Proper 24C + Faith on Earth + 10.16.22
M. Campbell-Langdell
All Santos, Oxnard
(Jeremiah 31:27–34; Psalm 119:97–104; 2 Timothy 3:14–4:5; St Luke 18:1–8)
“And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on
earth?”
Last Sunday we had a big front-page article about a local
pastor, which detailed his particular lens on faith. It was very different than
my own point of view, being as I believe in science, have a healthy balance in
my relationship with government and see what is perceived as Critical Race
Theory as just a more balanced approach and teaching history to our kids. I
really liked the comment a colleague of this pastor gave, showing how the
pastor named was just being consistent even as his colleague disagreed with
him. Pastor Tom Stephen said “It’s consistent with who Rob has always been … I
think he truly, truly believes the pandemic wasn’t as bad as it was, just as I
truly believe it was.”[1]
Wow, I thought. What a gracious statement. I hope to be that
kind of colleague and fellow Christian. To both understand another and not to
lose track of my deeply held beliefs. Because there are different ways of
looking at many of the same problems, but we should not lose track of our
truth.
I love to do Yoga videos with “Yoga with Adriene” on YouTube.
I found her videos long before her pandemic popularity. In one video I have
done many times that helps with neck pain, she points out that a friend/mentor
told her that neck pain sometimes comes from not seeing both sides of a
situation. I must admit that got me thinking, as I think a lot of my neck pain
comes from posture or too much texting and looking at a screen. But still, I
like to chew on this concept.
Which brings me to this fabulous parable today. The widow and
the unjust judge. It is just so fun. You can imagine them almost as cartoon
characters. The unjust judge in his little courtroom, and the widow bothering
him so much he almost gets a black eye! Apparently, that is the literal
understanding of her wearing him out.
Now the traditional understanding of this passage has often been to think of
the judge as somehow parallel to God. Not that God is unjust, but if even an
unjust judge will finally give in, then we can surely wear God down with
ceaseless prayer.
But Alene pointed out to me this week that this is a very patriarchal way of
reading this passage. Why is God the judge? Well, the reading from Jeremiah
gives us a sense of why we tend to think this. We hear statements like this
one:
“The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will
sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of humans and the
seed of animals. And just as I have watched over them to pluck up and break
down, to overthrow, destroy, and bring evil, so I will watch over them to build
and to plant, says the Lord.”
And we may think, yes, God is a good judge, who has seen our
sin and forgiven us. We are to be restored after we have paid the price.
But what if… we need to think about this a different way?
What if… God is the persistent widow? What if we are the ones that judge in our
hearts, that sometimes are without shame because we think we know everything?
And what if God is coming to us every day, asking us for justice for the poor?
Asking us to be in relationship? Asking us to love God’s creation as we love
ourselves?
This idea makes me think of something CS Lewis said about
God. He said that God comes to us with dogged persistence, wearing down our
hearts to be in faith with God. As Tim Ehrhardt says it, “C.S. Lewis once described
God as the Hound of Heaven. By that phrase he meant that God doggedly
pursued him and would not let go. Lewis came into Christian faith, in his
own words, “kicking and screaming” as God’s faithful pursuit won out in his
life.”[2]
Have you ever felt that way? That God kept coming to you,
pursuing you, until you had to pay attention to what God was doing in your
life? Sometimes God almost gives us a black eye as we try to figure out what it
is that God wants for us to do in any given situation!
But we listen and try to be faithful, because God comes to us, not to nag us,
but to transform our hearts. To help us to be better people in the world and to
better love this world that God has given us.
And that, I think, is faith. To come to God in prayer persistently,
knowing that God desires more than we do to meet our needs.
A last thought about prayers. This passage reminds us to keep
coming to God in prayer, whichever way we look at the parable. But sometimes we
are disheartened. Because we don’t feel like our prayer has been answered.
Sometimes that means we have to be patient because the answer hasn’t come yet.
But sometimes we need to learn to ask in a new way and be open to a different
answer.
One colleague shared with me that there is a priest-scientist
working on a project that studies the affects of different kinds of
intercessory prayer alongside chronic pain. She points out that those who
simply ask for the pain to go away often don’t experience as much healing as do
the folks who ask God to help them deal with the pain.[3]
Amazingly, wonderfully, those who ask for help in dealing with a burden, feel
that burden lifted better.
What can this mean for us? What is bringing us pain today? Let us bring it
persistently to God, knowing that God first comes persistently to us. And let
us ask God for help in holding that pain. Who knows, maybe it will be lifted.
And maybe, in the end, the Son of Man will find faith on earth!
Amen.
[1]
Tom Kisken, Isaiah Murtaugh, Dawn Megli and Kathleen Wilson, “Unmasking the
Rise of Pastor Rob McCoy,” VC Star, 10/9/22, Front page.
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