Prayerful Persistence

 

No Kings 2.0 in Tallahassee

Things are heating up in the country and dissent is growing among the masses who are getting tired of the tariffs, the government shutdown, the occupation of cities with National Guard troops, and the illegal arrests and deportations of people who came to this country in hopes of finding a better life. 

We've had a raid in the middle of the night on a Chicago apartment building where federal agents swooped in on blackhawk helicopters, rousing families out of their beds, putting zipties on half-naked children...only to release them later because (shocker!) they were American citizens.

And then there has been the assault on the freedom of speech by the government to shakedown network executives...requiring them to pay millions to settle frivilous lawsuits and cancel TV shows and comedians...in order to win approval for corporate mergers. The once stalwart and respected CBS Evening News now has a "bias monitor" who pledges allegiance to this regime. Edward R. Murrow is probably convulsing in his grave.

All these things have been occuring in the lead up to what was the largest mass protest in American history: more than seven million people in large cities to rural counties in the country protesting and demanding an end to this abuse of power and authoritarian rule.

And the lectionary served up a doozy of a Gospel passage: the parable of the unjust judge.

See what you think.

Text: Luke 18:1-8

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There’s a powerful story about the night that the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Junior was sitting at his kitchen table.

It was January 27^th…19-56 about midnight.

He had just received an anonymous phone call telling him to get out of town in three days or someone was going to shoot him and kill his family by blowing up their house.

As Dr. King sat at the table gripping his coffee cup…he thought about his family.

His wife who he loved dearly had just delivered their first child a month earlier…a baby girl who was the joy of his life.

This new baby brought him hope amid all the struggles he was facing as he led a movement for freedom and justice against the Jim Crow laws of the South.

As those images swirled in his brain…King began to pray:

“Lord, I’m down here trying to do what’s right. But I am afraid … I must confess … I’m losing my courage.”

In the face of such ominous threats…we can understand this fear.

We can understand that King…only in his late twenties…and living far away from his parents…was turning to God in a prayer of desperation.

And in that moment…King recalls that he heard that still small inner voice within, saying:

“Martin Luther, stand up for truth. Stand up for justice. Stand up for righteousness. I will be at your side.’”

A bomb did blow up the King’s front porch three days later.

The threats to King’s life never stopped…and as we know…an assassin’s bullet did kill him in Memphis twelve years later.

But that kitchen moment in prayer had so grounded King that he felt a deep connection with the Spirit of God and he remained undaunted.

He held to his commitment to non-violence…wisdom he had gained from his professor…the theologian Howard Thurman.

Praying in that dark hour of his soul helped him overcome the efforts to rob him of his faith and imprison him in fear.

That’s the essential message behind this parable that Jesus is telling us in the Gospel of Luke this morning.

When things feel daunting and when we’re faced with the injustice of the world…do not lose heart.

Persist in prayer…which is our connection to God…because God’s justice will come.

The widow in Jesus’ story was a representation of the powerless facing off against an unjust system.

While we don’t know what the widow’s complaint was in the parable…we know that in the culture of First Century Palestine…widows and children were particularly vulnerable.

It was expected that the community would care for her…but clearly that isn’t happening.

And worse: the judge…the representation of the one who SHOULD be protecting this widow from whatever wrongs were happening to her…was clearly not doing his job…and really didn’t care that he wasn’t doing right by this woman.

And yet…as Jesus notes…he finally relents and grants her justice.

Because even those who don’t know God will eventually get it right.

But it took persistence…and an unwillingness to live with the injustice…that finally won the day for the widow.

And as Jesus notes…if an unjust…no good…blankety-blank judge…can provide the righteous remedy…then certainly the God of mercy…and love…will answer when our prayers knock…maybe even pound…on Heaven’s door.

Maybe the answer won’t come right away…and it could very well be that we don’t get exactly what we ask for.

Because praying to God isn’t like dropping a coin in the slot of a candy machine….put in enough prayers and-voila-there’s your Snickers bar.

But when we send up prayers…it’s an act of faith and trust in that power which is beyond our own selves and our understanding in the fervent hope that something will happen.

We are letting go of our ego-centric desire to control outcomes…in the aspiration that God is merciful…compassionate and just.

Just as the widow in this parable keeps raising her voice…we keep raising our pleas to God.

We do it with our words…and we also do it with our actions.

Again…I think about Dr. Martin Luther King and leading the march at the Edmund Pettis Bridge in Selma.

Joining with King was Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel.

He remarked that…in participating in this action…he felt his “legs were praying.” 

This was a prayer with the whole body…not just with saying words.

Heschel was a big believer in social justice and for him…prayer not only helps us to center in our own bodies but it propels us to engage with the struggles of the world.

It’s that idea of praying with your feet…and entering into the work of justice.

From our Christian perspective…praying with your feet is how we take on the work that Jesus is calling us to do….as we say in our post-communion prayer…”to love and serve God with gladness and singleness of heart.”  

Because our work in the here and now on earth is to keep encouraging one another so that we live into God’s dreamed reality for this world. 

A dream where all of God’s creatures know how to live with each other…so that life on earth might be more aligned with heaven.

Yesterday…here in Valdosta and in cities around the world…people prayed with their feet as they demonstrated for our nation…in the No Kings rallies.

I joined with thousands at the Florida state capitol to pray a prayer of hope for our country in this moment where we are seeing freedoms eroded and cruelty displayed against those already oppressed in our society.

And yet there are those in power who will insist we are a Christian nation even as we oppress the widow, the orphan, and the stranger.

I attended yesterday’s demonstration in my clerical collar…as I’ve done before.

I did it to stand with the people…those lifting their voices in shouts and song to say, “God bless America.”

God bless America with compassion.

God bless America with mercy.

God bless us with leadership that protects the vulnerable and doesn’t terrorize them.

God bless us with fair labor…and opportunities for people to make ends meet.

As I walked through the crowd…I saw young children resting on their parents’ laps…and old men…feebly and carefully moving through the crosswalks with their rollators.

I imagined this crowd was not unlike those throngs that surrounded Jesus on his fateful trek toward Jerusalem.

The common…every day…ordinary people…seeking someone to hear their cry for relief.

I don’t know that everyone there with me in Tallahassee believed in the God of love…but I do believe that God is hearing our prayers…both the silent ones of our hearts…and the prayers showed with our feet and legs.

Jesus asks, “Will he find faith on earth” when he comes again.

I think that’s really the big question for each of us to ponder.

When adversity happens…if life becomes more challenging…and if we continue to see state-sponsored cruelty celebrated as strength…will we remain faithful and persistent in prayer like the widow…or harden our hearts like the judge?

I pray that our faith will carry us…in the same way it has buoyed the spirits of many throughout the centuries.

The American writer and civil rights leader James Weldon Johnson provides us with a powerful prayer for these times in the closing verse of the hymn “Lift Every Voice and Sing”:

God of our weary years

God of our silent tears

Thou who hast brought us thus far on the way;

Thou who hast by thy might led us into the light;

Keep us forever in the path we pray.

Lest our feet stray from the places our God where we met thee;

Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget thee;

Shadowed beneath thy hand may we forever stand,

True to our God, true to our native land.

In the name of our One Holy and Undivided Trinity.