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Transcription

1 "PRAY AND DO NOT LOSE HEART" a sermon preached in Duke University Chapel by The Reverend Or. D. Moody Smith Professor of New Testament Interpretation - Duke Divinity School October 16, 1983 Scriptures: Genesis 32:3-8, II Timothy 3:14-4:5 Luke 18:1-8 I just do not want to be told, "Pray and do not lose heart." This advice sounds futile and naive. I may well need to pray because. I am losing heart, b~t who can give one such advice? "If you can keep your head when all others about you are losing thefrs"--to paraphrase Kipling,-- 11 you don't understand the seriousness of the situation... People who give such advice seem not to understand the seriousness of the situation. Life in all its extremities--from which we usually hide ourselves--is serious. So serious we must either laugh or cry. We just don~t need to be told to pray and not lose heart. That seems like simple-minded, if pious, advice. If I have had a run of bad luck, if college is not turning out the way. I thought it would, if my career aspirations are thwarted, if once-loved ones are alienated, if I am facing illness or some other personal crisis, I really don't need some pious person to tell me to pray and not lose heart. That's easy, and even trivial, advice coming from someone who has no reason to lose heart. You may have noticed as the Gospel lesson was read that it is actually not Jesus who says this. Luke, or in any ev.ertt the narrator, writes, "and he told them. a parable, to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart." Sometimes Luke seems to make Jesus out a pious man. He is the only Gospel writer who reports the dying Jesus as saying, "Father, forgive them, they know not what they do... Here he interprets what Jesus meant, and it comes out sounding like a pious platitude... Pray and do not lose heart. One could respond, "If I could only pray I would not lose heart," or, 11 If I were not losing heart I would not need to pray.~ In any event, don't advise me to pray and not lose heart. Yet does Luke tn fact misrepresent Jesus? At one level the bearing of this parable does seem to be that his hearers, or his disciples, should p.ersist in prayer and not lose heart.

2 -2- Jesus often teaches in parable~. A" parable is a story that makes a point, usually just one point. Jesus' parables are about everyday people and events. They are not explicitly religious in content or theological in language. The individual characters in the parable do not repr2sent principles or other figures. The unjust judge is not God. He has no fear of God and no respect for man. He is a reprobate. His behavior is not, motivated as God's is. The woman is not said to be virtuous, she is not necessartly exemplary. Nevertheless, there is a sense in which the hearers are encouraged to emulate this woman. They should remain constant in prayer. Vet at the end of the_ parable Jesus says that God's elect do cry out to him day and night. -Presumably they do not need ~o be tol~to pray. They are people who live under duress, perhaps persecution. Under those circumstances prayer, even lamentation, comes naturally. The emphasis or point n_ow lies el_sewhere. It is simply this: if even an unjust judge will vindicate, or obtain justice, for a widow, ~ot because of her virtue, but because of her persistence, how much more will God obtain justice for his chosen people who pray to him constantly. He will do it without delay. There's a happy ending to the: p_~ra.ple and an answer to the prayers of the righteous. Yet at the end there comes a disquieting,. question: "When the Son of man come:s. w111 he find faitn on earth? 11 Is it Jesus' question? Pe~haps. But it may b«luke's, or some unknown Christian's. The.original text does not use -quotation marks at all..,_ So we find several levels of meaning in t -h.fs parable. and the subsequent sayings,:.~. i lf 1CU just take the parab-le, the little narrative a 1 one, t t does seem to teach pe.rs is tence in prayer, as Luke says to begin with. But if you see the parable in light of Jesus' incomparable comparison of the unjust judge to God himself, then the point is God's unparalled. goo~ness. and justice to an$wer praler.. Finally, there 1 s that tr.oub 11 ng question ot.-whether the Son of 11\~. n, who is Jesus, will return to find fa 1 th on ear.th. For :Luke at 1 east this is a genu1ne question.... The late Maclean Gilmoor, an older colleague and dear friend, wrote 1n ~ his commentary that. this parable offers an i~terest1ng study in the development of the Gospel tradition. He may well be right. The several levels of meaning may mark. developing interpretations. But ~e must ask otir~elves whether it all makes sense together~ It does. in Luke's Gospel. The vindication of the elect and the c~ming of the Son of man are ways of speaking.;of God's judgment and ~ rule. Just prior to the parable the Pharisees- have asked Jesus when the kingdom or ruh~ of God 1s coming. In reply Jesus speaks in terms we wou 1 d ca H Apocctlyptfc. He ta 1 ks abp,u.t ca tac 1ysm1 c events. The Parable of the Unjust Judge follows.. Presuma~ly it is the people who wait upon God's rule who call upon him day and night. God will not disappoint them. He will vindicate them\ He will bring justice, and quickly. Ttae question is whether thtjse )'lho.. b.~~eech him and wait upon him will endure. wh en the. Son of man comes.. w_1-ll he fi n,d fa1 th on earth? The question is left open.

3 Apocalyptic warnings, ~1mple maxims, a parable, a searching question. Taken together they make a certain profound sense. Prayer. God's rigpteousness, and not losing heart--what Paul Tillich called, "the courage to beu-- are different facets of a common reality. They are bound together. To pray and not lose heart is to express faith in the righteousness of God. That faith fs not just a doctrine, or even a frame of mind. It is an expectation, a hope, a prayer. Because it leans into the future, looks to the future, ft risks disappointment. But the parable offers the assurance that God heeds persistent prayer. The word of Jesus assures the hearer that God hears cries for justice and will soon vindicate his elect. But for how long must one wait? That question is not answered. Instead, another 1 s.posed. When the Son of man comes, will he find faith on earth? To pray is a,very human undertaking. Christians didn't invent it and have no monopoly on it. Some of us may do 1t more than we admit. To pray means not to lose heart. As long as you pray, you have not lost heart~ If you lose heart you not only cease to pray, but you stop looking for the righteousness of God. All this can be put in terms that are not religious. If we do so, we may not say all that Christians have intended to say about prayer and God's justice. But its worth thinking about it in those terms. The attitude of prayer translates into expectation and hope, a sense of transcendent meaning and purpose which is open to me, which I can share. It is the sense of being accompanied, of being justified in having any hope and expectation at all, of believing that we can discern and do what is right. It brings with it the power to live and not lose heart. It looks forward to the realization of just.fce --what the New Testament calls God' S.rule, his reign. When he tau.ght His disciples to pray, Jesus had them pray for the realization of God's justice his ru 1 e: "Thy k 1 ngdom come." Jesus is portrayed in all the Gospels, and especially in Luke, as a person of prayer. It's easy to sentimentalize this fact, or to 1 gnore 1 t. Di fferen t Christ 1 an attitudes tend to go f n one direct 1 on or the other, but the fact is undeniable. There is a curious thing about Jesus'pray1ng. Although he teaches his disciples to pray for God's rule. he also encourages them to bring their deepest desires to God, and to persist in such prayer. We liberal, middle-class, modern Christians are uneasy about this. We are afraid we'll ask God for something he can't do, and we don't want to embarrass God. But this openness in prayer 1s exactly what Jesus himself practiced. When faced with the prospect of imminent death he prayed to God to let him escape ft. On the cross he cried out, "My God, My God. why hast thou forsaken me?" The importunate widow of our parable is a model of prayer according to Jesus. The fact that she is oppressed and seeks justice before her adversary is germane to the parable. And the fact that she persists out of need and even desperation fs obvious and important tooi Her prayer is the persistent expression of her deepest need. That is what true prayer must be.

4 ...,. -4- Thfs concept,of pr.ayer is ~'e -asi :fy triviatized.: For example, turn on your tel.evision on Sunday morning, or at bther times. A young woman ; n an evening dres.s i.s posed on the bow of a sai 1 boat 1 n San Frlncfsco Bay. She is singing NLeaning on the!verlasting Arms." Then there was the testimony that when the hair spray- -not the wine but the hair spr~y ran out, a neighbor appeared at t~ e door with a new can. An answer to prayer. "A sic and 1 t sha 11 be gi'ven you,.. said Jes.us..Tha. ~. scripture does not mean something silly t-s a sound he~meneut1ca1 principle. But if the prayer for hair spray represents your deepest awareness of need, its the only genuine prayer you can off,r. We shouldn't blame y~u ~~les~ you testify about it on televisfon before an audience of tho.usandsf What is missing from such concepts of prayer~ aside f~om common sense, i~ any perception of the rea 1 issues of 11 fe. Those who cry out day and night are deprived of mor~ ;, ~han hair spray. 0 '. i, o l I Genuine prayer aris~s only ~ut ~~ gen~ine need. Geriuine prayer is a cry for vind1cat1qn. It expr~sse~ the heart's desire for rec~itude, for right,,fqr wholenes$.~. for peace.. ' \. ' 0 - : ~ ;.. :, A year ago last spring I was briefly in Mexico ' wfihr a seminar of Di v 1 n,i ty. students and facu 1 ty. In Cuernavaca, Corters.: or~ 91 nal capital~ a. beaut1fu1 city about the size of Durha~, we : sa~ the homes of internationally known,.. ric~~ and _successful people.. 1 W~ ~ also saw La Estacion, the st~tion,.. yar_d., and v1sited. people who ; hih:l- b.een squatters there near the ra11road tratks for years. Thefr' houses w~r~ liter~)ly construct~d out ~f _ junlc ' arid rubbish, thi~~s i that other people h~ :d. thrown away. La Es.tacfon had recently gon:e 'from: one ou t :door. fau~et for. its; se.ve.ra 1 hundr~~ re~ f dents to four.~ f! Put> 1i c :.. ;ut i1 it i es were improv fng I. But sew_age was s t.ill. d1 ~pcise(i of, or ai 1 owed to come to rest, in t.h ~e. fetid_, s~fnkfng creek.th,at~ r'a-n.. through the encampment. Ch i1 dren, dogs, and chickens ran _ and p 1 ay'ed :t9..gether.. around it. (We were taken on our tour by an American Cat'htil ic mission ary whom the people knew and tr\.is. t.~. d... Oth.erwise they might "ot have ta~en kindly to wh i.te Ame ri cans exp 1 ori hg an d 'd~p 1 orf ng th~~ -.r. poverty.) ' ' 'II ' We vis 1 ted the house of (~ela --t ha t s not he.r name)..;_._ on e of the finer. home~ in La Estacion. It 'had a mud flo~r and ~as built of scraps. of wood and.t.in leaning against. a central beam:~ : which ha d been a telephone pole. _Angela ttad a half dozen children, at l.east_ all of whom had jobs or were in sthool. That's quite an a~c~mplishme~t anywhere -.as some of us can attest from experience! She bad suppb~ted them by sell,ing simple lunches to construction workers ~ ~ - ' I't had been a success fu l.. b,us i ness. Wi t.h. the profit she had b.ought a refrf gerator, which was an investment in the busin.ess. and a televis_i'on set..., "Where'~ ber husband?" We wondered. Don't ask! Sh~ has at most only part interest.1n a husband. He has other families, and takes responsibility ~ for none of them. An immoral woman? By some ~tandards. But a wonion of. hope and praye r. The single room was de cora ted with the brightly colored trophfe~. of her Catholic faith. Arigela was fa1thfulty catho11c, intenselj so. fn contrast to many of ~ her n~ighbors.. ~ One could draw several--and contradictory--implications or conclusions from this scene. A Marxist might find confirmation that religion fs the opiate of the people. Some of our prominent political leaders might see in Angela the triumph of the free enterprise system.

5 -5- I see fn her a remarkable personification of what it means to pr~y. and not lose heart. More depressing livfng conditions would be hard to imagine. Here was this poor, small woman, with no visible grounds for hope and no hope for extricating herself from these miserable surroundings. Yet she was full of hope. and within the limits of her modest expectations, her hopes had found fulfillment. A life of praying and not losing heart had been vindicated. I don't hold her up as an example to be emulated. Neither is this the time or place to deplore the deplorable conditions which she has transcended. Certainly we should not acquiesce in the existence of such squalor: "It is God's will" or ~see what beautiful flowers grow out of such refuse." No. Too many Christians have acquiesced for too long. Yet there she was, a child of prayer and hope, believing that God would vindicate her, the unfortunate grass-widow. "Pray and do not lose heart." "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.~ Do you believe any of that stuff? I am always amazed to find there are people who really do. And to realize that in some mysterious, but real sense their prayer issues in hope and hope in prayer. "When the Son of man comes will he find faith on earth?" Yes, in Cuernavaca. Where else? Luke leaves the question open. The question is addressed to us. Amen.