20th Sunday after Pentecost
Gen 32:22-31 Luke 18:1-8
"From the Depths--Prayer"
When I was in college, my first two years I was a drama major. I really enjoyed the theater, and the different plays I got to act in, and the different plays I had to read or see. One of my favorite plays, and one of the favorite plays for a lot of people since it was one of the longest running plays on Broadway, was Fiddler on the Roof. I really enjoyed reading, listening, and studying the part of Tevye, the father of that Jewish family of all girls. If one would really study the character of Tevye, one would see he is very human, a common sort of a man, but at the same time, he is wise beyond many so-called wise people of this world. He can see beyond the simple to the complex, the inner conscious of things. He also has a good relationship with his God. He is comfortable with God. He can talk freely with God about most any subject. His prayers to God are from the depth of his being, and at times they are very humorous, but at the same time reflect the concerns he has with his life and the world around him.
I would like to share just one of his conversations with God this morning.
Listen not only to his words. hut the feelings:
Tevye is talking to God: "Today I am a horse. Dear God did you have to make my poor old horse loose his shoe just before the Sabbath. That wasn’t nice. It’s enough you pick on me, Tevye, bless me with five daughters, a life of poverty. What have you got against my horse? Sometimes I think when things are too quiet up there, You say to Yourself: ’Let’s see, what kind of mischief can I play on my friend Tevye’. He continues talking to God: "As the Good book says, Heal us, O Lord, and we shall be healed. In other words, send us the cure, we’ve got the sickness already. I’m not really complaining--after all, with your help, I’m starving to death. You made many, many poor people. I realize, of course, that it’s no shame to be poor, but it’s no great honor either. So what would have been so terrible if I had a small fortune?"
Can you sense the comfort, the ease Tevye had in talking with God, Maybe his theology wasn’t the best blaming God for all of his troubles, but his expression, his right to express these kinds of feelings to God is what prayer is all about. Prayer is asking, prayer is wondering, prayer is bringing to God all of the feelings from the depths of our souls, so that we might lay them before his throne. So that we might cry out from the very inner longings of our soul all the concerns, all the problems, all the things that make us who we are, and what we are.
As you can tell by now, our gospel lesson this morning concerns Prayer. Prayer is even in a sense visualized in our first lesson in very dramatic ways. Jesus tells the disciples that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. This morning I would like to look at three different areas of prayer.
The first area is that of struggle. Prayer is a struggle, a tug of war between parts of myself, between me and God, between me and others.
A poem by Ethelyn Shattuck says:
Dear Heavenly Father:
I’m working on a puzzle pure and simple.
It is I.
Dear searching child?
Here’s the answer to your puzzle pure and simple,
It is I."
Prayer is a struggle of searching, of asking, of bringing ourselves to God. In our Old Testament lesson Jacob is fighting with God. Jacob has just returned to his homeland to make peace with his brother Esau. His conscious is still bothering him about stealing the birthright from Esau, but Jacob also knows that through this brokenness, God has used him now to build a mighty nation, the nation of Israel. This fight symbolizes for Jacob and for us, his struggle to understand the mysteries of God, to make sense out of the brokenness of this world, to discover the course that God wants him to take. He struggles with God, and finally God speaks with him, asks him his name and then tells us that he will have a new name, Israel, and from his family a mighty nation will be born. Out of that struggle a stronger, newer, better relationship with God was established.
Jesus in our gospel lesson shows us also this struggle with prayer. He again uses a shady character, a dishonest judge, to make a point about the goodness of God. This woman was wronged by someone, and her case was in court. The judge being a dishonest man wasn’t in too much of a hurry to settle the case, because the woman being poor as women were in her day didn’t have any bribe money to help the judge along in deciding her case. So, she keeps coming to him asking that she be vindicated or in other words that she be given protection, justice, that her rights be honored.
Jesus is contrasting this dishonest judge with the loving father. If a dishonest person can be persuaded to make a decision, how much more likely will your loving father in heaven listen to your pleadings, your struggles decide for you??? Jesus is again working from the negative as he did in Luke 16: 1 with the story of the unjust steward, to make a point about a loving God hearing our struggles, hearing our cries of help and then responding to them.
Prayer is also an encounter with God. Not only do we struggle to bring from the depths of our souls, our longings, our searchings, our inner feelings to God, not only do we struggle to lay bear before the throne of God our very self, but as we do that we encounter God. We come in contact with God.
Jacob came in physical contact with God. He wrestled with God. He and God became physical, in the modern sense.
The woman was threatening to become physical with the judge in our gospel lesson.
For the judge says; "I will vindicate her or she will wear me out by her continual coming." Or as one translation says, "she will come and knock me out!!!"
Prayer is a physical encounter also for us with God. Not in the sense of Jacob fighting with God, or in the sense of the woman wanting to knock out the judge, but in the sense that Paul describes in Romans 8:14-17:
"For all who are led by the Spirit of God are people of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of sonship, When we cry "Abba Father!!" it is off the Spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ."
Paul goes on in verse 26 to say:"Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words".
Prayer for us is indeed an encounter with God, and encounter between our spirit and the spirit of God which comes to us in our prayer so that we might communicate with God. We encounter the same God of Jacob, we encounter the same God Jesus is pointing to in his story of the dishonest judge, the God of love, the God who cares for us, the God who indeed comes into a physical relationship with us in prayer.
There is another poem I would like to share, the author is unknown, it says:
"The light of God surrounds me; The love of God enfolds me; The power of God protects me, The presence of God watches over me; Where I am, God is’!!"’
Yes, in prayer, you and I have a physical encounter with God. God’s spirit comes to us and mingles with our spirit so that we might be encouraged, so that we might be enabled, so that we might be strengthen to bring from the depth of our souls all those needs, doubts, struggles, joys, thanksgivings, celebrations, all those events of life into the realm of God.
A third quality of prayer is that of faith or trust in the relationship, trust in the God whom we are praying to, faith that our God will respond to our prayer. Our gospel lesson for some reason leaves this quality of prayer out, because they do not print for us the second half of verse 8 which to me is important for ou rundestandingof verse 8 which of this parable.
Verse 8b says:"Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?" This is a rhetorical question Jesus is asking. One that he doesn’t want an answer too, but one in which he would like us to think about,our faith our trust in this relationship that we have with God. The never the less, besides all of this, this struggle, this encounter with God, besides all of those qualities, do you have faith, or trust in the person hood of God, to respond to your prayers? That is what Jesus is asking in this question.
Faith was seen very clear in the first lesson. Jacob asked to be blessed by this person whom he was struggling with. He had faith, had trust that this person whom he found to be God, would indeed be someone who would bless him and care for him. As he struggled, as he encountered God. Jacob’s faith, his trust, his confidence in that relationship became strong so that he could ask to be blessed. And blessed he was, His name was changed to Israel, and he became the father of a mighty nation, his sons became the ten tribes of Israel and from his line, Christ eventually came into the world, what a blessing.
The woman was eventually blessed by the dishonest judge. She was answered and if she could have enough faith and trust in an dishonest judge to protect, to defend, to right her wrongs, to bring justice into her life, how much more can we be blessed by a loving God? Jesus asks? As we cry to him day and night? God will not wait, but God will answer quickly. God’s answer will come through faith, through trusting in him to respond to our cries. God will respond to our struggles in prayer he will respond to our encounter with Him through his spirit and our spirit. Our loving God will protect, defend, make right, bring justice and justification into our lives just as the dishonest judge did for that woman. Our God is a loving God but at the same time a mysterious God. A God who’s ways are not our way’s, who’s thoughts are not our thoughts, who’s love is not like our love.
So, that brings us to-the age old question concerning our prayer life with God. How will this loving God who we struggle with in prayer, whom encounter with our spirit whom we trust and believe in as a loving, caring God, how will that God answer our prayer.?
Notice, Jesus doesn’t get into that question. He just says to pray and not loose heart. Pray and struggle with God. Jesus says, pray and encounter God, come into a relationship with him. Jesus says, have faith, trust that a loving God does care for you very much Jesus says, and then leave the answering to Him.
Paul gives us a good insight into this age old question in II Corinthians 12: verse 7-10.....listen:
7 And to keep me from being too elated by the abundance of revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan, to harass me, to keep me from being too elated.
8 Three times I besought the Lord about this, that it should leave me;
9 but he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." I will all the more gladly boast of my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
10 For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities; for when I am weak, then I am strong.
The key to this passage is verse 9 where God says: " My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness".
Paul goes on to say that he now doesn’t care about his weak condition, because the grace, the love, the power, the protection, the righteousness, the justice, the salvation of God can be seen in what the world consideres weak, but that is really strength for God.
All we need in any situation in life is God’s grace. Period. As long as we can trust, believe, have confidence in, have hope in God’s work, God’s power, God’s loving relationship with us, how God answers our prayer really does not matter.
Paul wanted to be healed, but he came to see that God’s grace was there even in his weakness. We can see that God can and does answer prayer in many different kinds of ways. Sure we can pray for healing, but at the same time pray for the strength, the courage, the grace of God to live with the brokenness we have experienced, whether that brokenness be illness, sorrow, loneliness, broken relationships, a feeling of worthlessness or a whole host of other feelings that make us feel less that God intended for us to be as his children.
Prayer is indeed a talk with God. It is a talk from the depths of our souls and we struggle to bring to God the very essence of our being. Prayer is an encounter with God in a very real way. It is our spirit and his Holy Spirit mingling together so that our cries, our pleading, our joys, our celebrations will be placed before the throne of heaven.
And finally prayer brings into a relationship with God, a trust, a belief, a faith and tells us God will answer, he will respond, because he so very much loves us. Our faith tells us to believe that the grace of God is sufficient for us. God alone, God alone reaching his hand of love into my life is all I need to trust in as I walk my life steps on the pathways of life.
Amen
