Trinity Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

Sermons 

Title: "Hounding God?"

Text: Luke 18:1-8

at some time or another …

Discovering something that we need, or just want,

and then having to pester someone mercilessly

in order to get it?

It may have been something

that rightfully belonged to us,

like the widow in Jesus’ parable …

or it may have been something we caught sight of

and decided we couldn’t live without,

sort of like a child in the toy store at Christmastime.

Whatever it was, we know the feeling.

And since most of the people who followed Jesus

were not wealthy or powerful citizens,

chances are, they knew the feeling too.

Knew what it was like to be ignored,

or put down, or ridiculed,

to have your request made light of,

because you weren’t important.

Now, chances are, there have probably also been moments

when we could sympathize with the judge in the story.

Whether for just or unjust reasons,

we can probably think of a time when

we deliberately ignored or avoided

something who was trying to get our attention.

Perhaps we were the parent of the child

clamoring in the toy store at Christmas!

Maybe there is a certain person

whose phone calls we just don’t ever return …

or these days, when we see their name show up on the Caller ID,

we don’t pick it up in the first place.

I can be that way when my dogs come up and tell me, in their doggy way,

that they want to go out.

Well, I’m busy; I don’t want to get up and let them out …

I try ignoring them, I try shooing them away,

I try scratching their head and then leaving them alone ..

You’d think I would have learned by now –

how many years have I had dogs? –

that nothing is going to stop them from wanting "out,"

until I ignore them long enough,

and they leave a surprise on the carpet!

You’d think I would have learned, but no,

ignoring it and hoping it will go away still seems to be my first response.

As this parable we’ve just heard begins,

it seems as if Jesus is about to tell us,

that’s what God is like.

That God is going to ignore our needs and requests

until and unless we make ourselves truly obnoxious about it.

Or at least, until we prove we really mean it.

We may have wondered about that ourselves.

Hasn’t it happened to all of us at some time or another,

that it seemed our prayers not only weren’t being answered,

but weren’t even being heard?

Not just that the answer was "no,"

which we might not like,

but at least we know God was paying attention

and gave us a response of some kind or another.

But sometimes, it seems like –

and it must have seemed this way too,

to the people of Jesus’ time –

like God isn’t even paying attention?

Like the divine phone is off the hook?

Like God is taking a long winter’s nap?

Like the Almighty has gone out for a long lunch?

Jesus knows that sometimes

our experience of prayer is like that.

And that’s one of the things I most appreciate about him:

he knows firsthand, and he admits

that our lives are sometimes painful,

and he works with that.

He does not say to us,

"Oh come on, now, you shouldn’t feel that way."

He says, "This is how it feels, am I right?"

and we can say, "oh yes, Jesus, that’s exactly how it feels."

At any rate, Jesus tells this wonderful story

about the widow who absolutely refuses to leave the judge alone

until he does the right thing,

but then he says, okay, there’s the story, but wait a minute …

listen carefully, now.

If even an unjust judge

can eventually be persuaded to do what is right,

if you bother him enough,

how much more will God, who is just,

do the right thing for us?

In essence, he says:

I know your life is sometimes full of hurt,

but I want to assure you God is faithful.

God will grant you justice.

And that would be a logical place for him to have ended the story,

sort of like, "And they all lived happily ever after."

But Jesus doesn’t end it there.

After comforting the disturbed,

he then asks them a disturbing question:

"And yet," he says,

"when the Son of Man comes,

will he find faith on earth?"

That just almost seems like it doesn’t fit,

or at least it does to me.

As if you were telling a joke to your friends,

and then you got right to the end and told the punch line from a different joke!

But perhaps it does fit,

and Luke just didn’t bother making a graceful transition.

That’s unusual for him, but possible.

I wonder, perhaps, if Jesus isn’t saying this:

God is going to hear the cry of those in need;

God is going to grant us justice;

we can count on that.

Even so, will the Son of Man find faith on earth,

or just people who simply expect God to do what they tell God to do?

Sometimes when we’re trying to make that distinction,

we’ll use language that talks about the difference between "faith" and "religion."

That’s oversimplified, because to talk in that way

makes religion only a negative thing, and it’s not.

But let’s use those words for just a minute,

and let’s talk about this distinction I’m trying to draw,

and about what Jesus might have been asking us to pay attention to.

The issue of prayer, as we’ve heard about it in this parable,

is one place where the distinction can become pretty clear.

Do you remember other places in the gospels

where Jesus gives us instructions about how to pray,

and how not to pray?

Don’t heap up phrases, he says …

Don’t try to sound elegant and

impress people with how pious you are.

That’s the "religion" kind of thing, the outward display,

that might or might not have any substance behind it.

Rather, Jesus instructs us, go home to your own room and pray quietly,

and God, who sees and hears all things,

will hear you and will answer.

That’s faith,

that’s the inward certainty of God’s presence and God’s love,

and God’s attention, no matter what the answer turns out to be.

"Religion" in the bad sense also tends to take the perspective that,

if you pray right, pray long enough,

use the right words,

then God will have to hear you.

and give you the answer that you want.

That you will get that outward confirmation

if your outward behavior is right.

Faith understands that it doesn’t matter how you pray,

only that you pray.

Faith believes that God is loving, and just, and trustworthy,

and continues to be all those things

even if the answer we get isn’t the answer we wanted.

Or, even if it is delayed

in a way we don’t understand.

Preachers can really get hooked into this:

we sometimes think we have to be able to day,

"oh yes, I spend x number of hours a day in prayer…"

Or some will tell you that unless you end your prayer

"in the name of Jesus," it doesn’t count.

But that’s only "religion"; that’s outward stuff.

Yet sometimes we feel that we have to make that display

so people will think well of us.

Faith is not something that we develop overnight …

at least, not most of us.

Some of us may have a life-changing experience

that brings us to faith quickly,

but even so, it has to grow, be nurtured.

And sometimes, we go through the outward motions

for quite some time,

before they begin to sink in and influence us.

In and of themselves,

the motions we go through are not bad things.

They’re only a problem if that’s all we do …

if they are not undergirded by an inner faith,

and are only a cover-up for trusting in God.

Of course, sometimes our prayers do seem unheard, don’t they?

Sad, but true.

And if all we have is the context of that

negative kind of "religion," yank God’s chain,

that tells us that if our prayers seem unheard or unanswered

it must be our fault.

Ultimately, "religion" tells us that God is an unjust judge.

Faith tells us that God is good,

and God is there,

even in those moments when God seems invisible.

When the Son of Man comes,

will he find faith on earth?

That’s up to us.

Amen.

© 2004 Julie Adkins (e-mail: DrJAdkins@trinitypresdallas.org)