October 21, 2007

Pentecost Proper 24, Year C

Do you believe in the battering-ram theory of prayer? Today’s Gospel reading [Lk 18.1-8] seems to commend it. Just keep battering the gates of heaven and you’ll get what you want. I suppose entry level prayer begins with “gimme” prayer - O God, gimme - better health, more money, comfort, peace, and so on. Is that what the parable means?

Understanding the Bible is a bit like looking at the moon. You can see the moon with your naked eye or through a telescope. You can tell people what you see - and they can’t contradict you.

You can read the Bible that way too. You can tell people what you see, what it means to you, and no one can contradict that. They might see it differently, but they can’t fairly say you don’t see what you see.

But the same side of the moon always faces us on earth, so we never get to see what’s on the other side. We know it’s three dimensional, but we see only two dimensions. To see whatever is on the other side, we must rely on others, on photographs taken from lunar orbiters and on interpretations by astronomers and other experts.

That’s also true of interpreting Scripture - because there is so much in the original setting that we can’t see in the way of language, culture, customs, expectations. For those views, we rely on the scholars who study such matters.

It’s not that one view is better than the other; it is that together they give us a richer understanding of the moon - or the Bible. Either one without the other is two dimensional, not wrong but impoverished.

Today’s parable is a good case in point. At the manifest level, it tells us to persist in prayer, like that widow did with her petition to the indifferent judge. Nothing wrong with that. But gimme prayer runs into a problem pretty fast. We all know that no matter how much a responsible adult loves a child, sometimes the gimme should be denied because the adult understands that granting some earnest entreaties may result in harm. Surely God is as wise as a caring adult. So where does that leave us with our parable?

Well, Bible scholars - the people who spend their lives studying Scripture and writing about it - tell us that Jesus’ original hearers brought perceptions to his story that might not occur to us. For example, they never forgot that they lived under the hated heel of Roman occupation and empire.

In their day widows were powerless; their patriarchal society rarely provided a man to advocate their cause. The widow in Jesus’ parable was so poor she couldn’t afford an attorney - or even a bribe.

So for Jesus’ original audience the parable was not about gimme prayer but about political prayer, prayer in place of violent action against the state. It’s a parable about justice. Remember that justice in the Bible is the collective word for love. What love is to individuals, justice is to groups. Love describes the best possible relationship between one person and another; justice the best possible relationship between an individual and a group.

Have you ever had a grievance with the government? How do you get a hearing to vindicate your complaint? The parable advises you to persist in prayer. Don’t try a violent overthrow of the judiciary. Neither should you lodge your complaint then wander off to tend to other things, as if there will be no answer. Keep on praying.

Loving parents want their children to tell them what they want, even if they sometimes have to say no. Jesus did that with his heavenly Father in the Garden of Gethsemane. He could see that his truth-telling and love were not serving the purposes of the Establishment. Love so easily wrecks schemes of the devious. And he could see he was headed for the most painful and degrading of all punishments in the empire, crucifixion. He didn’t counsel sedition. He didn’t give up.

He knelt and prayed, “Let this cup pass from me.” St Luke, the beloved physician, tells us that he was in such dread that he was literally sweating blood. [Lk 22.45] But he qualified his own urgent desire by praying, “yet not what I want but what you want.” [Mk 14.36]

As we grow in prayer, we learn that gimme prayer is always OK but rarely adequate. We need always to pray - as we do in the perfect prayer, the one our Lord himself taught us, the one we call the Lord’s Prayer - “thy will be done” [Mt 6.10]. So whether we hope to change ourselves or an empire, Jesus advises us to persist in prayer.

Let me share a very personal example of this with you. When I retired shortly after the turn of the century, I expected that God would quickly let me know what to do with the rest of my life. I prayed and prayed. But day after day, month after month, year after year, I remained deaf to that sense of vocation - that call of Christ.

But now at last I hear. I have received far more blessings that I could ever deserve or imagine. From the time of my conversion to Christ (from atheism) I have felt a strong call to share Christ’s transforming love with those less blessed. The shape of that call has changed, but the mission has remained constant.

In the 1950’s, my focus was on preparing for ordination so I could serve wherever Christ’s call might lead.

In the 60’s, following the then-dominant notion of mission, I served as a missionary in Africa, in a community that includes a church, a school and a hospital in Mmadinare, Botswana, greatly expanding both my understanding of human need, and of God’s boundless grace.

In the 70’s, as a parish rector I learned that many people in a nearby rural area had never experienced dental care, so with half a dozen dentists from the parish I founded, constructed and ran a dental clinic – an enterprise the state assumed once we had clearly established the need.

In the 80’s, many countries where once we went as missionaries were closed to Westerners, but people from overseas were coming here, so I developed a variety of ministries to immigrants and refugees, resettling and serving thousands of people, and helping to shape public policy locally and nationally.

In the 90’s, after several trips to the Holy Land, and with conflict between Israelis and Palestinians looming large, I began working for peace through the Church both here and there, seeking common ground and trying to promote common cause among Jews, Muslims and Christians.

Now, in the 2000’s, after supplying in a more than a dozen parishes and exploring other delightful options and rewarding activities, finally I hear Christ’s call. I’ve shared this at length with Fr Nigel and a few others, but this is the first the members of the vestry are hearing of it. If they agree, then I will offer myself pro bono as a volunteer assistant for pastoral care right here at St Augustine’s. It has only taken eight years, but I can now assure you that when you earnestly seek to know and follow not your own desires but God’s will, battering-rams work. So keep on praying!