prayed as a
child. It goes, “Now I lay me down to
sleep/ I pray the Lord my soul to keep./ In the morning when I wake,/ I pray
the path of love to take.”
Not
too long ago we listened closely one evening as one daughter was praying along
with us And, interestingly enough, we
discovered she had changed the words ever-so-slightly and made it her own. “In
the morning when I wake,” went her fervent plea, “I pray the path I love to
take.” And, let me tell you, if you know our daughters—our
beautiful, strong-willed, independent-minded daughters—you know God has been listening.
And answering!
Thanks
be to God!
The Reverend Phillip W. Martin, Jr.
The Reverend Phillip W. Martin, Jr.
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