Monday, October 21, 2019

Sermon from Grace and St. Stephen's Luke 18:1-8


         A typical morning for me starts with me saying “brush your teeth, get dressed, eat your breakfast, get your shoes on …” and repeating this many, many times.  The truth is, parenting requires a lot of trying to get people to do stuff: chores, manners, cleaning up, homework, going to bed.  Occasionally I get to intersperse some permission giving which feels good: “yes, you can have candy” “no, you don’t have to go”  “sure have a water balloon fight in the backyard in 60 degrees with your new shoes on.” 

          These persuasive efforts do not end with parenting.  “Would you like to join the PTA?”  “Are you able to volunteer Friday morning at 7:30 am to put together tiny buildings and streets for kindergartners to ride tricycles through and learn about safety?” or “I think you would really like confirmation class” “you should try youth group it’s really fun” “I hope you had a good visit and will come back to our church.”  Some days I feel exhausted from trying to get people to do stuff.  I try my best to be likable, sincere and kind to help the causes I believe in, yet I still hear, receive, and feel rejection.  What makes it difficult is that these are things I really believe in.  I’m not trying to persuade people to try the cookies I made, I’m trying to raise good humans, help the public school my children attend, help young people connect with each other and God and grow this wonderful church where I have experienced the grace and love of God. And some days it all feels like I have a tiny little fork and am chipping away at a huge mountain. 


          As I hear this Gospel story about the widow, I wonder if that is how she ever felt.  Over and over again she asked the judge to vindicate her.  Did she too get tired of trying to get people to do stuff?  Did she get sick of the judge who has no regard for anyone?  Did she go to bed and say “enough is enough.  I’m out?”  Did her friends tease her for wasting her time?  We don’t know. We don’t even know if she tried to be likable, charming and sincere.  It actually sounds like she was not that likable.  The judge eventually says yes because he is afraid she will “wear him out.” One translation I read says he is afraid she will give him a black eye.  I think it’s meant to be a little comical.  The important and powerful judge who doesn’t care about anyone, and the widow, who at that time is seen as lowly, weak and powerless.  And she annoys him to the point of concession. 
  
        While we may not know if she ever thought of quitting or why she persisted or even if her cause was just (incidentally the text never says whether she or her opponent is right or wrong in their disagreement), one thing that is clear and we know for sure is that she is a widow.  Which means she has been through some stuff.  She knows struggle, she knows pain, life has not been easy and probably not at all like she planned or hoped. 
  
        I think this is important.  When I read this scripture sometimes I get a little uncomfortable.  It could be seen as a magical formula, a roadmap to get God to give you what you want.  “If you want your prayers answered just keep at it and God will give in.” Then, if you don’t get what you want it’s your fault for not being persistent.  Sometimes people do that with faith, they try to sell it as a formula for having all of your wishes granted, and they may even point to scriptures like this and say “see, you just keep asking and it will happen.”  I think that is overly simplistic and not at all a feeder of hope but rather of hopelessness. 
  
        Well-known author and researcher Brene Brown says “Men and women who self-report as hopeful put considerable value on persistence and hard work.  The new cultural belief that everything should be fun, fast, and easy is inconsistent with hopeful thinking.  It also sets us up for hopelessness.  When we experience something that is difficult and requires significant time and effort, we are quick to think, “This is supposed to be easy; it’s not worth the effort, or, this should be easier: it’s only hard and slow because I’m not good at it.  Hopeful self-talk sounds more like, this is tough, but I can do it.[1]” So, yes, this woman is a widow and she has been through some stuff.  She isn’t expecting quick and easy answers, she is prepared to persist.  This judge is tough, but she knows she can do it. Rather than a magical formula for easy faith, this is about hanging on to hope when faith isn’t so easy.

          After describing the widow and the judge, Jesus goes on to tell us about God.  God is long-suffering, tolerant, justice-favoring, merciful and listening.  God is with us in the frustration, the darkness, the unknown, the crying out in the night.  The judge who doesn’t have any regard for others is the contrast to God who cares.  This isn’t a magical wish-granting God but rather a persisting and eternal God who sticks with us, our God who does have regard for others and in fact loves us no matter our circumstance.

          In her book, Kate Bowler intimately shares her experience of being a seminary professor, lifelong Christian, mother of a toddler, wife and finding out she had stage 4 cancer throughout her body.  She says “At a time when I should have felt abandoned by God, I was not reduced to ashes.  I felt like I was floating, floating on the love and prayers of all those who hummed around me like worker bees … They came in like priests and mirrored back to me the face of Jesus.  When they sat beside me, my hand in their hands, my own suffering began to feel like it had revealed to me the suffering of others, a world of those who, like me, are stumbling in the debris of dreams they thought they were entitled to and plans they didn’t realize they had made.  That floating feeling stayed with me for months. . . I began to ask friends, theologians, historians, and pastors I knew, What am I going to do when it’s gone? … all said yes, it will go.  The feelings will go.  The sense of God’s presence will go … but they will leave an imprint.  I would somehow be marked by the presence of an unbidden God … I suppose I am like the man who wrote to me to say he had seen a friend [die] and felt the presence of God in the same long, dark night. Yes.  That is the God I believe in.”[2]

          This is the God we hear about today in the scriptures.  The God who in the darkest of times is with us.  The God of the widows, the God of those up against struggles, those who have been through pain, those without power, those who have seen some stuff.  Our persistent hope that plows through the frustrations comes from knowing who our God is- justice-favoring, merciful, long-suffering … persistent in loving us. 

          So we keep at it.  We try hope and fight for what we believe in.  We try hope and teach the next generation.  We try hope and pray through our darkest of nights.  We try hope and confront systems of oppression, injustices as big and as insurmountable as mountains.  We try hope and keep kneeling Sunday after Sunday with hearts open and gratitude on our lips.  We try hope and let others rest their weight on us when they feel defeated.  Not because we believe it will be easy or because we believe it’s a magical formula, but because we believe in a God who is long-suffering, merciful, justice-favoring and persistent in loving us. 

          At the end of this parable Jesus poses a question to the disciples which cuts through the pages, passes through the years and comes to us today “When the Son of man comes, will he find faith on earth?” …What do you think?  After the wars, the pain, the health complications, the broken relationships, the oppression, the frustrations, exhaustion, despair, peer pressure … will Jesus find faith on earth?”

          So … I guess I’ll keep trying to get people to do stuff.  I’ll keep trying to get the kids to be good humans, to help schools meet the needs of all children, to encourage sometimes reluctant teens to keep their hearts open, to get a skeptical world to give a church with ancient rituals and old hymns a fair shot and I’ll keep chipping away at the mountains before me with my tiny fork.  But not because I believe I can do any of this based on my own likability or persuasive skills, but because I believe in a God who persistently loves us.  So I’ll keep coming here and kneeling, persisting in prayer next to you, sustained by the body and blood of Christ.
          “Will Jesus find faith on earth?”  I hope so …


[1] “Learning to Hope” Behavioral Health Evolution 
[2] Bowler, Kate.  Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I’ve Loved.  Random House: 2018.  Pgs. 121-122

1 comment:

  1. An amazing sermon. Hope to share this with colleagues and parishioners. Thank you for this - it speaks to so many. Including me!

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