Preached the weekend of October 16, 2016

Some say God doesn’t have a sense of humor, but I’m pretty sure this little parable was pretty funny to Our Lord’s listeners.  Jesus says the judge concludes “I shall deliver a just decision for her lest she finally come and strike me.”  The Greek word St. Luke uses literally means “lest she give me a black eye.”

The visual He means us to have, I think, is this scoundrel of a judge with one of those thought bubbles above his head, imagining this little old lady, this widow, with a look of intense anger on her face, coming up to him and smacking him over the head with her purse.

And so the meaning, of course, is that if we nag God long enough, He’ll finally give us what we ask, lest we smack Him over the head, right?

Well, I don’t think so, not exactly.

For we all know from experience, we’ve all prayed long and hard for something, for someone, and in the end it just seemed that God ignored us, didn’t do what we asked.  When the word came a number of years ago that our teenage niece’s cancer was terminal, we prayed so fervently, so persistently, and yet still, we lost her.

And we also know from experience, that sometimes we pray long and hard for something, for someone, that God does answer prayer, sometimes with a miracle.  My wife, sensing better than I did that something was broken in our relationship, prayed quite long and hard for an answer, and that prayer was answered on our Marriage Encounter weekend when we experienced a u-turn, a renewal, a rejuvenation in our marriage.  No telling where we were heading without that weekend.

And a parishioner came up to me last weekend to report two miracles she had just experienced, miracles she had been earnestly, persistently praying for – her granddaughter called to say “Grandma, I’m coming back to the Church” and her grandson called to say “Grandma, I’m going to become a Catholic.”

So we’re faced with an age-old dilemma – why does a good God seemingly answer some prayers and not others?

And the answer to that is that it’s mysterious, that God is always listening, and always does always respond to our prayers, even if not the way we asked, or not in our time.  We can’t manipulate God, you see, but we have His word, we can trust that God is always faithful, and will always give us what we need.  And that God will always bring good out of the worst situation even if we don’t want to see it, or can’t see it yet.

Our niece’s death seemed a catastrophe at the time, except the faith she exhibited despite her suffering, especially at the end, increased the faith of everyone she knew.  Literally hundreds of her friends and classmates and nurses and doctors came to her funeral and told the family how much her life and her illness affected their lives and increased their faith.

And her suffering and death prompted one guy to realize the shortness of life, that we don’t have forever, that if I’m going to pursue becoming a deacon now is the time.  Prayer answered, just not the way we were expecting or hoping.

So - if Jesus isn’t promising us that praying always, threatening a black eye, will necessarily produce from God our desired result, what is He saying?

I think the answer is in that last sentence, which when I first read this seemed out of place with the parable, but which I think explains the meaning of the parable – “but when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on earth?”

I think Our Dear Lord is telling us to take it up a notch, take it up to 30,000 feet, and look at prayer in the context of faith.  Or faithfulness, which might be a better translation of the Greek word “pistis” – will He find faithfulness on earth.

The key, I think, is to see this Gospel not only in terms of prayer but in the context of  faithfulness, of persisting and remaining faithful in relationship with God to the end, to the coming of the Lord.  Just as we believe God is always faithful, so too are we called to be always faithful, to the end.

We’re getting close to the end of Luke’s Gospel, here, in this passage.  Jesus is traveling to Jerusalem and He’s getting close, close to what He knows is the end of His time on earth.  And He will be leaving us to return at the end of time, when the Son of Man comes.   With the gift of His Holy Spirit, you and I are called to remain faithful until that time.  To remain strong, with our arms held high, to remain in relationship with Him.

And just as any relationship requires intimate communication to grow and flourish, so does our relationship with God - and prayer is that intimate communication.

But we often tend to see prayer in terms only of petition, of our requesting something, from our just judge.  Or in terms of intercession – requesting something for someone we love and care about.  It is that, but more.

Prayer in the context of relationship, in the context of faithfulness – includes praise.  Thankfulness.   Also silence – quiet mental prayer – silent adoration.  And if prayer is communication with God, then one prayer so often overlooked is just listening.  Quieting the heart and mind and listening to what He wants us to hear. Without this communication, we have no relationship with God, not one that will last to the end at least.

What marriage relationship lasts to the end without intimate communication?  Without words of praise?  Without quieting the heart and mind and truly listening? Without sometimes just being still and being in the presence of the other? Without this communication, there is no real relationship, not one that will last to the end, at least.

But just as a husband and wife pledge lifelong faithfulness one to the other on their wedding day, so too do we pledge lifelong faithfulness to God in our baptism, again at our confirmation, and in a real, tangible way when we receive into our minds, hearts, souls and bodies HIS very body, blood, soul and divinity in Holy Eucharist.  Holy Eucharist, which is the highest and greatest of prayers, of intimate communication with Our Blessed Lord.

So let us pledge again, brothers and sisters, let us renew once again our vow to remain faithful in relationship with our God in lifelong fidelity.  And let us renew our pledge to persist in humble, intimate, lifelong prayer with Him who made us, Him who sustains us, and to Whom we shall one day return.