New Heart
Jeremiah 31:27-34; Luke 18:1-8

October 21, 2007


It makes plain Gospel sense, which you have just heard, that nagging is a way to get into the kingdom of heaven. I keep saying this Bible stuff is dangerous. And what’s more dangerous about this parable is that it was only the woman who got her reward for nagging, not the naggee, the atheistic, people-hating, filthy rich corrupt judge.

Before I really dig into the virtues of nagging, remember that this is all about praying and not losing heart. Nagging is a form of prayer - husbands, make a note of this - the nagger keeps repeating her petition in the outside chance the naggee might eventually listen! What do you think you are doing with traditional prayer? Do you think all you have to do is put your wish into God’s computerized brain once and it’s done? No, God has too much on the divine brain to pick up on just one prayer: global conflict and poverty, injustice, AIDS and cancer and other terrible diseases, natural disasters and personal dilemmas, exams, elections, and on and on ad infinitum. If you need proof, then think of all the prayers of all the Rider Nation the past 20 years and they still haven’t won the Grey Cup. Keep praying and do not lose heart!

Losing heart is more the normal thing to do. It is excruciatingly difficult to keep trying in the face of continued failure and even worse in the absence of any recognition that you are trying. Prayer is silent, even when you are praying out loud, for the response seldom if ever comes back in words. It is a rare bird, indeed, who does not lose heart after continued failure or being ignored.

Lost hearts were everywhere in the exiles of Israel in Babylon. Yet this time Jeremiah proclaims a Word of the Lord announcing the coming of a new world, a new covenant and a new kind of human heart - not like the old covenant which God made with their fathers when he took them by the hand to bring them up out of the land of Egypt, a covenant which they broke. What God was proposing to do was to rewrite human beings, actually rewrite the way our hearts work ethically and morally, so that you and I don’t have to learn what is right from the outside, from someone else, but naturally to be in synch with God’s mind. No one will lose that heart and even need to nag.

The disciples did not realize how hard prayer is and seldom do we understand either, for it takes physical and psychic endurance to keep praying long enough. Just a few chapters before, the disciples came to Jesus and said, “Teach us how to pray,” and Jesus responded, “Pray like this, Our Father....” When the disciples are berated for not being able to keep their eyes open to pray just one hour in Gethsemane, most of us think, “One hour! How can anyone pray for 60 minutes, one minute is awfully long as it is!” The slumbering disciples had lost heart in Gethsemane, and before that night he told them a parable.

The story seems to have nothing to do with prayer, at first. It begins with the fact of this certain judge in a certain city - the Biblical way of saying that it could well be our city and our judge - and this certain judge neither feared God nor regarded man. He was a god unto himself. He made the rules, he possessed the brute power to make sure his rules were followed. Justice was silly as far as he was concerned. All that mattered was his power, his comfort and his money. So if you wanted the decision in the case to go your way, better outbribe your opponent. This was unfortunately much more the norm of ancient and medieval justice than the exception, and everyone knew it. Judges were feared, not honoured.

A widow was the apparent victim of an injustice and pursued her case with the judge. That was also the norm: widows were taken advantage of and robbed and abused. Something about the way the judge refuses to listen to her tells us that he knew she was in the right, but it didn’t matter to him. All too likely, her oppressor was padding the judge’s bank account to keep her quiet. The widow kept coming to him and coming and coming.

Finally, worn out by her tireless nagging, he said to himself, “Even though I don’t believe in God and don’t give a hoot for people, yet because this woman has got it in for me, I’ll hear her case before she finally nags me to death.” (Cotton Patch Version) She was also embarrassing him before friends and the public, the original verb connotes giving him a black eye. So he relented. That’s real prayer.

Tom Long tells the story of a friend who went to a ball game in Yankee Stadium in late September when the Yankees were long out of the pennant race - there is justice in this world! - but it was a beautiful night for the game. In the 5th inning there was a foul fly ball into the left field stands where this friend was sitting and a little 10 year old boy with a new glove and a pair of cheap plastic binoculars was right in line to catch the foul ball. At the last second, a 35-something guy with horned rimmed glasses reached out from behind the kid, shoved him away, broke the binoculars, and caught the ball. People, even in New York City, were aghast. “Give the kid the ball!” several people shouted at him. He ignored them.

This is the worst city in the world to do something like this. New Yorkers love to have something to protest about loudly. They kept up the chant, “Give the kid the ball!” and in a few moments the chant had spread to the sections on either side of them, sort of like the Wave, and people didn’t know why they were chanting, “Give the kid the ball!” but they did anyway. Horned-rimmed glasses folded his arms and remained impassible in his seat.

Until the 7th inning when some guy came over and sat down next to him and was seen demonstrably gesturing and urgently talking to horned-rimmed glasses. Yes, Virginia, there are miracles and he reached into his pocket and gave the ball to the boy. “He gave the kid the ball!” the chant resumed for a few minutes. Another fly ball came into the left field section and the person who caught it came over to horned-rimmed glasses and said, “Here. That was a nice thing you did!” Boy - that must have really hurt! Another foul ball and the catcher came over and gave the ball to the little boy who now had two balls. And that is prayer, not a Bronx cheer. Better stop now or you will all want to go to Yankee Stadium.

Edward Bennett Williams was a famous and powerful lawyer, often defending mobsters and those accused of political corruption, but also was the person credited with unveiling the corruption of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and the Watergate crisis. He eventually owned several sports teams, including the Baltimore Orioles, along with operating a charitable foundation with a colleague. One day, Mother Teresa came to see him on appointment. Williams told his colleague, “AIDS is not my favourite disease. We have to be polite and listen, but then just say we have run out of money for the hospital she is trying to have built.”

Sure enough, they received Mother Teresa who told them her story and needs, and sure enough, they replied, “Your cause has really touched us, but we just don’t have the resources now.” Mother Teresa suggested, “Let us pray.” Williams looked at his colleague and raised his eyebrows, but they listened to her long long prayer. When she was done, Williams repeated, “Your cause has really touched, but there really is nothing we can do.” Mother Teresa nodded and said, “Let us pray.” “All right already!” an exasperated Williams groaned, “Get me my checkbook!”

All right, this parable is not really a manual on how to pray and get results. It is not about the corrupt judge and all of the injustice he inflicts upon others, nor is it really about the vindicated widow and all of the injustice inflicted upon her. The parable is about what kind of a God we have, who is our God? The temptation is to reduce God to a human example, but Jesus begins with the gritty human examples and helps point our minds and souls to God.

Here is an unrighteous judge who has grudgingly decided for justice after much foot dragging and delay. OK, Jesus says, it works with this scoundrel. Don’t you think God - the God of justice, the righteous God - will vindicate the saints and the elect of God who are praying all the time? God will not drag his feet.

Nevertheless, it’s not over, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth? Will anybody be praying still? Will you and I have simply given up on prayer, given up on religious faith, given up on justice ever being served, given up on God, and have lost heart? Give the kid the ball!

Preached by Robert Kitchen
Knox-Metropolitan United Church
Regina, Saskatchewan