"Pray, Don't Lose Heart"

sermon by Pastor David Layman

October 17, 2004

Luke 18:1-8, II Timothy 4:1-2

Luke 18 begins with these words: "Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart." Our human inclination is to pray infrequently, and lose heart often! We want prayer to be like rubbing Aladdin's lamp: we want instant answers, for prayer to be magic. When Pam and I were vacationing in Florida, and heard the forecasts over the radio that Hurricane Jeanne was headed our way, a couple of others that were staying in the same complex suggested I pray. Of course, I did pray. But I didn't pray like the woman in London during the Nazi blitz, who rejoiced that her home remained in tact, even though places further up the street were bombed out. She claimed to have prayed those bombs right over her house and on up the street!

Prayer is not magic. Peter Waguer defines prayer as a relationship with God. Prayer is two way conversation with God that draws us into intimacy with God. We don't have much of a relationship with someone we never talk with. And we don't have much of a relationship if we do all the talking, and the other party does all the listening. The prayer Jesus is talking about is a two way conversation with God. The young Samuel said "Speak, Lord, for your servant heareth", but we often say "Listen, Lord, for your servant speaketh." (I Sam. 3:10)

William Barclay points out that the judge in Jesus' parable was not a Jewish judge. For disputes among the Jews, three elders were appointed to settle disputes: one chosen by the plaintiff, one by the defendant, and one appointed independently. The judge Jesus speaks of in his story was appointed either by despised King Herod, or by the Romans. Such judges were notorious for expecting a bribe. Jesus tells of a widow, who in ancient Israel was a symbol of the poor and defenseless. Widows could not inherit their husband's estate, which passed on to the deceased man's sons or brothers. Today, some talk about "rich widows", but in Jesus' day, widows were almost always poor. A poor widow in that day had virtually no hope for justice, because she didn't have the funds available to bribe a judge. All this poor widow had was persistence. And she used her persistence to finally wear the judge down.

In last Tuesday's USA TODAY was an article about Laura Hatch, a teenager that was found alive 8 days after she was reported missing. The sheriffs department had all but written her off as a runaway, and her family was losing hope. Sha Nohr, a church member and mother of a

friend of Laura's, had several vivid dreams of a wooded area. She had unsuccessfully been part of the search effort for Laura, but heard in her dreams "Keep going, keep going." On Sunday morning, Nohr and her daughter drove to the area where the crash occuITed, praying along the way. Something drew them to stop and clamber over a concrete barrier and more than 100 feet down a steep, densely vegetated embankment. From that point, she barely managed to glimpse Laura's wrecked Toyota Camry in some trees, another 100 feet down. Here is a vivid example of how we should continuously pray and persist.

Jesus says we need to pray always, and not lose heart. How often we lose heart! Some people seem to be born salesmen, and can face rejection again and again, and feel good when they make one sale, even after many rejections. Others of us can get rejected two or three times, and may find it hard to keep trying until a sale is made! This is a congregation without many people making their living in sales. So this is a passage that may apply especially to us! As a youth, when I was a paperboy, they had contests to see who could sell the most new subscriptions. One of my friends won a free trip. I struggled to get one or two new subscribers. I can still remember going up to one house where a man came to the door with a rifle. He said he was cleaning it. From that point on, 1'd go up to the door and say something like "You wouldn't want to subscribe to the Chicago Daily News, would you?" Not only did I not win any salesmanship awards--the Chicago Daily News eventually went out of business!

But Jesus is not talking about salesmanship here. He's talking about developing a relationship with God where we don't lose heart. We need to pray always and not lose heart! When we pray to God, it's not like a man answers the door with a rifle in his hands! Jesus tells us in this parable that God is not like a corrupt, crusty old judge who only grants a poor widow justice if she nags him to death. The typical audience in Jesus' day would be chuckling with admiration ofthe widow's persistence. Jesus then contrasts the unscrupulous judge with God, and says "Look, folks! God is the exact opposite of this corrupt judge. If you faithfully persist in prayer, God will surely respond to you!

During our lay renewal weekend, every participant's story made an impression on me, but perhaps Rose Beard's touched me the most of all. Rose's father was killed in World War II when she was 3 years old. Rose said "As I grew up I wanted a daddy so badly I could hardly stand it...A daddy would do fun things with their kids and protect them. No one did that for me. There was a daddy shaped hole in my heart Mom was an alcoholic and ran around with men. My grandmother taught me about shame because of what my mother did. I was shy and intimidated and had no real friends in school. As I grew I would pretend every day on the way home from school that my daddy was not really dead. He would be home waiting for me with arms open wide Of course that never happened and the hole remained."

"My fIrst grade teacher took me to church because all my family refused to go...One time the minister gave an altar call and I wanted to go up, but I didn't because I knew that such things were not for people like me. ...I married the fIrst guy who paid any attention to me...I knew shortly after that I had made a terrible mistake but I was told by my family that I had made my bed and I could just lie in it My husband was abusive to me and our sons... Eventually he left me for another woman... [I was afraid and ashamed to go to church]. One day I picked up a book entitled 'Daddy, Where Were You?' In it was an exercise where the hurt little girl that I was would go into a room, close the door and climb into Jesus' lap. I was then to cry out my hurt to Jesus. I cried for a long time, because there was a lot of hurt in 55 years. I could

feel Jesus' arm around my shoulder...I asked him if He would be my daddy. Instantly, the hole in my heart was gone What had started out as a child yearning for the daddy she did not have grew into the lack of God in my life. I had thought that the hole in my heart was the lack of my earthly father, but actually it was the absence of my Heavenly Father. Once He was there, the hole was fIlled and I am at peace."

Rose was totally unlike the widow in Jesus' story. The widow was persistent in appealing to the indifferent judge. But Rose had a loving heavenly father, yet was too ashamed and timid to appeal to Him. Rose, being consumed with shame and shyness, didn't even start to pray. There are many people in our world like Rose, before she came to know her loving Heavenly Father.

Prayer at its best is not seeking that the hurricanes of life miss us and inflict their damage on someone else. Prayer is crying out for the presence of God in the midst of life's lonely struggles. Ifwe persist in such prayer, we will fInd God. For rest assured, God has already found us! In the Garden ofGethsemane, Jesus was "yearing for the grip of a friend's hand." (Bonnell, The Practice and Power of Prayer, Westminster Press, Philadelphia, 1954). The disciples fell asleep and were not there for Jesus when he needed them the most. Yet Jesus realized that God was there, and from Gethsemane rose in strength to meet the forces of darkness. Had Jesus not been persistent in prayer, he wouldn't have found the strength to go on.

Let us not lose heart. Let us pray always, consistently seeking our Heavenly Father's hand in the dark nights of our struggle. Let us, to use Paul's words, "Be persistent, whether the time is favorable or unfavorable." (II Timothy 4:2) Prayer is not a matter of occasional "hail Marys" followed by long silences on our part. If we persist in prayer and faith, God will answer us. Perhaps not with the things we want, but with His presence, which we cannot live without. We do have a heavenly father who is longing for us and others to crawl up in His lap!

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