Do you wonder what some of Jesus’ parables mean? Do you ever feel like Jesus’ message is obscure and obtuse? “The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of God have been given to you, but to them, I speak in parables” (Lk. 8:10). Well, there is not room for misunderstanding in today’s Gospel. In fact, Luke so much wants us to get the point that Jesus is making, that he tells us the punch line, even before we hear the story. “Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up” (Lk. 18:1). So what does Jesus want us to do? First, “always pray”, and second, “not give up.” Got it? “Always pray” and “not give up.” At the end of my sermon, I’ll give you a quiz. What were those two things again? Always pray, and not give up. Well, Bishop, I think they’ve got it, let’s move on!
What? Wasn’t that enough? Okay, but you asked for it. What two things are we going to talk about? “Always pray” and “not give up.”
We should pray.
We should pray because it’s a privilege and honor to be able to pray, to have access to the Father. Every human being under the sun can cry out to God. If you’ve been following the readings in the Daily Office, we read from Jonah. And when he prophesied the coming judgment on Nineveh, all the people, from least to greatest fasted and “called urgently on God... When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened” (Jonah 3:8,10). So God heard the pagan inhabitants of Nineveh when they cried out to Him. God didn’t say, “Sorry, but you’re not Israelites, you’re not circumcised, not My children.” No. He looked to their hearts and had compassion because all men, not just the elect, can be His children; the difference is that we’ve answered the call to return to Him. But God’s heart yearns for the lost to come back, to repent, to draw close to Him.
But it’s our privilege to speak to Him as sons and daughters. When we call upon God, we speak with a spirit of sonship. The Spirit of God that is in us cries out, “Abba, Father.” We make requests not as slaves or strangers, but as God’s own people, His treasured possession. And we make petitions not only for our own needs, but also for the needs of others. Even as Jesus, while He suffered upon the cross, asked the Father to “forgive them”—to forgive all those who throughout history would crucify, revile, and despise him—, so too we who are members, limbs, of the Body of Christ should pray for the needs of those around us, especially those in most need of God’s mercy.
Prayer is our duty. We are all God’s priestly people, and a priest has three major duties: to sacrifice, to bless, and to pray. Now does Fr. Joe, or Fr. Larry, or Bishop Lipka, when the Sunday service is over, simply go home and do nothing at all from noon on Sunday until 9:30 AM the following Sunday? No. What is the one thing that you, the priestly people of God, expect your priests to do when we’re all done here? Pray. You expect a priest to pray. Prayer is one of the duties of a priest. It’s part of what sets a priest apart. It’s part of what a priest is set apart, consecrated, to do. A priest has special access to God. And that’s what makes Christianity so special: that we all have special access to the Father.
If we neglect to pray, we will misuse our faith. Not praying isn’t an option. When we fail to pray to the one true God, we end up praying to other gods. We will invariably put our faith in someone or something. It seems impossible for man to live without some kind of faith. Whether one puts faith in science, prosperity, family, or God, there is always faith—a trust and confidence in things that we do not see or understand or have control over. We all trust—have faith—that the sun will rise tomorrow. I trust that God will orchestrate it; another has faith that gravity, inertia, and momentum will cause it. We both have faith. Even the scientist who best understands the laws of physics, when brought down to the most fundamental questions, “How do these laws operate,” and “Why are they there,” must shrug and confess, ‘I don’t know. They just are.” They just are.
We should always pray.
We mustn’t grow weary of praying. Why do we get discouraged when we pray, and why do we give up? Sometimes—most of the time, for me—God doesn’t answer our prayers as we see fit and in the time we think necessary. Jesus tells us that God is not putting us off. If we persistently pray to Him, will He not be more ready to answer our prayers than the unjust judge? As Peter writes, “With the Lord a day is like thousand years and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance” (2 Pe. 3:8,9). When God delays answering a prayer, it is for His good purpose. When He does not grant what we ask, it is in His wisdom. And when He gives something different, it is because He knows it to be even better than what we sought.
We mustn’t leave off praying until it is convenient for us. Praying always means that we make a point to pray daily. When we don’t spend time with Him, we should notice—it should feel weird. I love my nephews (and of course, my only niece), and every single day that I don’t get to see them, I miss them and think about them. And every time that I get to be with them is precious and dear (even though their behavior may not be so precious and dear). Praying always is like that. (No, I don’t mean it’s like unruly kids.) It’s not something that we should have to do, nor should it merely be something that we want to do—because then there will be times that we don’t want to do it—, prayer should become something that we need to do. When my life is centered on prayer, when it is the focus, the apex, the pinnacle, the perfection of my day, then I am A-OK. When I realize that I haven’t prayed and my life grinds to a halt until I’ve communed with God, then it is well with my soul. If you were cruising down I-95 and saw that the gas gauge was on “E” and the “idiot light” was flashing and the little bell was ringing, you’d be staring down every sign looking for that one that said “gas.”
But it is a struggle against our human nature, against the flesh, to grow this attitude into every fiber of our being. But, you know, that’s what we’re here for. We’re here in this world of soul-building trying to get ready for “there.” And what’s “there” look like—like the cross—not agony and suffering, but love, unfathomable love. Dr. Richard Swenson, physician and Christian speaker, puts it in these words, “Life is a vapor, and then we’re home. We know the Christ of the Cross. We have an inheritance that is incorruptible. This isn’t a game. God’s real and He’s there.” See, if we establish any criteria for when we will pray, we can dictate what is acceptable and what is not. Prayer isn’t about what’s going to work for me. When I spend time with Steven, it’s not about what I want. It’s about being with him. If I wait to find a time that’s mutually convenient and an activity that we’re both thrilled with, then we’re never going to connect. Filling up an empty gas tank isn’t about, “Well, I never used Shell gasoline before,” it’s about getting the tank loaded up with 87 octane fuel.
Jesus tells us that we should not give up.
We need to persevere in our prayers. Now, don’t think that I’ve got this prayer thing in the bag, because I don’t. I struggle with it. I come home from work some days (most of the days, the last four months) and I plop down in my prayer chair and think how nice it’d be to just close my eyes and rest; or I think about all the chores I need to do, or how much I didn’t get done at work. But it’s going past that, going past the mundane, going past everything else that might try to interfere with my time with God, going past my feelings, it’s overcoming all of that that really matters. It’s about not giving up—even in the face of fatigue, even in the face of commitments and responsibilities, even in the face of everything else that tries to interpose itself between God and me—not giving up, but remaining faithful.
We need to have faith that God will answer. It’s not just that we need to pray; not giving up means that we expect response. Jesus assures us that God will see that we get justice, and quickly. But if we walk away too soon, we’ll miss out. It’s like your watching a football game, let’s say the Packers playing the Dolphins—just hypothetically, right, Shannon?—, and the game is tied up, 21-21, and Green Bay has the ball on the Dolphins’ 30 with one minute left in the 4th quarter. What do you do? Do you walk away, and figure that it’s going to end a tie game…ho-hum? NO! NO! NO! You sit there, and you scream and shout and cheer and, if you’re a Miami fan, you cry (sorry, Shannon).
Will God answer your prayers? (This isn’t football anymore…the Packers will beat the Dolphins no matter how hard Shannon prays.) Will God answer your prayers? Do you really believe that? Do you? What are you asking from Him?
“Always pray” and “not give up.”
If you want to know one thing about my sister Pam, you should know that she loves, absolutely loves, Precious Moments figurines. Over the course of decades she has received dozens of them and she can tell you who gave her each one. A couple years ago, for Christmas she wanted a curio cabinet to hold all her Precious Moments. So she dropped a hint to me. Well, that hint bounced right off and didn’t sink in. Discouraged, she muddled her way to Christmas. And when she opened her presents and found that she received a Roger Whittaker CD. Boy, was she disappointed!
Do you think that’s how it happened? Pam is not the kind of person who let’s you miss what she’s saying. If you don’t understand, she’s going to see that you do—it’s part of what makes her an excellent teacher. Now, her hint indeed bounced right off of me. So she hinted to my Dad—another brick wall—, and to my mom, and my other sister, and my brother…. We all heard several times in rather explicit ways that she wanted this curio cabinet. And you know what? She got it. Pam wasn’t discouraged by the denseness of her family. Needing to be so bold didn’t put her off, so direct, with her request. No. But patiently and persistently she wore us down. And, when it was time to unwrap presents, and there was a six-foot tall package for her, she was very pleased.
So be like Pam. Pester God. Don’t let up. Don’t give him the kid-glove treatment. Always pray. Don’t give up. Have faith that He will answer you, because He will give more than we either desire or deserve.
