On Praying

Text: Luke 18:1-8

It is not always clear what Jesus means to say when he tells a parable. But it sure is clear in this one that we just heard. This parable is about prayer.

You might hear other things in the parable. It might be about justice, and it might be about persistence in general. But to Luke, who is telling a story about Jesus telling a story, it is about prayer. Jesus told them a parable, it says, about their need to pray always and not lose heart.

And it is a parable, not an allegory (as you’re probably tired of hearing me say). That is, we can’t make the judge to be God and the widow to be us. They are both well-drawn characters: the judge is a sleazy scum-bag and the widow is brave and aggravating. They don’t stand for anyone in particular (in fact, the story starts out: there was some kind of judge in some kind of city).

The story is an example of Bible-logic, reasoning that was common then. It reasons from small to large. From less to more. If the judge, who was a jerk, responded with justice to the entreaties of the woman, how much more will God respond to our pleas for justice? “Listen to what the unjust judge (the lesser) says, and will not God (the greater) grant justice?” So it is a parable about prayer that contains an argument.

It is about prayer, but a particular kind (probably the most common kind). It is about prayer that asks for things, which in church jargon is called petitionary prayer (because we are bringing petitions to God). There are other kinds of prayer. A friend says there are three kinds of prayer: wow, thanks, and help. Petitionary prayer is the “help” kind. There are other kinds, too, especially the kind where we don’t yap away at all but try to stay quiet, listening for God to speak. So this parable is about praying for something we want. Which today I’ll call just “prayer.”

Prayer is a kind of conversation. In the parable, the widow and the judge have a conversation. They have a relationship, they engage one another and what one does is influenced by the other. Not all conversations (or relationships for that matter) go very far. They need to be powered. Three things power the conversation between the judge and the widow, and the same things power our prayers. They are hunger, humility, and hope. And I want to talk about each of these today.

First, hunger. The woman is hungry for justice to be done. There is no prayer (we are talking about petitionary prayer, remember)—there is no prayer of this kind without hunger. We come to prayer needing something. Something big and meaningful like reconciliation of a broken marriage or healing from disease or something small like finding a parking space or getting a paper in on time. Something in us wants something. Even something that is not for us: the end to war and violence, the eradication of poverty, a joy-filled life for a new-born child. We pray to God with the same motivating ache and longing that makes us turn to the pantry when we are hungry. When we pray, we admit we are hungry. There is no point in praying if all of our life is satisfactory and satisfying. If all is totally complete. When we pray, we admit we have longings, desires, and needs. All of us, of course, have those needs. Praying, we acknowledge that to be so.

Second, humility. The woman comes to the judge for justice. She cannot make things right by herself. She is powerless in the face of her adversary’s privilege. Powerless by herself. When we pray, we acknowledge that we are powerless by ourselves to deliver whatever it is we hunger for. We cannot fix what is broken, or feed what is starving, or set right what is out of kilter, by ourselves. When we pray, we admit that we need something, which is tough enough to admit. And then we pray that we cannot meet that need without some assistance from God. Just as there is no reason to pray if we are completely satisfied, there is no reason to pray if we are on top of things. If everything is pretty much under control, if we think all it needs is a tweak here or there, or if we think all it needs is for us to be a little smarter, more energetic, more focussed, better. Why pray if we are going to take care of things by ourselves sooner or later. But experience, if nothing else, teaches us that there is not much, if anything, we can control. Praying, we humble ourselves to say so.

Third, hope. The widow comes to the judge assuming that he is able to hand her justice. She comes in need, she comes asking for help. And she comes with hope that her petition can be granted. Prayer is the concrete expression of our conviction that things do not need to be as they are. When we pray for peace, we are declaring that war is not everlasting. When we pray for health, we are declaring that illness is reversible. When we pray for rescue, we are declaring that we can be freed. We do not pray for the impossible. They is no point. We do not pray out of hopelessness, there is no inspiration. (When we are nearly consumed by hopelessness, we pray for hope, a self-fulfilling prayer.) Prayer is refusing to concede that tomorrow is just today over and over again, that the way things are has to be the way they always will be. In that sense prayer is powerful imagination coupled with trust that through God the future is still open.

Prayer therefore is not so much an action as a stance. It is not some exercise or chore or transaction or duty. It is the way. It is the way we approach God and life. Though we from time to time find ourselves to be self-satisfied, self-important, or hopeless, we know that in those times we are off-center. Our center is hunger, humility, and hope.

In the parable, Luke says that Jesus is teaching the disciples to pray always. And one of the mottos or slogans of the New England Synod is “pray without ceasing.” These might mean to mutter prayers under your breath in every waking moment (people have even tried that). But praying always is not some kind of super-piety. To pray always, without ceasing, is to remain mindful of our center. We pray with God who feeds our hunger, who holds our lives better than we can, who creates our new future.