Bothering Prayer

You can listen to this sermon here

 Gate Pa –  29^th Sunday in Ordinary Time- Year C – 2022

Readings
Psalm -                  Psalm: 119:97-104                                             
First Reading -      Jeremiah 31:27-34
Second Reading -  2 Timothy 3:14 – 4:5                    
Gospel -                 Luke 18:1-8                                                        

What I want to say:
This is a reading that seems straight forward but turns out not so much. It asks how we encounter God – acting for justice in the world or slow to act like the judge.  And I wonder what the invitation to pray incessantly for justice really invites us into:  a passive praying, an praying like the Negroes of Southern USA, or pestering active praying like Greta.
How do we pray and what for

What I want to happen:
People to name the issues of justice around us today, to pray incessantly, and to be open to being called to engage in that work of justice making – for there is God

The Sermon

      1.     Introduction:

A few years ago I read Karen Armstrong’s “The Bible: A Biography: Books that Changed the World”
-         talks about how bible came to be
-         and how it has been read over the centuries
The Word of God speaks through the words of scripture
-         something that can be read in several ways
-         give several different readings
-         so is something we should constantly we wrestle with
what surprised me was that the shift from that
to
The bible is the Word of God
when bible stopped being something to be read in number of ways
-         something to wrestle with
to makers handbook
only read in one way – literally
like simple set of instructions
only really happened in last 140 years
Armstrong suggests
-         I agree
desperately unhelpful for Christian faith
ability to talk to each other
read scripture way allow us to hear Word of God speak in issues we face today
also been damaged

      2.     Let’s wrestle

This passage we heard today invites several ways of reading it.
States at beginning what it is about
“a parable about their need to pray continuously and not to be discouraged”
As we tell the story
I wonder where we see ourselves?
-         As widow
-         Or the judge
-         Of someone listening to Jesus
-         Or somewhere else?
Then tells story of powerless widow who leaves her lane in life
-         takes action
-         And demands justice
Reminds me of Greta Thunberg
-         Someone who many of those think they are important
-         Think should stay quiet and at school
o   Stay in her lane
o   Leave them to sort out the issues as they see fit.
-         Belittle her
o   Try to ignore her
-         Won’t go away
Instead she is in their faces
-         Demanding justice for the planet and all who live on it.
-         Demanding that we take climate change seriously
-         Change how we live in this world
o   So that all people and all creation can thrive
-         And that really annoys so many people.
Can’t think of a better picture of the widow in this story.

      3.     God

Jesus goes on to say that judge decides
-         give this widow justice because she keeps bothering me. Otherwise, there will be no end to her coming here and embarrassing me
If this judge who is unjust
-         Who does not love God by loving his neighbour
Will act to avoid being embarrassed and pestered
Surely God who is just can be trusted to act!!??
Except
-         For Luke’s community
-         Maybe for us, sometimes
Sometimes it feels like God is not acting
That God is not caring
Is more like the unjust judge
And needs to be bothered into action by our incessant prayers

      4.     Praying

Is that what praying here is about?
-         Pestering God into action like Greta is trying to get action
-         Like the widow bothered and embarrassed the unjust judge into action?
ð Another way of reading it is that it is our faithful duty to pray
ð Another way is that it about what the prayer does to us?
Is that tied into the faithfulness he talks about at the end of the story?
Several of the commentators talk about how this prayer is not so much us with our list of complaints or requests
-         Which prayer can too easily be.
But an honest engaging with God which changes us
-         and allows us to begin to see with God’s eyes.
As I read that I was reminded of the prayers and songs of the Negro people in USA when they were slaves
-         Songs and prayers of those who lived under Jim Crow
Songs and prayers of resistance and hope
Songs and prayers of a people who had every right to give up on God
-         Justice was and is in too many cases a long way away
And yet many like Martin Luther King incessantly prayed
Trusting in the God who provide justice to his chosen people
-         They were God’s chosen people
-         And justice would come
They gained the courage to stay strong despite what was happening to them
To resist in small ways
So that eventually God’s justice would begin to prevail.
Which is to say
Praying incessantly isn’t to motivate God
It is to motivate us to trust in God’s justice
And to live trusting that justice
So that justice might prevail.

      5.     Conclusion

• So how do we pray in this time of peril?
• What do we pray for?
• And how is our praying changing us?