Chiefly on prayer
Categories : Bible, Christianity |
Here’s a parable that’s been on my mind lately :
The Parable of the Persistent Widow (Luke 18:1-8 NIV
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1Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. 2He said: “In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared about men. 3And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary.’
4“For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care about men, 5yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually wear me out with her coming!’ ”
6And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. 7And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? 8I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”
Now the first thing I want to note about this, as a bit of an aside, is that we should be wary of trying to read deep significance into every little detail or aspect of a Biblical passage. In this parable obviously the old woman represents praying believers and the judge stands for God - but he’s not a direct substitute for God. God is not a grumpy old man who only answers prayers if we nag him so we will shut up. Jesus was telling his story to make a point, and as always he would have used things which his audience would have been familiar with. Maybe there was a judge in that town just like that, and hearing the story the people might have had a bit of a chuckle, thinking “Yeh that sounds like grumpy old judge Hezekiah” Jesus may have used the details in this way to engage the audience a bit more.
But leaving aside the details, what is the lasting message of this story? Is it that the way to get answers to our prayers is to continually hound God about that same thing day and night until he finally gives in? Actually the interpretation is given in verse 1 - the disciples should always pray and not give up. It’s not a recipe for how to pray, but rather an encouragement to those who are already praying, in the midst of an unjust situation, saying keep it up - if even an unjust judge like this will finally grant justice to the petitioner, how much more so will our God, who loves us, grant justice and mercy to us? The central point of the parable is a comparison, with the same effect as this passage in Matthew 7:9-10 :
9“Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? 11If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!
The parable paints a picture of how things are on earth, and then says how much better than that is God. And if this is the sort of God we are praying to, then we should be persistent and not give up, because he will come through for us in his time.
Prayer is a tricky subject. We pray and pray and pray for something and if we get the answer we hope for, we are immediately and correctly thankful. And if we don’t get the answer we want then we rationalise it by saying it must not be God’s will or God’s timing. What we are afraid to do is question why, to get angry with God and “argue it out” (Is 1:18 -MSG) And prayer where we don’t do that is tame prayer. Bold prayer, risking disappointment, and not being afraid to ask why, is the sort of prayer God calls us to - just look at the Psalms and prophets. These guys were not afraid to really get deep and express how they feel.
My next book is C.S. Lewis “Letters to Malcolm - chiefly on prayer” - I’ll be interested to see what insights Lewis has on the topic, and will try to post some quotes here if I get the chance amidst our travels.
