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Luke 18:1-8a

October 21, 2007

If you’ve ever watched The Simpsons

you may have at one time or another heard Homer Simpson pray.

His very honest and unselfconscious prayers always sound something like this:

Dear Lord, the gods have been good to me.

As an offering, I present these milk and cookies.

If you wish me to eat them instead, please give me no sign whatsoever…

Thy will be done. (munch, munch, munch)

You may have heard this joke recently:

A man in the woods prays like this as he sees a huge grizzly bear coming for him:

Dear God, please put the fear of You

in that bear with the big growl and the long claws that is coming at me.

The Lord heard the man’s prayer.

The bear stopped, stopped growling, and got down on its knees and said,

“Bless, O Lord, these thy gifts

which we are about to receive from thy bounty.”

Jesus does say to pray always and never give up.

Before he tells the parable of the unjust judge and the persistent widow

He has been describing the Son of Man coming to judge the world.

And, he compare the two judges.

The Son of Man is a term Jesus uses for himself.

The One sent by God to judge the world.

He will come as judge of those whose shoes he has walked in.

He will come as judge of those whose pain and joys he himself has felt.

He will come as judge of those whom God has loved and sought after

and forgiven and formed since the beginning of time.

He will come as judge of those for whom he himself has died.

In comparison is this unjust judge who does not believe in God

and cares nothing at all about human beings and their plights.

A woman, a widow, who continues to petition the unjust judge

is the other character in the parable.

And Jesus wonders –

When God’s love comes

to meet the truth, to judge the truth, to reveal the truth

-of people… and their relationships,

… and their thoughts… and their actions,

who is found like her, praying without ceasing,

tirelessly, fervently, dependably, patiently, passionately, willfully,

day - by – day;

prayers meeting the always approaching light

that reveals and overcomes darkness.

The question for us is –

As God is ever-approaching us and our lives, are there unceasing prayers

for God’s Spirit to join with engage with work with?

And…how do we pray day in and day out?

Prayer comes in many forms.

Perhaps ‘prayer’ is simply anything we say, think, feel, or will

that is directed toward God.

There are the prayers we are taught to say.

“Now I lay me down to sleep.”

“Our Father who art in heaven.”

The outline of our Sunday prayers:

For the Church, the nation, the welfare of the world,

the concerns of our local community,

for those who suffer and those in trouble, for the departed..

It is good to say prayers. The words form us and teach us how to pray.

There is thinking in prayer.

We consider or ponder about some aspect of God,

and God’s activity in our situations, we seek to comprehend it all,

to understand how God and our world are connected

and then to appropriate our understandings, to apply them to our life.

For example, in thinking upon the power of God,

we think through the act of creation as a continuing, sustaining act of God.

We relate this creative power to atomic power, where the secret of energy is unlocked.

We consider how God’s creative power can be used to support creation or destroy it.

We decide how we will use the power we are given for God’s creative purposes.

Without thoughtful engagement with our Holy Scripture and the events in our world

we can tend to judge ourselves only by our own values, rather than by God’s.

We can tend to ‘conform’ God’s judgment to ours, to reduce God’s thoughts our thoughts

rather than our searching to think God’s thoughts – to think with the mind of Christ.

Feeling is part of prayer.

Our emotions are involved in our relationship with God.

You like God’s good gifts and you rejoice over them.

You are ashamed of your failures and you tell God you’re sorry.

You thank God for help received and you feel relief and gratitude.

You experience fear and you yearn for God’s protection.

Fervor of spirit, depth of feeling, and the longings of your heart- are all part of prayer life.

When we allow our feelings into our prayer life, we allow for honesty and openness.

We let our guard down.

This kind of prayer can leave words behind. No need to speak or listen.

Just God holding you in the quiet and you resting within him as your very center.

God loving you and you being loved through and through.

While such experiences are precious to us, feelings come and go.

In times of joy and fullness there is ecstasy.

In times of depression, you may feel only flat desolation.

No matter what your feelings, God remains and you remain.

The prayers you’ve been taught to say.

The engagement of your mind tell you that God is where you are.

You don’t trust your feelings about God. You simply trust God.

Then, there are prayers that you will.

To will a prayer is to direct your will to God, irrespective of your feelings,

irrespective even of your logical opinions.

This is prayer that is seasoned by searching thought and honest feeling.

This is prayer that has enjoyed mountaintop experiences

has gone through deep times of doubt,

- seasons of the inability to pray at all.

To will a prayer is to ask what you believe God’s will to be,

and to seek union with God’s perfect will.

To will a prayer is to say,

‘I believe. Help my unbelief’

‘I want revenge. I ask for your mercy.’

‘I don’t want to love that person. Teach me to love them.’

The world of prayer!

God’s truth being met with our words, our thoughts, our feelings, our wills.

And though we may assume that God is more pleased to meet with

eloquence and high-mindedness,

God is not a snob about prayer.

Whether we approach God with prayer that equals the skill of a poised gymnast

or that of a little knock-kneed five year old in her first ballet recital,

God delights in what praise we bring.

Whether we say our prayers in beautiful English, reciting them in perfect ‘collect’ form,

or we mumble and stumble over our words,

God is attentive to our every word.

Whether we ponder the deepest questions of God’s power

or tackle the writings of great theologians or simply ask ‘Why?’

God is engaged in our every thought.

If our hearts soar when we give thanks for some magnamimous deed

that has eased the world’s pain or our tears flow in sorrow,

or we seeth with anger at injustices

God in Christ is present to share with great empathy all of our feelings.

Jesus simply tells us to pray without ceasing…

“What will the Son of Man find on earth?”

That somehow, our praying is essential to God.

that God expects us to be turned toward him

So that he may raise us up, raise this world up.

As the Irish hymn goes:

You raise me up so I can walk on mountains.

You raise me up to walk on stormy seas.

I am strong when I am on your shoulders.

You raise me up to more than I can be.

And so, my friends, without ceasing,

In our words, thoughts, feelings, wills –

Let us pray.