The Persistent Ones

Scripture: Luke 18:1-8

Prayer: Open our hearts, merciful God, to the sparks of your presence here in this world. Open our Spirits, God, to receive you. Amen.  
 

Can you think back to some of the first times you ever prayed? When was the first time you ever prayed?  

Every night my grandmother tucked me into bed she wouldn’t leave my side until we had recited together: “Now, I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I shall die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.” A little morbid for a young child, though I only ever recited the words with her, I didn’t have much of a mind to take them to heart at the time, but it’s my earliest memory of praying. It wasn’t until I was a bit older that I said my first prayers in earnest. Though, even then, my earnestness only came from a place of desperation.  

When I was twelve my aunt was diagnosed with breast cancer that had spread to her hip bones and to her lungs. I had stopped going to church all together at that age, I didn’t really know what I believed, but something in me felt I needed to pray. Like that quote from Anne of Green Gables: “If I really wanted to pray, I’ll tell you what I'd do. I'd go out into a great big field all alone or in the deep, deep woods and I'd look up into the sky—up—up—up—into that lovely blue sky that looks as if there was no end to its blueness. And then I'd just feel a prayer.”  

I remember I could feel it: this need to pray for help. There didn’t seem to be anything else to do. And I thought, maybe if God heard me, and heard how honest I was, how desperate I was for her to survive, that I would be heard. That God could fix it, and everything would be okay. When I was a senior in high school I prayed again when I was waiting to get into college. I was the first in my family to go and I was desperate for the validation - that I was smart enough and good enough and capable enough to go - and to make it. Every day I would watch my friends and classmates get letters from schools for early acceptance and I waited and prayed that I wouldn’t be a failure.  

I did get into college, and my aunt died of cancer.  

Prayer is a great mystery.  

This parable is one of the few times that Jesus tells us up front exactly what the story is about. Which I’m very grateful for today. Right away he says, "I’m telling you a parable and I don’t want you to get confused about it - it’s a story about prayer. This is to remind you to pray always and to not lose heart.” And the story he provides us with is about a judge and a widow. Two interesting characters.  

Widows had an honorable place in the early church. Their lives were a mark of faithfulness, as one who had their hope set on God. The first woman in the temple to see baby Jesus was a widow who worshiped there and prayed day and night. In Luke Jesus raises the son of a widow and praises a widow for putting two copper coins in the treasury. Jesus condemns those who devour widow’s houses, stealing from them, exploiting and manipulating them.  

Widows, loved by God, were not always loved by society or the law. In a society where the family unit was usually the sole source of social support and identity, they were considered vulnerable and powerless. I know enough widows now to know that this is a vast underestimation of the resiliency of these women. Thankfully, so did Jesus.  

Though at this biblical time, women were often married when they were teenagers, so many became widows quite young and were frequently left with no support. If her husband left any assets, she was not the one to inherit them. All the money would go to the brother or a son or even a nephew. But not her. If she remained with her husband’s family, she held an inferior position, sometimes as a servant. If she returned to her family of origin, the dowry her family exchanged at the wedding had to be given back to her husband’s family. Widows were left out of family discourse, kept as servants or sold to pay off family debt. 

Biblical judges were responsible for hearing the financial and property complaints fairly and impartially, but this judge didn’t respect God or people and refused to hear her case.  The widow we meet in this parable doesn’t have a straightforward predicament, but she clearly must make a choice every day. Her grievance was likely something to do with property and possessions that, without his verdict, would leave her even more impoverished. Though a victim of the system, the widow is bold and relentless in her demand for justice. This widow confounds any stereotype of helplessness.  

In her justice-seeking prayers, she acts for herself and overturns expectations of how she should behave and causes discomfort for the judge. She just wants her case to be heard. So, she shows up day after day after day after day, advocating for herself. The judge refused to hear her case, still the widow kept pressing him. She doesn’t balk at approaching him more than once with her request because to her, it's necessary. She holds the judge to hearing her and making a decision. 

The widow used the only weapon she possessed, her “audacious persistence.”  

The judge finally gave in and stated that he would render her justice because the widow keeps bothering him and he is afraid “that she will wear me out” - the literal Greek translation is “being punched under the eye” or “given a black eye.” He’ll be so annoyed he’ll take on an injury. He realizes that she won’t stop coming and that the sight of her before him in the city could ruin his reputation. So, the judge finally gave the widow her request to avoid any discomfort that would come to him from public humiliation.   

Jesus tells this parable to his listeners to demonstrate the need to pray always and to not lose heart. If even an unjust judge such as this will eventually vindicate the persistent widow, how much more will God answer the cries from God’s people? For unlike the judge, God respects God's people and is a God of justice, who will not delay in bringing forth justice for God’s chosen ones, though we do not know God’s timing for it.  

The final question from Jesus in this parable is the kicker for us - will God find faith in God’s people on earth?  

Are we as persistent in our prayer? Or are we annoyed like the judge?  

The widow’s only power in this story is her persistent showing up. And the story suggests that this is not to be taken lightly, which is also to say that prayer should not be taken lightly. The work of prayer is hard. Maybe one of the hardest parts of our life of faith - because it doesn’t usually happen like we think it would, or the way we are sometimes told it can work if we just pray hard enough. It doesn’t always start with, Dear God, and it doesn’t always end with Amen.  

Prayer is a great mystery. We can’t know why some prayers are answered quickly and some are not, why some prayers feel heard and take a different direction or feel like “they’ve hit the wall of God’s silence.  

Though I thought my first prayers in earnest were the ones I said in desperation, they really weren’t. They were my first prayers of desperation. Prayer can hold all our anxieties, our sorrows, our joys, our celebrations, our marvels, our wonderings. We don’t always get to know what gets shaken up, transformed, upended, restored, or vindicated simply because we show up again and again in prayer.  

Maybe we sometimes do feel like the widow, praying unceasingly, not wondering what the answer is, acting on it and demanding it. 

Maybe we sometimes feel distant from prayer, and from God’s people, like the judge.  

Wherever we find ourselves today, it is good to remind ourselves that God is not like the judge. God is gracious. If we feel distant and return, God welcomes us. Our prayers are not in vain or unheard or dismissed. God seeks our prayers and brings justice to God’s people, though we don’t know God’s timing. Our prayers connect us with God. And something happens to us when we pray.  

I resonate with the words of Pastor Debie Thomas: When I really persist in prayer, really persist, with a full heart, over a long period of time, something happens to me. My sense of who I am, to whom I belong, what really matters in this life, and why - these things mature and solidify. My heart grows stronger. It becomes less fragile and flighty. I open myself up to wider possibilities. And sometimes - here's the biggest surprise - some good and substantive things happen even when I don’t receive the answer I am praying for.  

When my aunt was sick, I considered myself pretty distant from prayer, yet the echoes of “Now I lay me down to sleep”, gave me enough strength to recognize what I felt and to return to prayer for myself and my family. And when you pray for something or someone else, by default, you think about them. And when you think about them, you find yourself wondering things. What do they need? What do they want? What is scaring them? What do they hope for? It’s then that you begin to see them in a different light. You come to understand their motivations in a new way.  

When we pray for ourselves and for each other, as friends, as a community, in baptism, and in love, we find glimpses of God there. Those glimpses of God’s presence with us may be just enough to not lose heart.  

If we ever feel lost with prayer, let us remember the power of the widow and how much more God has in store for us. If we ever don’t know what to pray, let us remember what Jesus told us what to pray for: for God’s kingdom to come, for God’s will to be done on earth, for us to forgive each other, and let other people forgive us, for our hearts not to give in to temptation, and for us all to be delivered from evil, remembering that God has the power and the glory.  

May we be “audaciously persistent.” For this we pray.   

Amen.  

WORKS CITED: 

Thomas, Debie. “The Bothersome Widow.” Into the Mess and Other Jesus Stories, Cascade Books, S.l., 2022. 

Green, Joel B., et al. “Proper 24.” Connections: A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship, Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville, KY, 2020. 

Bovon François, et al. “Luke 18: 1-8.” Hermeneia: Luke 2 a Commentary on the Gospel of Luke 9:51--19:27, Fortress Press, Minneapolis, MN, 2013. 

Snodgrass, Klyne. Stories with Intent a Comprehensive Guide to the Parables of Jesus. William B. Eerdmans Pub., 2008.