Persistent Prayer

Psalm 5: 1-5

Romans 8: 22-27

Luke 18: 1-8

Persistent Prayer

The United Press International once reported about a young Taiwanese man who wrote his girl friend 700 letters in two years, asking her to marry him. His persistence finally paid off.....for her. She married the mailman who had delivered those 700 letters.

For 14 years, a group of pious women had asked their priest to say the 6:00 a.m. mass every day "for a special intention." As the years went by and they kept asking for the same intention, the priest finally asked them what impossible thing they were asking God for that hadn't been granted in 14 years. They replied as one, "We've been praying for you to be transferred." So persistence in prayer doesn't guarantee the results the prayer wants.

The parable of the widow and the unjust judge is a classic story of a persistent nagger and a naggee. Only Luke tells this story about nagging raised to world-class, full-body-contact pestering. It could well be played for laughs if the point were not so deadly serious. A widow seeks justice in some unspecified suit. She nags an amoral judge day and night until he gives in and to get rid of her rules in her favor.

God's purposes are often thwarted by unjust judges, dictators and their like. But it is important still to persist in prayer, not so much to persuade God but because prayer impassions us. True prayer is not a spiritual sedative. It is, to put it simply, an impassioned cry for a better world, and God hears such crys.

Jesus’ parable is as much about prayer as about persistence. It is about our call to be constant and faithful and steadfast in our prayers. The widow does not pray to win the lottery or to be young and beautiful again or to be successful in business or tennis or to have her husband back. She prays for what she knows in her heart to be right:  justice against her opponent. And the unjust judge finally grants her justice. Jesus asks the obvious question: "And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night?" Then he answers his own question: "I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them."

It is God's connection to our humanness that makes him subject to others' ability to answer prayer. But this in its turn implies a blessedness in every thing, every person, every action - that even the most stubborn slob, like the judge in the story, might have the capacity to serve God's purposes if for the wrong reasons. And if another person might answer our prayer so God can use us to answer others' prayers, if we permit.

God seems always elusive, and when we think of answers to prayer there is always the possibility that others or we ourselves have supplied them.

There was once a widow who lived in a tiny shack with her little child. She was very poor and very devout. She used to have heated discussions with her landlord who argued that prayer was pointless for if God answered prayers the woman would not be so poor. As it was he, the landlord, was far wealthier than the woman and had never said a prayer in his life. One day the landlord was passing the woman's house when he heard her praying aloud, explaining that she had nothing left to eat and no money to buy bread. The man decided to teach her a lesson. Rushing home he returned with a loaf of bread, which he flung through the window.

A few minutes later the woman burst out of her door and called to the man. 'Now I can prove that God answers prayers; I was praying for food and suddenly this loaf of bread appeared.' 'Not at all,' he laughed, 'it was me who threw the bread through the window, not God. Look, you can see the price label from the supermarket!' 'Well then,' said the woman, 'it is a double blessing, because not only did I receive bread when I asked for it, but God used you, an unbeliever, as an instrument of his mercy.'

Who answered the prayer? Was it the man, or was it God or was the woman in part the answer to her own prayer? Or could it have been all three? Prayer is not a spiritual sedative, nor is it a warm bath - it is a part of the process by which we in our need reach out to others in their need. Although we may not always recognize it, we want them, they want us; self-interested love on the one hand calls forth self-giving love on the other. And mixed up with it all is God. And while some people, along with God, anticipate our needs before we ask, others like the unjust judge need to be cajoled, persuaded and pestered. But it is worth it, not only because our persistence feeds our passion and passion feeds our action, but also because in this way others, even if unwittingly, play their part in the purposes of God.

If a crooked judge who neither fears God nor respects anyone finally grants justice because of persistence, how much more quickly and lovingly will God respond to our prayers? But sometimes the answer comes slowly. Sometimes it seems not to come at all.

Late in his life, Winston Churchill went back to his old school to speak to the boys of a new generation. He went to the podium, paused as if to gather his thoughts. Then he said, "Never give up." Another long pause was followed by, "Never give up." The third pause ended when he said, "Never give up." And he sat down.

We are not permitted to give up on our prayers. The act of praying in harmony with God’s will opens us to being transformed by God into those who have the power to turn the world around, to open it to the indwelling truth of the God who loves us and promises to answer our prayers.

A final word about persistence and about praying persistently, from Guido, a 12th-century Carthusian monk:

“Lord, how much juice you can squeeze from a single grape.

How much water you can draw from a single well.

How much fire you can kindle from a tiny spark.

How great a tree you can grow from a tiny seed.

My soul is so dry that by itself it cannot pray;

Yet you can squeeze from it the juice of a thousand prayers.

My soul is so parched that by itself it cannot love;

Yet you can draw from it boundless love for you and for my neighbor.

My soul is so cold that by itself it has no faith;

Yet by your power my faith grows to a great height.

Thank you for prayer, for love, for joy, for faith.

Let me always be prayerful, loving, joyful, faithful.”

Amen.