The Sacred Echo
07/11/2010 - Pray It Again
This week I received an email from a woman that I know from a former church who is battling breast cancer. Her name is Ruth and this is what she wrote.
"As a school administrator, I encourage kids to study hard and do their best in school. Well, my 'grades' are in for my follow-up tests and I guess you could say that I flunked almost everything! Iron levels low. Thyroid level low. Stress-fighting hormones really, really low. Estrogen and progesterone hormones miraculously okay right now.
"No tests were done for cancer at this time, but these other tests measure my body's ability to fight against any new cancer. The doctor was very concerned and said the test results indicate that I should be feeling tired and achy all over and suffering from short term memory loss. That's sounds pretty accurate. I told him that it feels like he gave me a D-! I never had a D- before and I'm not feeling good about it now. My husband says I should have 'studied' harder for the tests. Ha!
"Now that the cancer surgery and radiation are over, we are eager for my body to get healthy again to avoid any more cancer growth. So it's discouraging to learn that the stress of these last few years has used up all my adrenal resources. How disappointing to be working so hard on recovery (eating right, exercising, resting) and then learn that my body is too exhausted to recover well.
"It's amazing how one piece of discouraging news can fester into frustrating, accusing thoughts such as ...
'It's all my fault. Maybe I should have handled the stress better.'
'It's all God's fault. He's the one who allowed all this stress. Didn't he sort of go over the top these past few years?'
"It's not fair! Well, hmmm, did anyone promise fair?'
"After a long night of wrestling with God in prayer about this, he stepped in to show us his encouragement in specific ways. The doctor is ordering another very expensive test to determine how best to start building up my system. God has provided the funds for this test already! We found a chiropractor that is covered by our insurance to help ease the aches and pains. And God pointed me to an amazing verse in Psalm 63:7, 'Because you have been my help, therefore in the shadow of your wings I will rejoice.'
"Yes," she writes, "we have so much to rejoice about! This verse paints a picture for me of a chick hiding under the strong wings of the mother hen. Those accusing voices are muffled by the feathers of the Protector. Instead, nestled under the wing I only hear the strong heart-beat of my Protector and the message it thumps out is 'I LOVE YOU! I LOVE YOU! I LOVE YOU!' Yes, even with the aches, pains, and long road to recovery, we have the promises and presence of our loving God.
"Thanks for praying with us as we continue to rejoice in God's love for us, even though recovery will take much longer that we hoped. Pray that we stay constant under the wings of the Almighty, resting and listening to his heart! Grateful for God's constant love, and yours too!"
Wow! When I read that I couldn't help but think about our teaching from last week. The most powerful sacred echo that any of us can ever hear is the echo from God that says, "I love you. I love you. I love you." That echo is stronger than cancer and more powerful than any aches or pains that we can suffer physically, mentally, spiritually or emotionally. That echo is stronger even than death itself.
At least that's what the apostle Paul says inRomans 8:35-39, What shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? ... 37No in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers,39neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
This morning we continue our summer series calledThe Sacred Echo: Exploring the Mystery of Prayer. It's a series about prayer, but it's more than a series on prayer it's about how God leads and guides and directs our lives if we invite him too.
The first week we set the premise for the series. And the premise is this ... there is a God who knows you and who loves you and who cares enough about you to be actively at work in your life. God wants to have a relationship with you and me and prayer is a big part of that relationship because prayer is how we communicate with God, but it's also the way we listen to God.
Prayer is how we discern the leadings and the promptings and the movement of God's Spirit in our lives, what Margaret Feinberg calls sacred echoes in the book that prompted this series. It's been her experience and mine as well that when God wants to get our attention the same theme, idea, impression, or lesson keeps repeating itself again and again in surprising and unexpected ways.
And last week we said the most powerful echo we can hear from God is the echo, "I love you!" That's what Ruth described in her email this week. The echo of God's love for her came from the Scriptures, Psalm 63:7 and the image of a mother hen protecting her chicks.
And in that we see the role that the Scripture plays as well. From cover to cover the Scriptures were written to remind us that God knows us, that God loves us, and that God cares enough to be actively involved in our lives. It's in the Scriptures that we find the reassurance of God's love. So that's where we've been these first two weeks.
But this morning I want us to explore one of the mysteries of prayer, the mystery of persistence. God wants us to be persistent pray-ers. He wants us to stay at it. He doesn't want us to pray about something once and then give up. He doesn't want us to get discouraged because our prayers aren't being answered the way we want them to or as quickly as we want them to and quit on prayer altogether. Over the years I've caved in to both those temptations and I probably will again which is why we need to hear the voice of Jesus on this matter.
So if you have a Bible turn with me to Luke 18:1-8. In this passage Jesus is going to tell us a story to help us understand how prayer works. It's a story that's meant to motivate us to keep on praying which is what I hope this series does for us as well. Unfortunately, I think the story that Jesus tells has been misunderstood by many over the years. In fact, some have drawn the very opposite conclusion of what Jesus intended.
So let's take a fresh look at it starting with verses 1-5, Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. 2He said: "In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared what people thought. 3And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, 'Grant me justice against my adversary.' 4"For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, 'Even though I don't fear God or care what people think, 5yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won't eventually come and attack me!'"
The story Jesus tells has two leading characters. The first is the widow. Being a widow is not easy. My mother is a widow who has lived alone for the past five years and during that time I've watched her world get smaller and smaller as she's lost loved ones and friends and bits and pieces of her own health. It's been difficult, but she still has a life and a comfortable place to live and the resources that she needs to survive.
But in the Middle East, two thousand years ago, it wasn't that way. Widows and orphans were the most vulnerable people in society. There was no social security, no pension, no welfare, no government help, no social services. In fact, if this woman didn't have a son to support her financially she would most likely be homeless and out on the street.
And if that wasn't bad enough she was being harassed and bullied by an adversary, Jesus says. The story doesn't tell us how or why, maybe she was being intimidated or threatened with eviction from her cardboard house. Maybe some jerk was withholding or stealing money that was earmarked for her support. We don't know. But we do know that she was the victim of injustice and her only hope was to go to the local judge, plead her case, and throw herself on his mercy. And that's exactly what she decided to do.
Enter the second character, the judge. In one crisp statement Jesus says two things about him and neither are flattering. He says the judge didn't fear God and he didn't care about people. In other words, this man was the anti-thesis of the greatest commandment. He didn't love God or love people. He had no moral compass, no conscience, no sense of right or wrong. He was a law unto himself, a loaded loose cannon.
So what hope does this widow have in pleading her case before the unjust judge? If you guessed "zero" you probably guessed too high!
But she goes to him anyway and states her case. And the judge sits back and laughs at her and says, "Get this woman out of my sight! Case dismissed." And she's thrown out on the street.
And for most people that would have been the end of it, but not for this lady. She figures, "What do I have to lose? I'm going to make a scene. I'm going to harass this judge and make myself a nuisance until justice is served. I'm going to be all over him like a wet shirt. I'm going to get in his face and stay on his case until he finally gives me what I want, throws me in jail, or else kills me!"
And so she does. She stalks him at home and at work and at the club and she wears him down until he finally opens the window of his office and screams, "I can't take it anymore! Will somebody please fix this lady's problem and get her out of my life before she drives me crazy!" In fact, Jesus says it got so bad that he feared for his life. He thought she might attack him!
And we read that and we think the moral of the story is that it pays to pester. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. If we make enough noise and make ourselves a nuisance and keep bugging God we might be able to get his attention and maybe just maybe wrestle a blessing out of his tight fisted grip. Is that the moral of the story? Is that what prayer is all about?
Is God like the unjust judge who doesn't care about people and is way too busy to be concerned about me? Am I like the penniless and powerless widow, harassed and bullied by life? If I really want God to hear me do I have to bug him? Do I have to make a scene? Do I need to get in his face and stay on his case and get my friends to bug him too in hopes that maybe just maybe God will get tired of hearing my complaint and scream, "I can't take it anymore! Will somebody please fix Bruce's problem and get him out of my life before he drives me crazy!" Is that the picture of God painted in Scripture?
It's sad to say but for years I thought that's what this parable was about. I thought I needed to break God down with my persistence in prayer and bug him and bug him and bug him until he finally said, "Uncle!" But I don't believe that anymore because I don't believe that God is like the unjust judge. This parable is not a study in comparison. This parable is a study in contrast.
Look how Jesus interprets it in verses 6-8,And the Lord said, "Listen to what the unjust judge says. 7And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? 8I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?"
Unlike the unjust judge, God is very concerned about justice and about the cries of his people. He cares for his chosen ones. He will see that justice is done, certainly in the end and here Jesus says, "quickly." That word quickly also means "as soon as possible." God will make all the wrongs right as soon as possible. The question Jesus asks is, "Do you believe that?" When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?
This passage is closely connected with what Jesus had just said in Luke 17 when he was talking about the torching of the Temple and the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans. After describing the wickedness that was rampant in the days of Noah and then again in the days of Lot Jesus says in Luke 17:30,It will be just like this on the day the Son of Man is revealed.
God's justice was coming quickly. In A.D. 70 the Son of Man would be revealed in the sense that everything Jesus said was going to happen to Israel and to Jerusalemand to the Templewould come true. Jesus would be lifted up and vindicated as the one true Messiah of Israel.
God is the very opposite of the unjust judge. He's a just judge who hears the cries of people day and night. But he's also a loving, responsive heavenly Father who is very sensitive and attentive to his children's daily needs.
In Matthew 7:7-11 Jesus describes God this way,Ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened to you. (Literally, the tenses of those verbs are keep asking, keep seeking, keep knocking and the door will be opened to you. In other words, be persistent in prayer.)8For everyone who asks receives, those who seek find, and to those who knock, the door will be opened. 9Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? 11If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!
God is a just judge who hears the cries of his chosen ones and he is a loving heavenly Father who invites his kids to jump up into his lap anywhere, anytime, to talk to him about anything. And if what we're asking for is a good thing God will give it to us. We don't need to beg and plead and badger him because he's a loving parent who wants the best for his children.
But there are reasons that God wants us to be persistent in prayer. The persistence is good for us. In her comments on being persistent Margaret Feinberg writes (p. 51-52), "I am beginning to believe that the real beauty of prayer is not just in the request but in the repetition. Something wondrous happens when we pray without ceasing. Something enchanting happens when we ask God for something more than once, as if with each refrain, our heart aligns itself a shade closer to God's heart. It's almost as if something sacred happens in the echo of our prayers. Through prayer we become part of the greater story - the story of what God is doing in our lives, our families, our communities, and around the world.
"Why pray when God has heard it all before? Because God really does answer prayer. The same God who is sovereign and immutable and knows everything from the beginning to the end, not only gives us his ear, but he invites us to take it as well. Though the answers he gives are not always the ones we hope for, God still invites us to pray. And he delights in every syllable. Our highly relational God wants to keep company with us and that involves responding to us even when the answers and timing are not exactly what we want to hear.
"Why pray? Because something inherently changes inside of us when we persist in prayer." Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. Let's pray right now.