Persistence in prayer even when we do not get what we ask for

Sermon delivered Sunday, Oct. 20, 2013 (22nd Sunday After Pentecost, Year C, Proper 24) at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Franklin, TN, on Luke 18:1-8.

“Jesus told his disciples a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart.” (Luke 18:1) Luke tells us that today’s parable, about the widow and the unjust judge, is about persistence in prayer. It has a similar theme to another parable Jesus tells earlier in the Gospel of Luke, about the friend at midnight. We heard that parable earlier this year, at the end of July, but let me refresh your memory. The parable of the friend at midnight is in Luke 11:5-8:

“[Jesus] said to them, ‘Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say to him, “Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.” And he answers from within, “Do not bother me; the door has already been locked, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.” 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.’”

“Because of his persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs.” Although the friend initially turns down the request, he ultimately gives in because the person knocking at his door just won’t give up. The same is true with the widow and the unjust judge. Though the judge cares nothing about the woman or about granting her what she asks for, he finally gives in because of her persistence and tenacity.

Jesus’s message in both these parables seems to be: if you know that persistence and constant asking can be effective in finally getting what you want from other broken and sinful human beings, who do not always have your best interests at heart, how much more should you be certain that God, who loves you and does have your best interests at heart, will give you what you want if you are persistent in asking?

These two parables are unique to Luke, but Luke links the parable of the friend at midnight with a saying of Jesus that appears in some form or another in all four Gospels: “ask, and it will be given to you.” The parable of the persistent friend at midnight in Luke is followed by this passage, which appears to be commentary on the parable: “Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.” (Luke 11:9-10). The same exact words appear in Matthew in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 7:7-8). Mark and John do not have this exact passage, but the same theme appears in those Gospels as well. “Whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours,” Jesus says in chapter 11 of the Gospel of Mark (Mark 11:24). And in John 14, Jesus promises the disciples, “If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.” (John 14:14)

These passages seem to suggest that all we have to do is ask, and God will give us whatever we want. They can easily lend themselves to a “vending machine” view of God, where all we need to do is insert prayer, press D4, and health and wealth will promptly be deposited into the receptacle at the bottom of the machine, ready for us to grab and tear into like so many candy bars. But I expect that most of us would bristle at that concept of God, because we know that most prayer does not work that way. It does not seem to be as easy as “ask, and you shall receive,” as “select your desired outcome and it will be delivered to you, no questions asked.” Although sometimes our prayers do seem to be answered exactly as we have asked, I’m sure that most of us have any number of examples of times when we asked for something from God and did not receive what we asked.

This is not a new problem for the “modern believer;” the earliest Christian communities already recognized that they did not always get everything they asked for from God, that not all their prayers were answered by a fulfillment of the requests they had made. The author of the letter of James deals with this issue by arguing that the people are not receiving what they ask for because they are asking wrongly, because their desires are not in line with the will of God. James 4, verses 2-3, says this: “You want something and do not have it; so you commit murder. And you covet something and cannot obtain it; so you engage in disputes and conflicts. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, in order to spend what you get on your pleasures.”

James’s answer for why some prayers go unanswered is that people are asking for the wrong things for the wrong reasons. That can be a helpful interpretation when we know deep down that our motives in asking or the things we are asking for are probably not the most godly, that they may be motivated by selfish desires. In those cases, we can accept that our prayers are not answered because we were not asking for the right things. But what about the cases in which we ask for something that we believe to be in line with the will of God, when we ask for the very things God has promised us, like life and health and justice and mercy and resurrection and peace, and we do not receive them?

Jesus tells the disciples that they will be able to heal in his name, and in the Gospels and the Book of Acts we have stories of the disciples healing the sick and raising the dead, but I have never known a Christian who was able to literally raise the dead. The prophets constantly tell us that God has promised to “restore the fortunes of Zion,” and yet the conflict in Jerusalem and the surrounding areas continues unabated. The prophets tell us that God wants “justice to roll down like waters,” but we see oppression and injustice continuing in our own society and around the world.

So how are we to reconcile these unanswered prayers with Jesus’s words that “if in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it”? That “everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened”?

Again, this is not a new question. The biblical authors also struggled with unanswered prayers. The psalmists asked, “How long, O Lord?” How long will you hide your face from us, how long will you not respond to our prayers, to our cries for help? The prophet Habakkuk asks, “O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not listen? Or cry to you ‘Violence!’ and you will not save?” (Habakkuk 1:2) Job cries out to God, “Even when I cry out, ‘Violence!’ I am not answered; I call aloud, but there is no justice” (Job 19:7). In Psalm 22, the psalm Jesus quotes while dying on the cross, the psalmist says, “O my God, I cry in the daytime, but you do not answer. By night as well, but I find no rest” (Psalm 22:2).

Significantly, though, the biblical authors never take the step that so many people do today, to assume that the fact of unanswered prayer must mean that God does not exist. The biblical writers “keep the faith” even in the midst of unanswered prayer, even when God does not turn out to be their own personal divine vending machine. They express their anguish about unanswered prayer to God, not only to other people. And they remember the times God has answered prayer and how many blessings they have received from God. In the same chapter as Job cries out that there is no justice and his prayers are not answered, he goes on to say that “I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last he will stand upon the earth” (Job 19:25). Immediately after the verse in Psalm 22 about crying to God but receiving no answer, the psalmist goes on to say, “Yet you are the Holy One… our forefathers put their trust in you; they trusted, and you delivered them… you are he who took me out of the womb, and kept me safe upon my mother’s breast” (Psalm 22:3-4, 9). In the midst of laments about unanswered prayer in the Bible, there is almost always a recall of times that prayer has been answered, when we asked and it was given to us, when we sought and did find, when we knocked and the door was opened to us.

Perhaps this is what it means to be persistent in prayer: not only to keep asking over and over again, but to stay in relationship with God even when we do not get the things we ask for in that particular moment – to ask questions and struggle with God even when the door seems to be closed. To remember, even in those moments, Jesus’s promise that God has our best interests at heart and will in fact grant us the justice and the good things that we seek – even if it might not come in the ways we expect or desire. The biblical writers continued to affirm the goodness of God despite their unanswered prayers, and Jesus invites us to model their persistence not only in making continued requests for what we want, but not to lose heart as we ask – to remain steadfast in believing that the God to whom we pray does indeed have our best interests at heart.

Shall we receive the good at the hand of God and not receive the bad?

Sermon delivered Sunday, Oct. 7, 2012 (19th Sunday After Pentecost, Proper 22B), at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Franklin, Tenn. (Job 1:1, 2:1-10)

“Shall we receive the good at the hand of God and not receive the bad?” (Job 2:10)

Job’s question is a poignant one, coming from a man who had experienced unspeakable loss. Our lectionary passage leaves out most of the first chapter of Job, which describes the loss of Job’s livestock and the death of his servants and all ten of his children. Then Job is stricken with a painful illness. Things are so bad that his wife comes to the conclusion it would be better to die than to continue to live with the suffering Job is experiencing, and encourages Job to curse God and die.

But Job refuses, continuing to accept God’s sovereignty over his life. “The Lord has given and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21), he says when he learns of the death of his children. “Shall we receive the good at the hand of God and not receive the bad?” he asks (Job 2:10), in response to his wife’s words of anger and despair.

This question could be the “topic sentence” of the entire Book of Job: Are human beings willing to receive the good at the hand of God and not to receive the bad? It is the question that Satan, or “the Accuser,” asks in the heavenly court. “Of course Job is faithful and upright,” he says to God, “It’s easy for people to be faithful and give praise to God when things are going well for them. But what about when things are tough? How much will they love you then?”

The entire “game” that the Accuser plays with Job is an experiment to answer that very question: “Shall we receive the good at the hand of God and not receive the bad?” Will Job continue to be in faithful relationship with God even when his comfortable life is stripped away from him?

Now, before we go any further, let me say a word about the disturbing opening of this story. What kind of God, you might ask, would agree to let all these calamities befall an innocent person just to win a “bet,” if you will, with an unruly angel? Does God also send death and destruction upon us intentionally, just to see if we’ll cave under the pressure? Are the suffering of our lives a result of God making a similar bargain with the Accuser?

In my understanding of God, the answers to those questions are “no” and “no.” It is helpful to understand that the Book of Job was never intended to describe actual events that happened to a real person. Hebrew Bible scholar Rebecca Abts Wright describes the book of Job as the ancient equivalent of a “Dr. Seuss” story, a story meant to illustrate a particular question or topic through creative imagination. The story of Job describes a perfect man with a perfect family in a made up land (no one knows where “the land of Uz” is) with a made-up name (“Job” is not a Semitic or Hebrew name, or a name common to any of the surrounding cultures). This is the ancient Near Eastern equivalent of a story about the Whos down in Whoville. The description of Job is a kind of stereotype of perfection that does not exist completely in real life. But the author of the story posits the existence of this hypothetical “perfect” person to explore a significant theological question: Is it possible to remain faithful to God in the midst of unexplainable suffering, suffering which we have done nothing to deserve?

The story of Job is something like a parable, through which we are invited to consider our own lives of faith. Are we “fair-weather” friends of God, happy to praise him when things are going well, but quick to curse him when they are not? Are we like the seed in Jesus’s parable of the sower (Luke 8:4-15) that was sown on rock, who receive the Word with joy when we first hear it, but when troubles arise, we fall away?

Reading this passage from Job at this particular point in time, I cannot help but think of the response of the Sikh community in Wisconsin to the shootings at their place of worship two months ago. Despite enduring the horror of a violent attack during a worship service and losing six members of their community, the Sikh community has responded with love and compassion, continuing to be at prayer and to encourage one another to remain in chardi kala, a state of optimism and high spirits that is central to the Sikh faith. My friend Valarie Kaur, a third-generation Sikh American from California and a nationally-known interfaith activist, went to Milwaukee to be with the community in the days and weeks after the shootings. She gathered first-hand stories from the people there and began sharing them through op-ed pieces, blog entries, Facebook posts and tweets.

One of the most powerful stories she shared was that of Santokh Singh, a 50-year-old man from India who came to the U.S. to serve the community in Milwaukee as a granthi, a devotional singer who recites prayers from scripture in Sikh worship services. In the attack on the gurdwara in August, he survived two gunshot wounds to the stomach. In reflecting on the shooting, Santokh said, “I have no hate for the gunman. What happened was done by God. How can I wish ill upon the gunman if it is God’s will?”

“The Lord has given and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” (Job 1:21)

In the face of unspeakable loss, the Sikh community in Wisconsin, like Job, has affirmed an acceptance of God’s sovereignty in their lives. “Whatever God gives, we receive with grace,” says a Sikh prayer. Turning to prayer for solace in the days and weeks after the shooting, Sikhs received the gut-wrenching pain of their loss as a gift from God. “One does not turn away a gift, or bury it, or rage against it, but receive it with an open heart,” Valarie wrote in an article for The Washington Post, describing the community’s theological response to the tragedy.

“Shall we receive the good at the hand of God but not receive the bad?” (Job 2:10)

But Job’s acceptance of his fate and his poignant words of faith and trust are not the whole story. In this book of 42 chapters, Job’s strong statements of trust and acceptance of God’s will appear only in the first two chapters. From chapter three onwards, Job begins to lament his loss. He says it would be better if he had never been born, and question God’s justice at allowing such pain to come into his life.

“Truly the thing that I fear comes upon me, and what I dread befalls me,” he says. “I am not at ease, nor am I quiet; I have no rest; but trouble comes” (Job 3:25-26). This is a far cry from the calm acceptance of his fate and peaceful worship and blessing of God that he expressed when he first lost his children and livestock. After the loss has a chance to sink in more deeply, the raw pain seeps out, perhaps even against his will, since Job was a deeply pious man who most likely would have wanted to remain in chardi kala, as the Sikhs would put it, optimistic and faithful despite his sufferings. But the pain was too much.

And it is too much for some members of the Sikh community in Milwaukee as well. Not all members of the community are able to trust that the shootings were a part of God’s will with as much peace and grace as Santokh Singh. Valarie also shared stories of members of the community who continue to see images of their loved ones lying on the floor in pools of blood, who continue to hear the gunshots in their dreams, who cannot sleep at night. The trauma of the shootings strips away their sense of peace and violates their most sacred space.

“Truly the thing that I fear comes upon me, and what I dread befalls me. I am not at ease, nor am I quiet; I have no rest; but trouble comes” (Job 3:25-26).

So what are we to do when we are unable to stay in chardi kala? When the pain and grief are simply too much, when we cannot honestly thank God for this supposed “gift” that he gives?

Well, we can do what Job does. Job expresses his anger, his frustration, his despair, and his pain to God. He does not give in to the temptation to beat himself up, to agree with the unhelpful suggestions of his friends that surely God must be punishing him for some sin he has committed. No, Job maintains his sense of integrity by insisting on his own innocence, and in questioning God’s justice in allowing innocent people to suffer.

But in all this, Job never curses God, as his wife suggests. He still acknowledges that God is in control, even if he doesn’t like it! He makes his complaints about how God is running the world known, and at the end of it all God actually affirms Job’s response over the response of Job’s friends, who support traditional wisdom in saying that God rewards those who are righteous and brings suffering upon those who are wicked. In the last chapter of the book of Job, in a passage you won’t see in the lectionary when we get to this section at the end of October, God scolds Job’s friends, saying, “My wrath is kindled against you, …for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has” (Job 42:7).

Accepting God’s will and God’s sovereignty over our lives does not mean denying the feelings of frustration, grief, anger, and despair that well up within us when inexplicable suffering comes to us. With Job, we can say, “The Lord has given and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21), but still cry out in pain. With the Sikh community in Milwaukee, we can say, “Whatever God gives, we receive with grace,” but still acknowledge when the grief is too much to bear – and seek help from friends, family, and professional counselors to get us through. And we can be gentle with ourselves in that place of both/and, of faith and doubt, gratitude and despair, because the important part is that we stay in relationship with God – not that we say nice things about God or always like God and never question God – but that we are in authentic relationship with God – a God who knows something about the depths of inexplicable pain, whose desire to be in authentic relationship with us led him to death on a cross.