Prayer
Look upon the church gathered in prayer, and grant that we, like your people Israel, may grow in the service of goodness and prevail over the evil that holds the world bound, as we await the coming of that hour when you will grant justice to you chosen ones, who cry to you day and night.We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever. Amen.
From Prayers for Sunday and Seasons, Year C, Peter J. Scagnelli, LTP, 1992.
Picture: Louise Adler, female lightweight world boxing champion of the 1920s, training for her title defense.
Some Thoughts on Luke 18:1-8
"...it is missing the mark if we treat the passage as general teaching about intercessory prayer. It is primarily about the yearning for change."
"First Thoughts on Year C Gospel Passages in the Lectionary," Pentecost 22, William Loader, Murdoch University, Uniting Church in Australia.
"Justice," David Lose, WorkingPreacher, 2010.
"Jesus challenges us by juxtaposing God's desire for justice (the presence of the kingdom in our midst) with the possibility that, when Jesus returns, he may find that nothing has changed."
Oremus Online NRSV Gospel Text
Women have been boxing for a long time! Lousie Adler was a great fighter in her day. Once, Alicia Ashley is the oldest woman boxer and World Champion at age 50. The passage is one of my favorites. It speaks about prayer and speaks about justice. And, the keyword is this bit about boxing. The woman in the parable is not merely persistent but is physically going to hit him.
We know of course that this section of Luke is pure Lukan material. Jesus is teaching about the persistence of prayer, the consistency and perseverance of praying regularly. (Luke Timothy Johnson, Luke, 269)
So our parable is given to us as a story of an unjust judge. He is afraid of no one and everyone is afraid of him. He is not moral and he has no ties to external rules. He is a lone ranger and a maverick on the bench. He doesn't even fear the Lord.
Then we have the widow. She is one of my favorite biblical characters. She is a boxer and not afraid of the judge, and perfectly willing to go a round or two with him.
She has him so frightened that he thinks she is actually going to hit him. She is going to give the man a black eye. She is coming for him. So he rules in her favor.
We see immediately that the Jesus is saying: be persistent but know that God is going to care for you far more than the unjust judge.
Are you really wrestling with God? Are we engaging in prayer with God which is like fisticuffs? I mean we are encouraged by Jesus to have a relationship with God that is like this woman’s relationship with the judge. We must like Jacob wrestling in the desert.
The bell sounds…round one… round two… round three.
God does not give up on us. But the question remains, are we willing to go all the rounds with God?
We should remember that Jesus began a number of verses ago dealing with the disciples who said they needed more faith. There is a theme within Luke that shows how difficult it is to follow Jesus to Jerusalem. It will take prayer to build up the foundations of our life so that we may make the spiritual journey ahead of us.
“Prayer is not an optional exercise in piety.” (LTJ, Luke, 276) We as Episcopalians understand the nature of prayer is the bedrock of action. Our liturgy is itself a form of prayer engaged with Jesus Christ that moves from living word to table fellowship, to action in the world.
How we box with God, how many rounds we are willing to go, how engaged we are will often limit or expand our ability to change the world around us.
Look upon the church gathered in prayer, and grant that we, like your people Israel, may grow in the service of goodness and prevail over the evil that holds the world bound, as we await the coming of that hour when you will grant justice to you chosen ones, who cry to you day and night.We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever. Amen.
From Prayers for Sunday and Seasons, Year C, Peter J. Scagnelli, LTP, 1992.
Picture: Louise Adler, female lightweight world boxing champion of the 1920s, training for her title defense.
Some Thoughts on Luke 18:1-8
"...it is missing the mark if we treat the passage as general teaching about intercessory prayer. It is primarily about the yearning for change."
"First Thoughts on Year C Gospel Passages in the Lectionary," Pentecost 22, William Loader, Murdoch University, Uniting Church in Australia.
"Who could be against justice, right? I mean, come on, if there's one thing that the law and prophets? not to mention Jesus? would seem to agree on, its justice. So who could be against it? As it turns out, from time to time, I am."
"Justice," David Lose, WorkingPreacher, 2010.
"Jesus challenges us by juxtaposing God's desire for justice (the presence of the kingdom in our midst) with the possibility that, when Jesus returns, he may find that nothing has changed."
Women have been boxing for a long time! Lousie Adler was a great fighter in her day. Once, Alicia Ashley is the oldest woman boxer and World Champion at age 50. The passage is one of my favorites. It speaks about prayer and speaks about justice. And, the keyword is this bit about boxing. The woman in the parable is not merely persistent but is physically going to hit him.
We know of course that this section of Luke is pure Lukan material. Jesus is teaching about the persistence of prayer, the consistency and perseverance of praying regularly. (Luke Timothy Johnson, Luke, 269)
So our parable is given to us as a story of an unjust judge. He is afraid of no one and everyone is afraid of him. He is not moral and he has no ties to external rules. He is a lone ranger and a maverick on the bench. He doesn't even fear the Lord.
Then we have the widow. She is one of my favorite biblical characters. She is a boxer and not afraid of the judge, and perfectly willing to go a round or two with him.
She has him so frightened that he thinks she is actually going to hit him. She is going to give the man a black eye. She is coming for him. So he rules in her favor.
We see immediately that the Jesus is saying: be persistent but know that God is going to care for you far more than the unjust judge.
Are you really wrestling with God? Are we engaging in prayer with God which is like fisticuffs? I mean we are encouraged by Jesus to have a relationship with God that is like this woman’s relationship with the judge. We must like Jacob wrestling in the desert.
The bell sounds…round one… round two… round three.
God does not give up on us. But the question remains, are we willing to go all the rounds with God?
We should remember that Jesus began a number of verses ago dealing with the disciples who said they needed more faith. There is a theme within Luke that shows how difficult it is to follow Jesus to Jerusalem. It will take prayer to build up the foundations of our life so that we may make the spiritual journey ahead of us.
“Prayer is not an optional exercise in piety.” (LTJ, Luke, 276) We as Episcopalians understand the nature of prayer is the bedrock of action. Our liturgy is itself a form of prayer engaged with Jesus Christ that moves from living word to table fellowship, to action in the world.
How we box with God, how many rounds we are willing to go, how engaged we are will often limit or expand our ability to change the world around us.
Some Thoughts on 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5
Commentary, 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5, Matt Skinner, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2013.
"Tradition is, of course, very important in many church communities? perhaps in all, even if 'tradition' can have various meanings."
Commentary, 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5, Dirk G. Lange, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2010.
"How could what began as good news for the broken hearted who cried out for change become the sedative for the comfortable? How could the way of the cross become a pathway for success and a sanction for protecting our own interests, personal or national?"
In the letter to Timothy, we read the encouragement of the author to the local Christian Church to persevere in what they have learned - the Gospel of God in Christ Jesus and his cross. Reminding them that they have received this from a direct lineage of faith from the very beginning and rooted in the experience of Jesus.
Continuing in the stories of Jesus and sharing this faith will be their work. The author invites them to not simply be followers (disciples), or community members, but to become apostles (people who are sent) sharing the faith that is in them. They are to share what they have received.
This story is rooted in the Old Testament and that God is at work as a living word within these stories of God's love that delivers God's people. And their faithful response to God who delivered his people of out Egypt and now has delivered all people from death by the work of Jesus Christ is to share their truth with others.
Moreover, the conditions of our situation does not change the truth of this invitation or the teaching. It is always easier to look for other messages that coincide or parallel our earthly teachings about power and authority and how to hustle for approval and worthiness. The Gospel rejects these behaviors and though our ears may itch and we may wish to find teachers that suit us...it will not be changed.
Finally, a bit of ancient motherly advice: don't worry about what others are doing, do what you are called and invited to do. Don't worry about what others are teaching, teach the Gospel that is in you. Don't worry about what they have to say or their words of ease, you have chosen the better part...stick to it.
Track I
Some Thoughts on Jeremiah 31:27-34
"Lent is a time for honesty that may disrupt the illusion of well-being that is fostered by the advocates of indulgent privilege and strident exceptionalism that disregards the facts on the ground. Against such ideological self-sufficiency, the prophetic tradition speaks of the brokenness of the covenant that makes healthy life possible."
"Ferguson and Forgiveness," Walter Bruegemann, ON Scripture, Odyssey Networks, 2015. Video: Race in America.
"The promise of a 'new covenant' in this passage may evoke the Christian scriptures, stories, and promises for many readers. Yet in their original context, these words signified the promise of a faithful God to a devastated people for restoration, perhaps even in their lifetimes."
Commentary, Jeremiah 31:27-34, Wil Gafney, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2010.
"The early Christians saw this new covenant as dawning in the life and ministry of the one they called Lord. Yet, obviously, the day, now two millennia gone, has yet to move beyond the mere shadow of that dawn."
The Weeping Prophet, reflections on Jeremiah 31;27-34 by John C. Holbert, Patheos, 2010.
Jeremiah continues his prophecy saying that God will bring about a bounteous future. God has not stayed the hand of those who have undone the power of Israel as a civilization rooted in the authority of this world. Remember it was Israel's political and religious machinations which brought it down. Yet, God will in the days to come bring about a resurrection from the death they brought on themselves. God will bring about life from their rubble.
While the people have suffered and have been deported this will not be the final word. Out of lostness, leastness, and death, God brings about life. From the children whose teeth are set on edge to those who at sour fruit, God will bring about a bounteous feast and plenty for the children. Jeremiah prophesies:
"The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.” But all shall die for their own sins; the teeth of everyone who eats sour grapes shall be set on edge. The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.
God promises a new covenant - a new relationship. Christians understand this prophecy to be about the promise of God to deliver all people. The temple's politics intermixed with the state, and the civil war between tribes (between the northern and southern kingdoms) has undone the original covenant that was made with God. They forgot who delivered them out of Egypt and so they thought they were responsible for delivering themselves. They forgot who fed them in the wilderness and thought that it was by their own hands that they had wealth. They forgot that God brought water from the rock and thought instead that their future and the future of their kingdoms would flow from their own power.
God speaks through Jeremiah and he writes:
But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the Lord,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.The covenant intends that people do not work against one another but rather that they see one another face to face and see God face to face. Again a radical message says that God will forget all their sins.
For Christians this is the very mission of God in Christ Jesus. That God in Christ comes and is incarnate such that they meet God face to face, and can no longer look at each other without seeing the face of God looking back. God in Christ will be the very law himself. We are to understand that the highest law shall be the writing of commandments and actions by Jesus himself. Humanity will know, both by sight and by relationship and by story/witness God. The living word shall come and be part of the community and with him, he shall bring forgiveness of every iniquity.
While we may wonder why Jeremiah remains in the scripture because of his obvious entanglement with the Babylonian court, what we see is that his words prophesy a new faith. The first Christians, without a New Testament, understood their work as a community and the person of Jesus Christ as revealed in the prophesy of Jeremiah.
Track II
Some Thoughts on Genesis 32:3-31
"The Power of Names," David Lose, Dear Working Preacher, 2013.
"Sometimes I cannot believe that I saw it and lived but that I only dreamed I saw it. Sometimes I believe I saw it and that I only dream I live."
"Jacob's Wrestle," sermon discussion from Frederick Buechner, Frederick Buechner Blog.
"Wouldn't it be easier just to walk away?"
"Jacob Fights Back," Lia Scholl, The Hardest Question, 2013.
"God does not punish Jacob's conflictive character, but challenges it and reshapes it so that Jacob is able to live into his promised destiny as Israel, which according to verse 29 means 'one who strives with God and humans.'"
Commentary, Genesis 32:22-31, Amy Merrill Willlis, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2014.
It may have been a bit since you looked at this passage so let's rehearse it a bit. Jacob and his brother are at odds - to say the least. In fact, Jacob is a pretty rough character. He has been serving Laban for a long time and he is now returning home. He has "outwitted" Laban into giving him a lot of sheep making him a wealthy man. He has wives and a whole household. Laban was a tricky character too but Jacob gets the best of him.
The fact that gods wrestle with humans is itself a mythical trope. The mythic creatures or gods of places will stand guard for those who wish to cross. The form of this story then would have been familiar to people hearing it for the first time. The difference, of course, is that this is not a water sprite or a god from the Nile.
This is the very God- the divine one who set the planets in their courses, separated the land from the sea, gives creatures breath, molds the dry land, and brings all life into being. We may not know where this narrative comes from but we know the purpose of its inclusion is to speak about God's willingness to wrestle with humanity and humanity willingness to wrestle with God. It is a kind of story about how humans come to be named and that is by knowing the most high God and being named by God and marked as God's forever. Here is the meaning of the hip being put out of the joint.
At this moment we have Jacob becoming the father of Israel. He is being made new. He is the one who has wrestled with his brother from the beginning and he is the one who has had to be cunning lest the world takes advantage of him. He is a master of not getting played. Now, after coming through the struggles of the past God has chosen him, marked him, named him, and he is to be the father of God's people.
Interesting too, he has made peace with Laban and now he will make peace with his brother. This is a truly important part of the story. Though it is the beginning of the 33 chapter it is intimately linked to the passage for today.
From Chapter 33's first verses:
Now Jacob looked up and saw Esau coming, and four hundred men with him. So he divided the children among Leah and Rachel and the two maids. 2He put the maids with their children in front, then Leah with her children, and Rachel and Joseph last of all. 3He himself went on ahead of them, bowing himself to the ground seven times, until he came near his brother. 4But Esau ran to meet him, and embraced him, and fell on his neck and kissed him, and they wept.
I think what is so very important here for us is that one does not make peace with one's brothers and sisters unless one first makes peace with God. Unless you know you have wrestled with God, even had your hip put out of joint unless you are renamed by God, and then set free by God...you will have a very difficult time doing the work of reconciliation. It is only after such a night as this that Jacob comes, "bowing himself to the ground seven times" before his brother. This is a position of humility and apology. It is a position of respect and understanding of how he has wronged his brother. Here then Esau is able to see his brother as his brother once more. In a very real way, this story is a reversal story of the Cain and Abel creation story.
Sermon Preached on these passages:
Boxing Lessons Jan 29, 2009, Sermon preached at Trinity Church, Houston, Texas It turns out that Patrick who is mentioned in this story would eventually box others. I on the other hand, after learning how to box...will not.
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