God’s grace, peace
and mercy be with you. My sermon today is entitled Three Ps of Engaged
Christians: Parable, Passage and Prayer, and my focus is our Gospel (Luke 18:1-8).
Let us pray. Heavenly Father, the psalmist wrote, “I rejoiced when they
said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the Lord.’” Now that we are
within your gates, we rejoice to hear your Word. As we listen, may your Spirit
enlighten our minds and move our hearts to love deeply as Jesus loved. This we
pray to you, Most Holy Trinity. Amen.
Parable. I have
spoken about the definition of a parable previously, but it bears repeating.
Simply defined, a parable is a short story that teaches a moral or spiritual
lesson. It comes to us from the Latin, parabola, and the Greek, parabole,
which literally meant ‘a throwing beside.’ Its origin is from the term para,
meaning alongside, and bole, a throwing, casting, beam or ray.
The geometrically
gifted understand that a parabolic curve refers to a comparison between fixed
points and a straight line. The St. Louis Arch and your satellite dish are
parabolic curves. Jesus, however, did not teach math or build arches. Rather,
he compared real life situations to teach a lesson about God.
Parables were part
of Jewish tradition. The Hebrew term for a parable was mashal. We find mashal
in the allegories, proverbs, riddles and taunts of Judges, Samuel, Proverbs,
Prophets and the intertestamental Book of Enoch. We are familiar with Nathan’s
powerful story to David of the rich man who stole and slaughtered the poor
man’s prized lamb. It transformed David to a humble, contrite sinner. So, we
see that Jesus did not invent parables, but like his ancestors, used them to
win people over to his views.
Jesus spoke
parables to proclaim the gracious advent, disturbing presence and challenging
implications of the Kingdom of God. At times, he opened with, “The
kingdom of heaven is like…” or, “To what shall I compare?”
Often, he concluded with a question. “Which of these three … proved to be
a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” Today’s parable
asks, “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”
While Jesus’
questions did not pressure listeners to choose any one direction, they
confronted them with the necessity to make a choice that determined their
future. No doubt, his listeners who viewed matters one way now discovered a
better way. Discovering a better way resulted in conversion, reconciliation and
changed behavior. Once they experienced conversion and reconciliation, his
followers transformed society and changed the world. As I conclude my first
point on parables, I repeat that last sentence. Once they experienced
conversion and reconciliation, his followers transformed society and changed
the world.
From parable to
passage, my second point. I repeated the last sentence because repetition is
effective pedagogy. We learned our catechism by repeating answers to questions.
As Luther employed repetition, so did Luke. He emphasized continued prayer in
this passage, and humble prayer in the next. The conclusion of the Parable of
the Pharisee and the Tax Collector reads, “For everyone who exalts
himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”
We also find a
parallel between today’s passage and chapter 11, where Jesus said, “Which
of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend,
lend me three loaves, for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey, and I have
nothing to set before him.’” In both, the main character is the
petitioned, not the petitioner. The petitioned represents God, who listens and
answers, but the attention goes to the petitioner, who asks, seeks and knocks.
In other words, do not be afraid to bother God. Do not give up on prayer.
Jesus encouraged
his disciples to pray earnestly to the end. Luke recorded that when Jesus was
in the Mount of Olives, he was in agony but prayed more earnestly. In Acts,
when Peter was in prison, the church prayed earnestly to God for him. Like the
widow seeking justice, the disciples’ goal, even in the midst of difficulties,
was never give up before the Son of Man returns.
Jesus then
described the judge as unrighteous, unaccountable to God and inconsiderate
towards people. The listeners understood that this man was not a religious
figure, but a secular judge who ruled through the authority of the occupying
power, a common practice in the Ancient Middle East. Think Pontius Pilate. In
many cases, people sought justice in these courts because the judicial process
was quicker and smoother. We find an indication of this practice in chapter 12.
Jesus said, “As you go with your accuser before the magistrate, make an
effort to settle with him on the way, lest he drag you to the judge, and the
judge hand you over to the officer, and the officer put you in prison. I tell
you, you will never get out until you have paid the very last penny.”
The oppressed
widow symbolized the helpless and defenseless. She knew she had right on her
side, appealed for vindication and expected swift justice. As a favor to her
oppressor, a rich and influential man, the judge delayed her hearing.
The judge did not
decide according to the exhortations to give widows their rights according to
the Law and Prophets. There, we read, “You shall not mistreat any widow
or fatherless child.” In another, we read, “Everyone loves a
bribe and runs after gifts. They do not bring justice to the fatherless, and
the widow’s cause does not come to them.” And, “I will be a swift
witness against … those who oppress the hired worker in his wages, the widow
and fatherless, [and] those who thrust aside the sojourner, and do not fear me,
says the Lord.”
Yet, the
unrighteous, exasperated judge yielded to the widow’s relentless pursuit of
justice. He could do nothing to appease her short of giving her a swift hearing
based on Roman law. He did so because he was tired of having his reputation
sullied and his name ridiculed among his peers because this poor, defenseless widow
never gave up seeking justice.
If the unjust
judge does right by the widow for whom he does not care – a case in which the
chances for a positive outcome are very slim – how much more will God respond
to the unceasing cry of his elect, since, in contrast to the judge, he listens
favorably to them.[13] The unjust judge did not care for the widow and hardly
wanted to listen to her. Our righteous, loving God has a lively interest in his
elect and is always prepared to listen to them.
God is always
prepared to listen; however, as I mentioned earlier, Jesus often concluded
parables with a question. Here, he asked, “When the Son of Man comes,
will he find faith on earth?” Will he find disciples actively engaged
in prayer?
Will he find
disciples actively engaged in prayer? That, folks, leads me to my third point,
prayer. Prayer is the necessary foundation of our work as church and
individuals. It is communal and personal. We pray in our sanctuaries and rooms.
To paraphrase one holy person, prayer is God looking at me, and me looking at
God. It is from the heart, but it is also vocal. We speak the Lord’s Prayer as
Jesus taught it to his disciples.
Prayer involves
reading Scripture. Daily, my wife and I read aloud the Psalms. Prayer involves
thought and imagination, gifts Jesus employed as he formed parables. Praying
over Nathan’s story to David may reduce me to a humble, contrite sinner.
Pondering Jesus’ closing question in the Parable of the Good Samaritan may
leave me wondering if I show mercy to diverse neighbors. Meditating on the
Parable of the Prodigal may challenge the depth of my love for father and
brother, mother and sister. So, friends, you see why my last point is prayer.
When the Son of Man returns, will he find faith in me? Will he find me praying
earnestly to the end – like Peter in prison or Jesus in the Mount of Olives?
Jesus based this
parable on trust and confidence in God’s help and assistance. He could be so
straightforward in his assurance that God hears the cry of his people because
he took seriously the action of God in his own life and ministry. He saw it in
Israel’s history and the world around him.
We do not live in
that history and world. We live in a country with a different history and a
different world. Therefore, we pray over this parable in order to relate it to
our daily lives. When I pray over the passage, many questions rise to the
surface, but let me focus only on a few.
First, who are
today’s widows? Who are God’s elect who cry out to him day and night seeking
justice? Whose voices are the exploited and oppressed?
Second, Jesus
promises that God will give justice to his elect. If I – created in the image
and likeness of God, baptized in the name of the Father, Son and Spirit, a
redeemed sinner and child of God – If I am to be perfect as our heavenly Father
is perfect, how do I extend mercy to those who seek justice? If the unjust
judge who neither feared God nor respected man knew how to extend justice to
the poor, exploited and oppressed widow, to whom do I extend justice?
I asked myself,
“Who are the exploited?” Recalling my work at World Neighbors, an international
organization solving hunger, I saw the immensity of poverty in rural Asia,
Africa and Latin America. As a fundraiser for a homeless service provider in
Berkeley, California, I met many homeless vets and people with mental health
disorders. As a program manager for Jubilee Soup Kitchen, I interviewed dozens
of women exploited by pushers and pimps. I could list scores of exploited and
oppressed people who cry out to God seeking justice, but only the unborn do not
have a voice.
According to WHO,
every year in the world there are an estimated 40-50 million abortions. This
corresponds to approximately 125,000 abortions per day. In the US, there are
over 3,000 abortions per day. Twenty-two percent of all pregnancies in the USA
(excluding miscarriages) end in abortion.[1] [16] Lutherans for Life,
Priests for Life, Operation Rescue, Guttmacher Institute, the CDC and others
publish pages of statistics and stories on their websites. Read them. Think
about the 125 babies aborted during the length of our worship service, or the 31
during the length of this sermon. Ask yourself if these exploited and oppressed
elect of God cried out when aborted because of the primary reason: they were
inconvenient to the parents.
I concluded my
first point by saying that once people heard Jesus’ parables, they experienced
conversion and reconciliation, transformed society and changed the world. “When
the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” Will he find that
Lutherans Engage the World is a reality or simply a magazine?
Friends, these exploited
and oppressed people created in the image of God have no voice and yet cry out
for justice. As men and women who experienced conversion and reconciliation,
our prayers and actions can transform society and change the world. As we
approach the election, seriously consider not only people, but also political
parties and policies that ignore or respond to those who cry out to God. Let
your vote express justice and mercy for those who cry out to God, yet have no
voice.
Beyond the ballot
box, pray and protest the inhumane slaughter of the innocents, and tax-payer
funding of agencies that abort unborn persons. Do this, and know that when the
Son of Man returns, he will find you engaged in prayer and in the practice of
your faith. When He returns, may the peace of God that surpasses all
understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.[2]
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