Our Gospel writer, Luke, has Jesus continuing his journey to Jerusalem.
Last week healing; this week and next week teaching through parable.
Luke uses this journey to proclaim Good News to followers forty years removed from Christ Jesus’ redemptive acts.
Luke’s faith communities were understandably confused by the destruction of Jerusalem in their own day and by what had become obvious: Jesus’ return in victorious glory may take a while longer than first thought.
The parable today on the efficacy of prayer (found in no other Gospel account) tries to encourage believers whose confusion tempts them to doubt God’s care for them.
The expression, “not to lose heart” easily fits our own time.
We humans placed ourselves in quite a fix.
We extracted fossil fuels from mother earth in gargantuan quantities and now face increasingly hostile responses from the natural world.
We arm ourselves to the teeth and now face annihilation by those who need to save face.
We wear our grievances on our sleeves and now face a polarized society where too many of us speak into echo chambers but cut ourselves off from relationships we need.
So how should we pray?
How I pray, and what and who I pray for, will set my path for how I will act today.
Prayer is an act of the will.
You and I, we must decide to pray; we do not just fall into it.
I will state one corrective to that statement.
I have had times when I have butted my head up against a wall, metaphorically speaking, trying to think and talk and act my way through a thorny problem.
And only when I have exhausted all other avenues and my physical and mental state, have I given myself over to prayer.
But it is still a decision to do so.
My next point is this.
If I have an outcome in mind when praying, I will usually find myself dissatisfied.
Many decades ago, a spiritual director explained to me that entering meditation hoping for insight will hinder my progress.
The spiritual director went on to explain that the better desire in entering meditation was for greater affection.
Prayer has to do with a relationship with God.
To know God’s love for me and to desire to love God in return is the goal.
Prayer that needs no words, which is to say, many forms of meditation as well as praying in tongues (glossolalia) are extraordinarily helpful to declutter the communication we desire with a higher power.
I suggest that we do need in our day a new prayer crafted in words that are formed out of the anxiety we must all feel in the fibers of our being.
What we call the St. Francis Prayer was composed in the worrisome build up of an armed Europe in the years before WWI.
What we call the Serenity Prayer was composed in the anxiety filled era of the Great Depression and rise of National Socialism (that is to say, fascism).
Each of these prayers still possess power to get us through a tough day or a troubling moment.
But we need another carefully crafted prayer today to capture this dreadful moment in history, to encourage each of us to appropriate action and appropriate rest.
We need more than one carefully crafted prayer to raise our minds and hearts to God.
One such prayer would consider our need to listen more than we speak if we are to break down the echo chambers that separate us.
Another such prayer would consider the temptation to find easy answers to complex questions, such as technological fixes for what are issues of distributive justice where food and shelter and healthcare are treated as commodities rather than what each person deserves for survival.
What the parable today does not disclose but should be evident is that the widow was too poor to bribe the unjust judge who was accustomed to getting paid for a favorable outcome.
The prayer we need today would consider that we need to be freed from corruption, particularly when it is countenanced in law.
The prayer we need today would consider the oppression of totalitarian regimes of all stripes and plead for guidance in how to oppose and convert them.
The prayer we need today would consider the profiteering that inevitably accompanies war and the buildup of so-called defenses.
The carefully crafted prayer I suggest we need in our day would call us to conversion of mind and heart.
It is a tall order, but we are up to the task as followers.
The Spirit of the Living God dwells in our midst and beckons us to act for the sake of all persons and all living things.
That Spirit inspired the author of the Torah; that Spirit inspired St. Paul in his letters; that Spirit inspired the Gospel writers; that Spirit still dwells within and among us.
Living one moment at a time, one day at a time.
In thanksgiving for peacemakers throughout our world – that the Prince of Peace will strengthen them and prosper the work of their hands, we pray …
In thanksgiving for those who stand for elected office in our state and country – that the God of Truth will enter them and help them deliver truthful messages to voters, we pray …
In thanksgiving for environmental advocates throughout our world – that our Creator God will permeate and enliven and encourage them in their efforts to inform and set us all in motion to a sustainable life on this earth, we pray …
In thanksgiving for communities of faith throughout our world and for this Sunday Assembly and Holy Wisdom Monastery –that the Spirit of the Risen Christ will help us grow in faith and hope and love, we pray …
Take a few moments now to recall those persons who populate your hearts and thoughts. — For them and all those listed in our book of intentions, we pray …
Holy One, may our prayers rise like incense before you.
Your loving faithfulness stretches across the length and breadth of our lives.
Help us to live each moment secure in your loving care for us and all creation.
We ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.