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When I was a child I spent many weekends at my best friend Ronnie’s house. As he lived across town, it was too far for a kid to walk on his own. I needed a ride to get there. As my parents worked on Saturday, I would often have to wait for Ronnie and someone from his house to come and get me. Ronnie would arrange that on his end. We’d be on the phone and he would say “Pops says he can come get you. We’ll be there in a few.” The assumption was a few minutes. I would stand at the living room window watching and waiting. An hour would pass, an hour and a half. I’d call again wondering where they were. “He says we’ll leave in ten minutes.” Another hour or so would pass while I stood staring out the window, watching and waiting. I’d call again. “We’re on our way.” Another hour or so goes by. I’m not exaggerating. I spent many Saturdays, morning and afternoon, staring out that window waiting. I’d call again. “Are you coming.” “Let me go check what’s up.” I’d hear them bicker a bit in the background. He’d come back to the phone. “Leaving now.” A half hour later, he would show up with his brother and his brother’s girlfriend to get me. Watching and waiting. I wonder if I would have ever made it to his house if I had not kept calling. I have no idea. I don’t know what was going on Ronnie’s end of things. Was his dad forgetful or had something more important going on. I don’t know.
Looking at our reading, this continual and persistent praying seems to be what faithfulness is and it almost seems like hope. Jesus asked his disciples that rhetorical question, “When the Son of Man comes will he find faithfulness on the earth?” That question comes at the end of a parable in which he was teaching them about their need to pray persistently so that they do not lose hope in God and fall away. Jesus knew that being his faithful disciples in this world that crucifies its hope was going to get tough for them. It was going to be quite difficult to live faithfully, which is to live according to hope by showing unconditional and forgiving love and steadfast commitment to Christian fellowship. He likened this task to the hopeless impossibility of a falsely accused widow seeking vindication for her tarnished honour by going to a crooked judge who just likes to see people put to shame. You ask and you wait. You ask and you wait. You ask and you wait. You ask and you wait. You keep at it until you’ve gotten on the judge’s (God’s) nerves enough that he grants your request. That getting on God’s nerves part is probably Jesus showing a sense of humour, but we get the point. We can relate to that widow. So often when we pray, we do so wondering what it's going to take to get some action out of God, but then in time, God does act.
Praying continually and persistently is necessary to having faith and being faithful. Apart from it, Jesus warns his disciples that they would fall into what we translate rather weakly as discouragement or a loss of heart. I’m going to get your Greek lesson out of the way quickly this morning. The word Jesus uses quite literally means “in evil doing.” The word is enkakeo (Those who like playing with Spanish homonyms think en caca.) and there are two senses in the way it gets used. It can be either “to treat others badly or evilly” or “to wrongly cease doing something” meaning to quit on people or to leave fellowship for wrong reasons. So, without this habit of continual, persistent prayer Jesus’ disciples will fall into the evil of a discouraged heart that leads them away from Christian fellowship or even to turn on it and treat it badly.
For time’s sake, instead of tracing this parable out in depth I’ll just go straight to the point and say that there is a correlation between Jesus’ disciples learning to pray continuously, persistently and the continuance of Christian community on earth. Without this discipline, the habit of continual prayer among the disciples of Jesus, the church perishes. It is in prayer that the personal faith, hope, and love that are the seeds of Christian community take root and sprout. In prayer by the working of the Holy Spirit God changes us, transforms us to be in the nature of his children, Christ-like as Jesus is his Son. As children trust their parents for everything, so prayer makes us look to our Father in heaven and trust him for everything.
So, what is continual, persistent prayer? Well, what goes on in our heads anyway? All of us worry. We worry instinctively. Apart from worry, we usually just let our minds go on in their own little worlds of imaginary conversations around emotions we can’t quite name. Sometimes we get ideas. A few of us can actually sit and think and sort things out. Mostly, we just let our minds get preoccupied with whatever. Continual, persistent prayer is taking control of our thought world with prayer, focusing on the things of God rather than the things of me. It’s how we turn over to the things in life that most concern us…again and again until God sorts it out. Let me give you some other suggestions for continual, persistent prayer.
First, there is finding a specific prayer to pray over and over in those times when we’re just letting our minds graze the green pastures of nattering, persistent, intrusive thoughts. I like the Lord’s Prayer for this. “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven…” and so on. I pray this prayer and think about what it means quite a lot, especially “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.” If I wake up in the middle of the night, I wait and listen if anyone in particular comes to mind then after that I just keep saying the Lord’s Prayer over and over in my head until I fall asleep. When I’m exercising or cooking dinner or working in the yard or driving or grocery shopping, I pray the Lord’s Prayer over and over. In fact, if I were laid up in the hospital or lying on my deathbed, praying the Lord’s Prayer over and over would likely be where my mind would be.
A more mission-oriented way of doing continual, persistent prayer would be to walk around our neighbourhoods praying for everyone. Figure out when people are most active and get out there so you can actually see them and hear them. There’s also actually talking to our neighbours and finding out what’s going on in their lives and keeping it in mind and praying about it. If they are worried about something, bear that worry with them through prayer. If they are okay with it, pray with them. When we’re out and about we can take notice of the people around us and pray inwardly, “Lord, bless that person.” If we see a young family walking a baby carriage up the street, if you’ve had kids you know what they’re going through, pray for them.
We can make our homes prayer hubs. Anybody that comes into our homes does not leave without us having first prayed for them. This is especially so for our children and grandchildren. If you start a ministry like that, be prepared for in time people will start coming to you.
Some of you might be thinking “that’s what ministers are supposed to do.” No, it’s what we do. We pray. That’s faith, faithfulness, loyalty, fidelity. Prayer is the inroad of the Kingdom of Heaven coming to earth. When people in churches take up this habit, this ministry of continual, persistent prayer, churches change because God begins to change the people in them. If we are to take Jesus seriously in this passage, it is when we, his followers, depart from praying continually and persistently that churches become social clubs, or go into survival mode and die.
So, if Jesus were to return today and come to this church would he find faith? Would he find us praying? Let us not forget that our God is not an unjust judge. Our God deals in things like healing, hope, restoration, reconciliation, forgiveness, and even resurrection. Let us not fall into the evil of disheartenment that destroys Christian fellowship. Take up the work of continual, persistent prayer. Amen.