29th Sunday of Ordinary Time

On the wall of the sacristy here in the church is an etching of the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Charters, France. It took seventy-five years to build the cathedral. When it was begun in the 11th Century most people still lived in mud huts with thatched roofs. Despite those conditions, hundreds of people began planning for and laying the foundation of the great cathedral. They began the process with the knowledge that they would most likely never live to see it completed. Many probably realized that even their children and grandchildren would not live long enough to ever worship within the walls of the magnificent edifice they were building. Regardless of this, they unselfishly continued the construction and they stuck with it day in and day out. They had a hope that someday future generations would see the fruits of their labors. 

We don’t live in that kind of culture anymore. Our society is often unwilling to put off gratification until some time in the future. Our culture wants instant fulfillment. We want results right now! We don’t want to wait for anything. If we desire to go on vacation we are ready to charge the expense on our credit cards rather than save up the money over several months. If a commercial comes on the television while we are watching the game we become impatient and we start channel surfing to check on other programs. If the project we are working on doesn’t seem to be successful we easily give up and turn our attention to something else. We have difficulty trying to see anything through to completion. 

That is why we so often find prayer difficult. In today’s Gospel, Luke wrote:

"Jesus told His disciples a parable about the necessity for them to pray always without becoming weary."

Even Jesus recognized that for most people, faithfulness to prayer is challenging. 

Surveys declare that over 70% of Americans claim to pray and 50% assert that they do so every day. Although the vast majority say they pray, we all at times question the effect of prayer. Sometimes prayer seems to work and at other times it doesn’t. We all want to believe God will come through for us in our need but when we feel God is slow to answer prayer we begin to wonder about its value. 

When our prayers don’t seem to be answered by God we wonder if God feels preoccupied with more important things. After all, there are wars, famines, and all sorts of problems in our world demanding God’s attention. We begin to feel our little concerns must be too small for God’s attention. Or we begin to believe God doesn’t care about us. Maybe we fear our sinfulness is too great and God is angry with us and is ignoring our requests. We can even begin to believe God isn’t even there. Unanswered prayers can lead to the questioning of God’s existence. 

Jesus was aware of the temptation to give up on prayer so He told the disciples today’s parable of the corrupt judge and the pleading widow. We shouldn’t believe God to be the judge of the parable. God isn’t a heartless, corrupt judge. Jesus is actually contrasting God and the judge. Jesus is telling us to keep praying because God is our heavenly Father who isn’t indifferent to our needs. The focus of the parable is the widow and how persistence paid off for her.

Widows in Jesus’ day were a very vulnerable group. It would have been very unusual for one to appear in court. If they had a legal problem they would have been represented before the judge by their closest male relative. For this widow to have gone to court on her own indicates she is completely alone against the world. She is poor and without anyone to back her up. Despite the odds, her experience of having to stick up for herself before an unjust judge changed her. It helped her exert herself, she grew to be courageous and become such a force for justice that the judge felt she might become a threat to him. Jesus says that is the power of persistent prayer.

Jesus always reminded His disciples that God wants a relationship with us. God wants our relationship with Him to be as strong as the relationship between Jesus and His heavenly Father. God cares as much about each of us as He did for Jesus. God wants to build a relationship with us through communication or prayer.

We want prayer to be easy but we often find it difficult. Fruitful prayer is tough. It takes time and persistence. We want many things in life to be effortless but nothing worthwhile comes easy. Being successful in every meaningful aspect of life takes determination and persistent effort. Our jobs, family life, and even our recreation require persistence and practice. They all take time and effort. Persistent prayer will change us like it transformed the widow. We will grow stronger and be transformed into advocates for justice just like her.

Prayer will help us mature in our character. When we were children our prayers were all about us. They were all about our personal needs. We prayed to do well on exams, to have people like us, and to get out of trouble. God delights in even prayers such as those but wants us to mature in prayer to move beyond our needs. If we are only praying for our wants and needs our prayer is too shallow. By appearing to be silent to our prayer God might be calling us to a deeper level of prayer. God might be calling us to move our prayer requests to God’s larger and more far-reaching purposes.

Some of our prayers might be going unanswered because we are praying for the wrong things. By ignoring our request God is protecting us from a desire that is dangerous to our well-being. God wants to encourage us to reevaluate our desire and recognize it as hurtful to our souls. God’s rejection of our prayer is calling us to better discern good from bad and right from wrong. 

Maybe our prayers seem to be ignored by God because they are too vague. Rather than asking for some far-reaching desire, we need to condense them into a goal we can realistically accomplish with God’s help. Instead of asking God to improve your marriage, ask God to help you resist being critical of your spouse this week. If you’re praying for the well-being of your family, ask for the wisdom to have a positive impact on them. God is calling us to re-examine our requests so we can focus more realistic on how prayer can impact our lives. 

Often we pray too casually. We kneel down to say the Our Father with the expectation God will come along like a genie in a bottle to grant our requests. We bargain with God pledging that if He grants our prayer we will do something in return. While showing appreciation for God’s intervention in our needs is good, trying to make a trade-off or bargain with God for our faithfulness isn’t a sign of love for God. God wants a real relationship with each of us. A relationship of love and faithfulness, not manipulation.  

God will always reject prayers for something to which God is opposed. God doesn’t answer prayer to harm God’s other creatures. God doesn’t take sides in disputes or wars. God won’t listen to any prayer that will damage efforts for the right relationships with others. Such prayers aren’t inspired by God but by the powers and principalities opposed to God and the coming of the Kingdom Jesus initiated in our world. God refuses to respond to any prayer that tries to slow down or block the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven. 

Today the scriptures tell us we have to commit ourselves to prayer over the long haul. We can’t expect to have all our prayers answered with just the flick of a wand as if they were magic. Prayer requires us to be in it for the long haul. Prayer needs us to be constant and committed if we want results.

Prayer is a partnership with God rather than begging, or nagging. Prayer is a relationship with God dedicated to working together with the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit to make this world more like heaven. Prayer is all about how God communicates with us to help us discern the steps to take to partner with God. 

Where do we need God’s direction, compassion, and power in our lives this week? Use your prayer time over the next few days to help you patiently cooperate with God’s plan for your life. If you don’t pray regularly, begin this week. Determine a time that is convenient for you when you can find a quiet spot to be alone with God. Start small with maybe as little as ten minutes.  If you’re desperate for time even a few minutes as you drive in your car to or from work or an errand is a start. I hope you will find a better time but even then is a place to start. Take the time to pray to God to help you see the ways God is looking to help change your life and make you a better person. 

As we now turn to celebrate the Liturgy of the Eucharist, Jesus Christ will come to feed us with His Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. The gift of His graceful real presence will help give us the patience to persist in prayer like the cathedral builders of the Middle Ages persisted with their task. We may not live to see the fruits of our prayers, but we can be assured that they will help build this world into the Kingdom of God.