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The Rev. Laura Matarazzo
July 29, 2007 --- The Ninth Sunday after Pentecost
The great 18th
century writer Samuel Johnson once said, “Great works are not
accomplished by strength but by persistence.” That is what I invite all
of us to ponder today—persistence, and particularly persistence in
prayer.
Some of you may have
seen a recent film called “Amazing Grace.” It is the story of William
Wilberforce, 19th century Member of Parliament in England
who, by the way, we remember in our church calendar tomorrow—July 30th.
William Wilberforce championed the cause against the British slave
trade, and during his 45-year Parliamentary career proposed abolition no
less than twelve times before it finally passed. He was up against
overwhelming odds: living in a society that institutionalized class and
addressing himself to many for whom the economic gains afforded by
slavery were considerable. Yet, year after year, Wilberforce persisted
in bringing before his peers the unconscionable conditions of human
bondage and their role in it. Again and again and again he argued the
equality of all humanity and appealed to those men of power to put to
rights their unjust “ownership” of fellow human beings. Wilberforce and
his supporters persisted over 20 years to finally turn the tide of
opinion and pass the law that made slavery illegal in the British
Empire. William Wilberforce was persistent.
Abraham was
persistent. How about that Abraham? Arguing with God…standing up and
repeatedly challenging God’s intention to bring destruction down upon
the city of Sodom. Listen to him! “Will you indeed sweep away the
righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are fifty righteous within the
city; will you then sweep away the place and not forgive it for the
fifty righteous who are in it?” Good question, don’t you think? Calling
God to accountability in his judgment...and then, what if there are only
45…or 40…what if there are 30 righteous…again and again, Abraham
persists. All the way down to 10. Abraham secures a promise from God,
“For the sake of ten I will not destroy it.”
In Luke’s gospel, Jesus
connects the value of persistence to prayer. Immediately, upon teaching
them how to pray, he tells them a brief story to illustrate the
value of praying always. The story is about a man who goes to a friend
in the night, seeking bread for an unexpected guest. The friend doesn’t
want to be bothered…he doesn’t want to get the bread; he doesn’t even
want to open the door—it’s dark and he’s already gone to bed; in fact,
we never hear the outcome of that encounter. But Jesus says this about
the friend’s response: “I tell you, even though he will not get up and
give him anything because he is his friend, at least because of his
persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs. It was
not the strength of his knock on the door, or the disruptive sound of
his voice in the quiet night, or even the powerful tie of friendship
that moved the man to respond; but, quite simply, the persistence with
which the man will deliver his request.
Jesus continues, “So I
say to you, Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find;
knock, and the door will be opened for you.” Ask. Seek. Knock. Persist!
“For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and
for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.” Everyone. There’s no
qualification here. Nor is there any qualification about God’s response.
It is assured and unfailing, always. Our persistence will be met with
God’s constancy.
Which may make you
wonder about peace in the Middle East, or the genocide in Darfur, or the
woundedness in your own life. If millions of faithful people—Muslims,
Jews, and Christians alike—are praying for relief of these horrible
conditions, then why are they not changed? If you have prayed for years
to be able to mend a broken relationship or be healed of disease, why
the continued rift, why no cure? Where is God’s answer? Where is the
value of our persistence in these circumstances?
Well, first let me say
that God’s answer to our prayers for peace is in all the places where
violence does NOT prevail. You and I know that there are cities and
towns and neighborhoods here and there within which people who are very
different live together in harmony...that underneath the bombs and
behind the ground combat, there are people who are bringing aid and
seeking peace and sustaining hope for eventual resolution. Food is being
brought to the hungry, temporary housing is set up for refugees, and
relief agencies strive to work with local governments to assure life to
as many as possible. Never enough, of course, but prayer is answered by
people who bring those prayers to life and persistence in all of this is
essential.
And, as for the
personal need that a lifetime of prayer seems not to have touched, I
suggest, humbly and ever so gently, look again. Is there not a deeper
understanding or at least some soothing of the pain? …some learning of
patience or of letting go? Are you not changed in some degree?
For the real power of
constant prayer lies in the way it shapes us. While we pray for those we
love, for our relationships, our careers, our leaders, the poor and
needy in our midst…all the concerns of our world; while we pray for all
we care about, we are being changed in the process.
Prayer orients us
toward God. The very act of prayer puts us in relationship with God…as
supplicants, as grateful recipients of blessings, and as co-creators in
the life eternal. In prayer, we initiate our own ongoing conversion and
growth with our loving Creator.
Persistent prayer
shapes us. We cannot pray for peace without becoming more peaceful
ourselves. Not less passionate or committed to the cause of peace, but
more so.
We cannot pray for our
enemies without becoming more compassionate, because our prayer
acknowledges that he or she or they are also children of the God to whom
we pray, and therefore our brothers or sisters in God’s image.
We cannot pray
persistently for someone who has offended us and continue to hold a
grudge because the light of God’s countenance into which we raise those
for whom we pray will cast some of its healing warmth on us in the
process.
We cannot ask for
healing or strength or vision or understanding without gaining at least
some of the same as we address ourselves to the one in whom all healing,
strength, vision and understanding reside.
In communion with God,
prayer opens us and forms paths for the Holy Spirit to flow in us and
from us. Jesus declares in this passage: “…the heavenly Father [will]
give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” And, really, that is what we
are always asking for…the power of God in our lives, the Spirit within
us and among us always working for good. When we are persistent in
prayer we are changed and we become instruments of God’s power, of God’s
peace, and of God’s justice.
Indeed, it was
Abraham’s persistence in prayer that saved those righteous people of
Sodom and Wilberforce’s persistence in prayer that liberated slaves from
the violence of English law. How else but by prayer does any of us
persevere in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds? How else but by
prayer can we rise above our circumstances and live with the sure hope
that love will prevail, that the hungry will be fed, the oppressed
liberated, and peace triumph? How else but by prayer?
Jesus means for us to
know that what we cannot accomplish by our own strength, by our own
intelligence, by our own effort, we can accomplish by persistence in
prayer. Our prayers are answered, always. Then let us pray, always.
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