Pray Until Something Happens

Pray Until Something Happens

The texts for this sermon are 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5 and Luke 18:1-8

When I was in elementary school in the 1990’s, kids across the nation got swept up in a craze over wearing these little woven cloth bracelets on their wrists.  We used to collect them in all different colors and styles - we’d trade them with one another and put five and six on our wrists at a time.  Some of my more artistic friends bought kits where they could make their own with different patterns and beads and other things.  These bracelets were kind of like the friendship bracelets that had been going around for years and years, but they were different, too.  This new fad was just four letters: WWJD?

Pastors used to hand them out at youth group or during children’s sermons.  You could buy them by the handful at Christian bookstores.  And everyone was wearing them, it seemed.  We were all proud to be able to show our faith on a little piece of cloth wrapped around our wrists.  And every time we looked at it sitting there on our wrist, we were reminded to ask ourselves before we did anything: What Would Jesus Do?  Would Jesus draw funny faces on top of the pictures in that history book?  Would Jesus keep the quarter mom gave me this morning to put in the offering plate?  Would Jesus pinch my baby sister and then blame it on my brother, instead?

It was a good fad in a lot of ways.  It helped kids connect to their faith and to make Christianity a popular movement among us.  And, like most things of that popular, fadd-ish nature, it took off in all different kinds of directions.  Soon we all had bible-covers with WWJD on them, and t-shirts, necklaces, hats, hoodies, you name it, it had those four letters emblazoned somewhere on it.  And then people started jumping on the idea to make other little slogans, too.  You had FROG stuff with pictures of frogs on it telling us to Fully Rely on God, DOGs who reminded us we were Dependent on God, military stuff with CIA on it that stood for Christians In Action... pick a word, a cool idea, an animal of some kind and somebody would make an acronym about it to turn into more bracelets, t-shirts, and bible-covers.

Maybe fortunately, some of that fad has petered off.  The WWJD stuff still gets sold and sometimes you’ll see a VBS or youth group giving out FROG t-shirts or something.  One of the ones that has stuck around to some extent was an acronym made out of the word PUSH.  The letters stood for Pray Until Something Happens.  It was just one more of those little reminders that got put out there on keychains, bumper stickers, and signs outside of churches, telling us to be persistent in prayer, to not give up even when it seems that we haven’t gotten any kind of answer from God, to just keep on praying until... well... something happens. It’s not a bad little acronym to remember - we see it around us quite a bit without even needing to wear a bracelet, after all.  It’s on doors, on signs, on elevator buttons, just a simple instruction that we don’t even think about when we do it.

And so as I was looking at the lectionary this week and read this story of the persistent widow, it’s the first thing that came to mind.  This woman could have been the poster-person for someone trying to sell PUSH bracelets!  PUSH seems like it’s practically the very summary of what Jesus is saying in this parable - just Pray Until Something Happens.  Keep on praying and God will answer your prayers - just look at this story of the woman who kept bugging the crooked judge.  If that guy finally gave in and gave this woman justice, how much more quickly will God answer our prayers!  Can I get an Amen!  Ok... next hymn.

But the more I read this passage and thought about it, the more this acronym and the whole idea of bumper sticker theology really dug into my brain.  It seems too easy to just say “Pray Until Something Happens” - what if nothing happens?  Or worse, what if the “something” that happens is that we don’t get what we prayed for?  Is “just keep praying” the best answer we can give at a time like that?  Is this the whole of Jesus’ message in this parable?  If so, then what do we do with something so difficult to wrestle with as this passage is today?

Part of the problem with this passage is that I think we’re often too quick to try to work with parables so that they can be focused down into one simple lesson - going back to that whole “bumper sticker theology” kind of idea.  We want to be able to sum up Jesus’ teachings into short, little Twitter posts of 140 characters or less.  We want our Bible lessons to be things we can put on the back of bumper stickers or on bracelets.  But this parable, particularly, is a lot more complicated than simply saying “Pray Until Something Happens.”  It hits on too many different levels to be just that one phrase.  In just eight verses, Jesus teaches the disciples on the nature of God, on the call to faithful life that all believers need to follow, about being persistent in seeking justice, and even about the very nature of the Kingdom of God that will be completed when Christ returns. Luke introduces the parable by saying that Jesus tells it to teach the disciples about their need to “pray always and not lose heart,” but can we really get a full and deep understanding of Jesus’ teaching here from a simple four-letter acronym?

If we unpack the parable and look at what this widow actually does, it can tell us a great deal about prayer itself - this woman doesn’t just ask the judge for justice; she hounds him.  She nags him.  She keeps coming to him, time and time again, demanding that he give her justice against her opponent.  This woman isn’t just persistent in the eyes of the judge - she’s downright annoying.  The way the judge responds to her, it’s almost like the old Droopy Dog cartoons; no matter where that old wolf runs, Droopy is right there the next time he turns around.  The widow doesn’t just make her request known to the judge - she actively advocates for justice, even if it is on her own behalf.

Thinking about prayer in the context of this widow’s actions, we suddenly find ourselves looking from a completely different perspective.  It’s not a kind of prayer that feels as familiar to us... it may even be a style of prayer that makes us uncomfortable.  The fact is, we’re not taught to pray this way.  We’re not taught to demand or to expect things from God.  We’re taught to feel like we shouldn’t bother God with some prayers, that every time we go before God, it should be with the universe’s biggest inferiority complex.  We’re often taught that our time of prayer is supposed to be a serious time, injected with the best “church language” that we can muster - throw in a few thee’s and thou’s, pray with a thesaurus next to you so you can pick out a few more good adjectives to describe how glorious God is when you talk to God.  And we’re also often taught that our prayer times are times meant to be spent in silence and solitude, reflecting and listening, meditating, prostrating ourselves before God in abject humility and fear.

And with that perspective, it’s no wonder this widow can make us uncomfortable.  Because the widow doesn’t approach the judge timidly, throw herself at his feet, and ask “if you don’t mind... please grant me justice.”  She doesn’t give up after the judge says no the first few times and resign herself to failure; she lets her prayer move her from petition to pursuit  and begins to take steps to work for justice even as she continues to demand it from the judge.  And in the face of that level of determination, the judge realizes that his own wickedness and stubborn refusal to respect people would inevitably wear out before her thirst for justice would.  And he grants her the justice she desires.

This is the kind of prayer that Jesus teaches us to pray.  This is the kind of lifestyle that our prayer should move us toward - that when we pray thy kingdom come, thy will be done, we feel that desire so strongly that we then go out ourselves and work to bring that kingdom and will into being.  We are called to be the persistent voices in this world, constantly crying out for justice, working to see that justice done, and never resting from our labors until God’s kingdom comes and true justice is finally and eternally carried out.

May God continually give us courage through the Spirit to speak out, to be a voice for justice, and to be a people of action in the name of Jesus Christ, to whom be all glory now and forevermore.  Amen.