October 20, 2013
Is this parable of Jesus saying is that anything I pray for,
if I pray long enough and hard enough, I’ll get it?
So if I pray to win the lottery
If I pray to find a free parking spot in the Short North,
Or if I pray with Janis Joplin
for the Lord to buy me a Mercedes Benz,
It will happen if I just ask often enough.
Some people think that’s what it’s saying.
But that just doesn’t sound right does it?
That makes God sound like a vending machine.
If we put the right amount a prayers in, God gives out our request.
That does not sound like something that Jesus would say.
And it just doesn’t sound like the truth.
So maybe Jesus means something different.
And Jesus actually tells us what that is: Justice.
Jesus says when we cry out for justice
we can be assured that God will give it.
We know that whenever we pray, God listens to us.
But when we ask for justice, we can live in confidence that
one day, we will see it.
Justice.
We throw the word around a lot,
but what does the word mean?
There are actually several definitions,
But when the bible mentions it,
Justice is a concept of moral rightness or fairness.
The right of all people to be treated fairly under the law
in this world, without discrimination or preference.
Basically, justice means reforming the world in God’s image
where there is neither male nor female, slave nor free, Greek nor Jew
is making the world more like the kingdom of God
It means giving that widow what she requests,
not because she’s a widow, but because it’s the right thing to do.
Sometimes having the law or government or other systems
do the right thing for all people seems like a pipe dream now.
But in Jesus time, justice must have seemed absolutely impossible.
It was out of reach for so many of the people that Jesus was talking to.
Most of the world was filled with the poor and starving,
the struggling and the disenfranchised lower class
And a small number of rich and powerful
who controlled things, usually to their own benefit.
Our country at times seems unfair and unbalanced.
our world seems to favor the rich and punish the poor.
But our world is far more fair than it was then.
There was no idealistic system of representation to rely on,
no premise of personal freedom
or individual rights or equality to appeal to.
It all depended on who was in power at the time
and what their whim was and what they decided.
That a regular person would see justice:
that they would be treated fairly without discrimination seemed utterly hopeless.
But still Jesus tells his people not to lose heart.
Not to give up hope.
To keep praying.
And that is what this parable is about,
as Luke so kindly tells us right at the beginning:
Keep praying.
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| The Unjust Judge, Hasse 2007 |
She comes to a judge she knows is unjust.
But yet she comes to him repeatedly
asking for the right thing to be done.
Asking for justice.
Knowing that the decks are stacked against her
to begin with, as a woman in that time,
and as a widow without a husband to represent her,
and then to have her case in the hands of an unjust judge.
It would actually be easier to give up.
Easier to just walk away from what is rightfully hers and move on.
But she does not live a life of resignation.
She lives a life of hope and expectation
a belief that the right thing will happen,
that God’s will will be done.
Her whole life is hopeful, ready for God to act.
That is what Jesus is asking of us.
To always be ready for God’s will.
When we pray for God’s will every day, when we pray for justice
for food for the hungry and for oppressed to be set free,
for people to be treated fairly and rightly,
we are readying ourselves and our lives for God to act.
So many of us pray for justice, but we don’t believe it will come.
We ask for it, we want the right thing to be done.
But then we give up on it.
We say, “the world is just a bad place and there’s no hope”
some of us even say,
“well I might as well get whatever I can for me and my family
and not worry about any one else.”
But what if we actually lived the prayers we prayed?
What if we expected it so much that we formed our lives as if it would happen?
Think of it like this, it’s a silly illustration but still.
If I prayed for jelly beans to come from the sky
And I really believed that prayer would be answered.
How would I stand? Would I stand in my living room,
With my arms folded and my head down? No.
If I really believed that my prayer would be answered,
I would be out in my yard, with my hands out and my eyes looking up.
I might get a box or a paper bag.
If I really believed that my prayer would be answered,
my stance and my life would be different.
So when we pray for justice, when we pray for God’s will to be done
we should actually believe it.
And we should live our lives as if:
as if wrongs will be righted. As if the kingdom were going to happen now.
With our arms open and our faces looking with hope toward what we’ve prayed for.
Jesus wants our lives to be a prayer.
This week we finally had a prayer answered in our congregation.
An injustice was corrected.
Our member and friend, Imma was released
from immigration detention and brought back to his family and life here.
And since we’ve been dealing with that,
I’ve been thinking about all the other people who are still locked up
with no crime other than to want to be in their homes with their families.
How many people just don’t have the money or the
congregation who can help return them home?
And I’ve been thinking how impossible the situation is for so many people.
Now, if I say, “what can I do by myself? to right this wrong”,
it does seem impossible
if I say what can we do together,
it seems a little better, but still not all that hopeful.
But if I ask, what can God do with this situation?
How can God change hearts and inspire people
And how can I live in absolute expectation and hope
that God will find a way,
and how can people of hope like us
change and form our lives around God’s will.
How can we live our lives as a prayer, ready for God’s will.
That doesn’t seem as impossible. I can start praying for that today.
I think that the most hopeful character in this parable is that unjust judge.
He has no love of people, no interest in helping the widow
He has no interest in doing God’s will.
He’s not a man of faith or integrity,
and yet, still, he becomes part of God’s plan.
At the end of the day, even he ends up working for God’s justice too.
God’s vision will be done. Nothing will stop it.
It may take a while. It may take longer than our lifetime.
But we are asked to live our lives
in hope and prayer waiting for that day.
readying our lives for the time when we will see
God’s kingdom fully revealed.
We are asked to make our lives a living prayer of hope
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