21 Pentecost, Year C

Proper 24 -- Genesis 32:3–8, 22–30; Psalm 121; II Timothy 3:14–4:5; Luke 18:1–8
A homily by Fr. Gene Tucker, given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, Illinois on Sunday, October 17, 2010

“A PRIMER ON PRAYER”
(Homily text: Luke 18: 1 – 8)

“And he (Jesus) told them a parable, to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart.” (Luke 18: 1)

Our Lord sets before us today a primer on prayer. In it, we hear the Lord’s instructions about the importance of prayer, about the Father’s willingness to hear our prayers, and about the Father’s continuing care for, and responsiveness to, His people.

Throughout Luke’s gospel account, we read again and again about Jesus’ prayer life. We also have an account of Jesus’ teaching His disciples how to pray, as Luke reminds us about the circumstances of the giving of the Lord’s Prayer (see Luke 11: 1 – 4). The image we have from Luke’s portrayal of Jesus’ life is that He was one who was given to much prayer.

Today’s gospel account calls us to be people of prayer.

So, let’s begin by recalling the circumstances of the early Church to which Luke might have been writing. Let’s also remember our own circumstance as the Church in the 21st century. In my view, the early Church and the Church today face many similar challenges, especially in the area of prayer.

If biblical scholars are correct in their assessment that Luke may have been writing about the period 85 – 90 AD, then it’s possible that the Church to whom he was writing may have been wrestling with deep questions about their place in God’s eternal plans. By the time Luke may have been writing, many in the Church were questioning the idea that Jesus would return in glory very soon. It might have begun to occur to these early believers that Jesus’ return might not occur for some length of time. If so, then the question arises: “What should we be doing, if we (the Church) are going to be here on earth for awhile?”

In connection with this question comes another one: “Has God abandoned us?”

I think this question is a natural one, and it may have been on the minds and in the hearts of many of those early Christians. After all, by the time Luke is writing, some of the early persecutions had already occurred. Christians had paid with their lives the price of their faith. Life in general for Christians in the Roman Empire wasn’t getting any easier as time went by. “Had God abandoned His people?” It seems to be a fair assumption to make that this question was a major concern of those early Christian people.

It’s likely that Luke is addressing just such concerns as these by relating Jesus’ parable to us.

By now, it has been nearly 2,000 years since Jesus walked this earth and taught us about the Father. By now, Luke’s gospel account itself is about 1,900 years old.

Much has changed for God’s people in the interim.

But much has also stayed the same: Living the Christian life isn’t an easy proposition, even in a wonderful country like ours. For one thing, the culture we live in is a thoroughly secular one, a culture that seems to promote and value many of the same behaviors as were found in the Roman Empire. Though we American Christians aren’t paying with our lives the price of our faith, we are still finding ourselves swimming upstream against the current of a secular culture whose values are antithetical to Christian values, much of the time.
On the surface, it may not seem like God answers prayer, or that He is even present in our day-to-day lives.
“Has God abandoned His people?” we ask.
Today’s parable, generally known as the “Parable of the Unjust Judge”, provides an answer. It also provides encouragement, encouragement that we, like those first century Christians, are called to be a people given to much prayer.

Before we consider the aspects of what might constitute a healthy and active prayer life, let’s look briefly at the parable itself.

At first glance, the parable may not seem to make a whole lot of sense.

Jesus uses a literary device in the parable which is known as lesser-to-greater. This device allows the reader or hearer to identify with a common situation, in order to extrapolate the meaning from it and transfer it to the greater, larger situation. Here, then, Jesus uses the example of a judge who “neither feared God nor regarded men” to show that the judge was crooked, essentially. This judge apparently ignored all of the Old Testament requirements for a person to act as judge in legal matters. Regard for the sacred trust placed in judges apparently didn’t phase this unjust judge, not in the least. Concern for God’s sense of justice, and care for God’s people, didn’t seem to matter to this particular judge at all.

And so, Jesus then says that a widow sets her case before this unjust judge. We must recall, at this juncture, the plight of widows in biblical times. In Jewish culture, widows had very little legal standing. In fact, in order to gain legal protections, oftentimes widows would have to have a male relative present their case before a court.

So, it’s clear from Jesus’ parable that the widow has very little leverage with which to move the unjust judge to hear her case, and to grant her legal relief. All she can do is to pester the judge, which she does.

Jesus makes the point that, if an unjust judge will grant consideration to the widow’s request by virtue of her unceasing efforts, then won’t God – who isn’t unjust nor unhearing – grant our requests without pestering? This is the lesser-to-greater movement Jesus intends for us to make.

Exactly. God is much more willing to hear than we are to pray. God is much more willing to grant our requests than we are deserving of such an answer to our prayers. (We have a wonderful collect which expresses these two ideas beautifully: See page 234 in the Book of Common Prayer, 1979. This collect is prayed on a Sunday in early October every year.)

If we can accept the truth of God’s willingness to hear, and His willingness to grant our requests as they are in accordance with His will, then what about the matter of prayer? Are there misconceptions present in our thinking about the nature of prayer? And, for that matter, what might a healthy prayer life look like?

It is to these two questions that we now turn.

We begin with misconceptions that might be present in our attitudes and our approach to the important matter of prayer. Each misconception will be posed in the form of a question.

Where’s that in the book? The Book of Common Prayer is a wonderful tool to aid us in worship, and in prayer. Rich Anglican liturgical worship, which is based on the Prayer Book, can’t be beat for depth and richness of expression, and for a sheer beauty which values a sense of the majesty of God. But there’s a down side to having such a rich prayer resource: We can get so used to using it that we forget how to pray without it. Many longtime Episcopalians stumble when they have an occasion to pray, because they seem to feel they need the Prayer Book to do so.

Of course, the God who is much more willing to hear than we are to pray (as we said a little while ago), is also the God who knows our concerns before we ask (as the Prayer Book also says). These two truths should encourage us to simply give to the Lord our praise, our concerns, and our thanksgivings. So what if our first attempts at saying or praying these things are clumsy? In time, we’ll get better at praying extemporaneously. Practice does make perfect, in this case.

Don’t we need a church? Here, we confront another common attitude: We can only pray in the church building itself. Prayer, according to this attitude, should be an activity that we do when we’re in church. However, I get the impression that we might feel that we don’t need to pray at other times.

In contrast to this attitude, Jesus’ parable, heard today, calls us to be people of prayer, all the time, and in every place. Prayer ought to suffuse our daily lives.

“Father, please pray for me”: Another common attitude is that the clergy have some sort of a “hot line” to God. Coupled with this attitude is one which says that God hears the prayers of clergy more than He hears other prayers.

Nonsense.

For one thing, if we clergy believe that God hears us more than He hears others, then we are in the same spiritual boat as the Pharisee in Jesus’ Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector (which we will consider next week). If clergy think they are somehow closer to God than others are, then the truth is that those same clergy are actually farther away from God than others are.

Clergy don’t have a “hot line” to God. All of us have such a “hot line”, and it is available to us 24/7/365. Today’s parable encourages us to make use of our connection to the Father.

One thing that clergy might – and ought – to be doing is to be about the business of prayer. So, we might say that clergy might possibly engage in more prayer that some people do. That would be the only possible difference between laity and clergy: the amount of time and effort spent in prayer.

Now, how might a prayer life be characterized as a healthy one? After all, we don’t want to get into the habit of treating God like the business end of a spiritual ATM machine. You know, the sort of attitude that says, “When you need God, you go, put your prayer access card into God’s ATM prayer machine, put in (the amount of) your request, get it, and drive on with life!”

Unfortunately, many people treat God just that way. They make it seem like the only time prayer is important is when they need or want something, and once they have it, they forget God until the next time some need or difficulty comes along.

But today’s parable calls us to be people of prayer.

How, then, can we maintain a healthy connection to the Father in prayer?

As we suggest to our Junior High youth in our New Beginnings Retreat, here is a recipe for a healthy and balanced prayer life.

It is known by the acronym A C T S L.

A – Adoration: We adore God for who He is: wonderful, awesome, majestic, eternal. This same God also desires to have an ongoing, personal and deep relationship with each and every one of us. So, we adore God for who God is, awesome in power and majesty, yet very near and very present with each individual believer.

C – Confession: We confess to God the ways in which we have fallen short of His standard of holiness, in thought, in word, and in deed. We open our hearts to Him, knowing that He knows us thoroughly and deeply already. We come, seeking forgiveness and amendment of life.

T – Thanksgiving: Here, we remember the many reasons for giving God thanks for the gift of life, the gift of faith, for providing our basic needs on a daily basis, and so forth. (This part of the formula is especially important, for giving thanks to God is often forgotten.)

S – Supplication: We offer our needs and our desires to God, not only for ourselves, but for others whose needs are known to us.

L – Listening: Prayer is a two-way conversation. Oftentimes, we forget to listen, as well as to speak. Listening for God’s voice comes in the quiet and silent times (an important aspect of prayer), and also in regular reading of Scripture, and in the voices of others in the Church. These are just some of the ways God speaks to us.

Finally, our whole lives can be a prayer: We can be a people given to much prayer, prayers that are offered verbally, prayers that are offered silently, short and concise prayers, prayers that are no more than one word or thought, quickly offered, prayers that consist of acts of love and kindness which reflect God’s love and kindness toward us. All of these are ways we can live lives of prayer.

Jesus told them a parable, to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart.

May God’s people ever be people of prayer, people who do not lose heart, knowing that God hears the prayers of the faithful, and God abides with His people until the end of time.

AMEN.