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Rev. Tom
Lenhart Let us pray. O God you are behind us and before us. Lay your hands upon me as I utter these words. And may we all feel your presence in our souls. Amen A week ago Friday we showed here at the church updated segments of the movie “An Inconvenient Truth”, in which former Vice President Gore outlines recent data and reports that he believes further establish that global warming is accelerating -- caused in part by human activity. The moderator of that evening’s event from the Sierra Club asked the people in the audience to express how they felt after watching Gore’s litany of reports and information allegedly heralding the accelerating decline of the environment. Many of the attendees, albeit using different words, described themselves as profoundly discouraged, saddened, and despairing. Likewise, during a recent debate over the Iraq War, representatives of the various competing viewpoints articulately framed their positions for staying, surging or leaving. But despite their fundamental differences there was an undercurrent of shared discouragement and despair for the future of that part of the world. Finally, I spent some time recently with three other men. Amidst our discussion of sports and movies we also sought to solve the world’s problems. It was a basically homogenous group though there were differences on some major issues. At the end of our conversations when lightheartedness and kidding had given way to a sobering reality of the problems before us -- environmental, fiscal, moral, political, among others -- there was more than a hint of despair in the air. For despite our cleverness and obviously insightful, indeed, brilliant observations (at least to us) -- real solutions to the myriad problems seemed impossibly hard to identify with confidence. If you don’t believe that we are in a period of real discouragement – look at the current approval ratings reported by the pollsters – our President’s is at 30 % and Congress’ is worse. The analysis of the presidential candidates readying for the primaries tends to focus not on how strong is the candidate’s support but instead on his or her weaknesses. The key polling statistic is the measure of the so-called “negatives”. If you respond negatively to the candidate, just how strong is that response? Do you really hate him or her so much that you would vote for virtually anyone else running against that person? At the moment I am not sure that even motherhood or apple pie would get a favorable approval rating. There is a deep sense of discouragement afoot not simply in this country but world–wide. It darkens our sense of the present and undercuts any vision or hope that the world will be better for future generations. In response we may throw ourselves into the activities of the moment that we can control or that give us pleasure such as “retail therapy” -- shopping at the nearest mall. Yet all the while we desperately avoid dwelling on the future, which seems so problematic. Perhaps, there is a better way to confront these difficult days. Of course, despair and discouragement are not new. In biblical times there were two classes of non-persons – orphans and especially, widows. The laws and cultural practices were largely patriarchal in focus. Women had few, if any, rights. Any protection they received from the law was a result of their status as someone’s wife and even then their rights were limited. And it was much worse when a woman was widowed. A man’s estate did not go to his widow but to his male heirs -- with the oldest getting the lion’s share. Widows lived on the fringes of society with few possessions and fewer protections. So you can imagine the situation of the widow in Jesus’ parable set out in our passage from Luke. Though we do not know the details, we can surmise that if a widow was engaged in litigation, it probably meant that what little she had was being taken away from her or what little she was entitled to was being withheld by someone. The widow in our parable was under assault; she wanted justice to get what she was entitled to or to keep what meager things she had. The precariousness of her situation seems clear from her actions. This gutsy woman had something very important at risk to demand justice. She had the real courage to confront not just once but repeatedly an unsympathetic, godless -- perhaps even crooked – judge. And so she implores him, “Grant me justice against my opponent.” From personal experience I can confirm that repeatedly hectoring a judge to do what he does not want to do is not generally wise either in the short term or long term. The widow’s situation was likely quite desperate and yet she does not fall into a slough of despond and despair. No, she takes action on her own behalf. That is the first lesson of our passage today that despair and discouragement must not paralyze us. If we expect the worst, our expectations will be fulfilled. Our political world, our environment, our fiscal situation (and the list goes on) will not become better without our involvement in seeking solutions to the problems that confront us. Our efforts alone may not be enough but they move us away from the status quo ante and that is all that matters. But the message of this scripture passage is not simply a plea for action rather that inaction or for courage rather than timidity in the face of discouraging conditions and problems. The wonderful thing about the writer of Luke is that he usually tells us the reason for the parable he reports. Thus, our story begins, “Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart.” Now I can hear you saying to yourself, “That doesn’t make sense. The widow doesn’t go to the Temple to pray for justice – she confronts the corrupt judge and demands justice. There is no mention of prayer here.” And you are right. While Luke is good about telling us what the point is – his stories are elegantly subtle at times. This parable is an example of an argument from the lesser to the greater. If even a corrupt judge will eventually dispense justice, how much more certain can we be that God will eventually give us what we need. And so it is that the second point is the certainty that God will bring justice eventually. But still where does prayer come into this? Certainly, when confronted with the tough, out of control situations of life, and with those events that discourage and threaten to send us in to despair, we must be like the widow and get up off our coaches, set aside the diverting pleasures of the moment and act; justice, equality, fairness do not just happen but must be actively pursued. But in those difficult times one needs more than simply one’s own efforts. As Luke tells us, we need God’s presence in our lives. And that is where prayer comes in. The late Theodore Ferris, one of my favorite preachers from the last century, said this about prayer, “When a man [or woman] prays, he [or she] is responding to the presence of God.”[1] So often when we think of praying, we think of approaching God as though we are jumping up and down – saying “here I am God remember me! I need your help.” But as Luke suggests the situation is just the opposite. God is always there – she is always on the line – the problem is that we don’t always turn on our computer and log in. The power is there we just have to plug in, turn on and get connected. Frederick Buechner, as he often does, made this point so well, when he wrote -- we must engage in prayer not “because [we] have to beat a path to God’s door before he’ll open it, but because until [we] beat the path maybe there is no way of getting to our door.”[2] Prayer is no less and no more than being in God’s presence. When have you had that experience? Likely, in moments when you have bowed you head or kneeled in formal prayer. But I bet you have had moments when you felt God’s presence walking in the woods, standing on a bluff overlooking the ocean, looking out over a range of mountains, serving a meal to a homeless person or holding for the first time a new born baby. And sometime we are aware of God through others. Ferris tells this story A very intelligent and aware young man … was going way to college. He lived with his aunt. She happened to be one of those rare, unusual people who knew God. She never talked much about Him, but no one could know her without being aware of His presence. The boy lived with her for he was away from home. He adored her. As he plunged deeper and deeper into the things that every college student is exposed to, he said one time, with a wistful smile on his face, ‘you know, the God of the stars baffles me, I don’t know what I think of Him. But I know Aunt Mary’s God and I love him.’ [3] All of these too are moments of prayer – moments when we have let God in. Despair is in the most fundamental sense a loss of hope. What does prayer have to do with despair? I submit that it is the antidote to despair. They cannot truly co-exist. Prayer is the acknowledgement of the presence of God – the God who above all else loves us and desires the best for us. The promise of faith as the passage from Luke reminds us is that if the insensitive judge grants justice most assuredly so will God. It is the certainty of God’s love for us if only we will let God into our presence. That promise gives us hope. But let us be clear that does not mean that everything we desire, seek and need or pray for will occur. Prayer is not an exercise in persuading God to give us what we want or need. No, it is an exercise in devotion. Sometimes we pray to be spared some difficulty or pain. Those prayers are answered, just not always as we seek or expect. The future will play out with justice and love as judged from God’s perspective not ours. Sometimes that means that bad things will happen to good people, that evil will triumphant at least in the short and medium term. The critical outcome is certain – God is with us. We are not alone, if we will only welcome her on our journey. Perhaps equally important our perspective changes when God is in our lives – present with us. No longer are we alone. The tasks and challenges before us that we despair over do not seem so difficult. The hills of oppression and injustice are not so steep when we have a companion. No longer is our horizon foreshortened. Think of the footage you have seen of the landings in Normandy or in the South Pacific from newsreels, Ken Burn’s documentary, The War, or from movies such as Saving Private Ryan. There are moments when you are in the landing craft with the soldiers and marines approaching the beach. The horizon before you is awfully low and near and the fear is palpable. The world has been reduced to a single focus and then the camera pans back to a panorama of hundreds of boats all pulling together in one great effort. Prayer – opening one up to God’s presence in our lives -- changes our perspective. Our despair lifts with the awareness that we are not alone, that we are loved and that the outcome will be favorable – not necessarily in ways we can expect or understand but in a far more ultimate sense. As Jesus prays in the garden of Gethsemane just before he is betrayed, “Father if you are willing, remove this cup from me, yet, not my will but yours be done.” God’s will seeks the best for us of that we can be sure and that makes all the difference. In World War I there was a wonderful saying in the trenches of France, “trust in the Lord and pass the ammunition.” Prayer is not the end of our responsibility as a faithful people. It is the beginning. Once we have accepted God’s presence with the certainly of that love, then we must get up and challenge the things that bring on despair in our world. If the widow can do that --challenge that judge -- we too can do no less. Amen |
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