Genesis 32: 22–31 / Psalm 121 / II Timothy 3:14 – 4:5 / Luke 18: 1–8
This is the written version of the homily
given at St. Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran Church (ELCA) in Carlisle,
Pennsylvania on Saturday, October 18, 2025, and given at Flohr’s ELCA Church in
McKnightstown, Pennsylvania on Sunday, October 19, 2025, by Fr. Gene Tucker, Interim Pastor at Flohr's.
“FAITH AND PRAYER: OUR TOOLS FOR EFFECTIVE
CHRISTIAN LIVING”
(Homily
text: Luke 18: 1–8)
We begin with some humor…
It is Sunday morning, and the pastor is
scurrying around, getting ready for the service. He notices (with some
interest) that Charlie is sitting in the back pew. The pastor is a bit baffled,
but interested in Charlie’s presence, because Charlie isn’t a regular attendee
at church, and Charlie doesn’t seem to be especially spiritual.
However, the pastor notices that
Charlie seems to be engaged in intense prayer. Indeed, the pastor is correct.
Charlie is engaged in intense prayer. If the pastor could hear Charlie’s
prayer, he would hear this: “O God, I really need to win the lottery this week.
The grand prize is really big. I’m counting on you to come through for me.
Thank you, God. Amen”.
Charlie goes through the service,
shakes hands with the pastor on his way out the door (something that I call
“running the clergy gauntlet”), and makes his way through the week.
But there is no winning lottery ticket
for Charlie.
The next Sunday, Charlie is present
again, and just like the previous Sunday, he is there quite a bit before
service time. He is, again, engaged in intense prayer, the same prayer as last
week.
But there is no winning lottery ticket
for Charlie that week, either.
On the third Sunday, Charlie is again
in the same spot, and he begins his prayer, using the same words he had used
the previous two Sundays. But he gets only a few words out before God’s voice
thunders from the rafters. God says, “Charlie, work with me here, buy a ticket,
why don’t you?”
For this, the Nineteenth Sunday after
Pentecost, we have before us Jesus’ Parable of the Unjust Judge. (This is
material that Luke, alone among the Gospel writers, passes along to us.)
To be sure we don’t miss what the
meaning and the application of the parable is, Luke introduces it by telling us
that the Lord told this parable so that His followers would continue to pray
and not to lose heart. (Perhaps this parable was an important encouragement to
those early Christians who heard and read Luke’s account, for by the time of
Luke’s writing, the early Church was facing hard times and difficult
persecutions.)
We would do well to look at a few
details of the parable.
The first thing we ought to notice is
found in verse 5. Most translations use some sort of a phrase denoting that the
widow who seeks justice from this unjust judge is going to “wear out” the judge
by her constant pestering. But the Greek conveys a different sense. Literally,
it says that the widow is going to “beat him [the judge] up and below the eye”.
Put into an English idiom, we would say that the widow is threatening to give
the judge a black eye, meaning that the judge will lose his reputation by continuing
to refuse to hear the widow and to give her justice.
The next thing that we should notice is
that the Lord is comparing the judge, who is dishonest and unjust, to God, the
ultimate judge who is – by contrast – completely just and always willing to
hear the prayers of those who seek after Him. Essentially, the Lord is making
use of a rhetorical device known as “Lesser-to-Greater”. Oftentimes, when this
device is used, it is identified by the phrase “how much more”. Here, we do not
have the phrase “how much more”, but the Lord still makes the comparison, as He
says that “will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and
night?”. Then, a little later, He adds, “when the Son of Man comes, will he
find faith on earth?”.
Jesus’ comparison of the unjust and
dishonest judge with God (that “Lesser-to-Greater” stuff we looked at a moment
ago) brings with it some implications for us, as the Lord’s disciples.
For one thing, there is no need to
pester God in order to receive an answer. God is, Holy Scripture tells us,
always more ready to hear than we are to pray, and is more willing to give us
what is best for us than what we can ask or imagine.
For another, since God is the ultimate
source of all goodness, all love, and all generosity, we would do well to
present our needs, our concerns and our desires to Him, doing so on a regular and
ongoing basis, but without pestering. This is (I think) a middle ground between
the pestering that the widow in our parable had to do to receive justice, and
the opposite extreme which is characterized by complete disregard for God’s
ability to assist us in times of need.
Since God is concerned for our welfare,
God’s answer to our prayers will always be best for us, even if the answer God
provides is either, “yes”, “no”, “not now” or “I have a better idea”.
One more thought is worthy of mention
and consideration: In the joke with which we began, Charlie’s problem was that
he wanted all the benefits of winning the lottery. But Charlie hadn’t done his
part to make that possible. (This point is a wonderful commentary on the ways
we human beings often think and behave, I think!). In today’s parable, Jesus
makes clear that having faith is essential when we approach God with our
praise, our thanks, and our desires. Faith is much like Charlie’s lottery
ticket: Faith connects us to the possibility of receiving God’s response. Faith
“gets us in the game”, if you like. Having faith is our part in the
God-and-humankind partnership.
Holy Scripture encourages us to “pray
without ceasing”. (I Thessalonians 5:17). As we continue to pray, it’s possible
that we might be the ones who change, who come to see God’s will more clearly.
AMEN.
