17th October - Canon Stephen Carter

SERMON OCTOBER 17^TH2010    MALDON

Luke 18, 1-8

And the judge said, “I will grant her justice so that she does not wear out by her continual coming”

We all know people who can wear you down by their persistence. In the end you give in for a quiet life! Its something children can learn at a very early age.

 My old aunt never used to let me forget what a pain I was when I used to go and stay with her in Norfolk for my child hood holidays. I once crazed her to let me buy a guinea pig when we went shopping to Norfolk. After a day of continual pleading , I successfully wore her down: and we came back on the bus with a lovely black and white guinea pig. She spent the next few days worrying what my parents would say when I returned home.

I wasn’t so successful when I tried to persuade her to let me have a terrapin and keep it in the sink. She did draw a line at that.

In today’s Gospel we have a woman who wears down a judge by her persistence. She is a poor widow. She is owed money by someone who can afford to pay, but won’t. She needs the money, but is up against an unsympathetic judge. By his own admission he is a hard man.

So when she stands up and asks for justice he simply ignores her. “Next case please”. After all, what does she matter? She is only a poor widow: no money, no influence. Let her sort things out. She’s just a pest.

But she’s not going to be fobbed off so easily. Every time the judge appears in court, she gets under his skin. She wore him down as I used to wear my aunt down. So to get rid of this annoying woman, he gives in to her demands.

So what are we to learn from this? Perhaps we picture God as the judge in the story. This is some people’s image of God. They see prayer as a process of badgering and pestering God into doing things. But this is not Jesus’ image of his heavenly Father. Indeed, the real point of the story is exactly the opposite. It is a “much more” story. A story that works by sharply drawn contrasts.

The lesson Jesus draws here is simple. If a callous, hard hearted human judge can be moved to act by a woman’s persistence, how much more will God, who is loving and gracious, hear his people’s cry for help? This parable says two important things to us today.

The first is that it can be a virtue to be persistent. Christians are to be a people who will not accept defeat. Those who will not take “No” for an answer. If we look at history, we will see that many of the great moral advances of humanity, have been made by people who have made a real nuisance of themselves. They did not know when to stop, because they had a vision of how the world could be.

Think of William Wilberforce. For years he made himself thoroughly unpopular in London Society, by his tireless campaigning against the slave trade. He must have been a real bore at parties. But he knew in his heart that the slave trade was evil: and he did not give up.

Or Martin Luther King and the American Civil Rights movement. He was prepared to face violence and threats, to make a nuisance of himself to politicians, police and judges, because be believed that racial discrimination was fundamentally contrary to the will of God. The same is true of the campaign against apartheid in South Africa.

Or more recently  the Church’s campaign against poverty in the Third World has been motivated by the conviction that God demands justice for the poor.

The persistence that refuses to be discouraged: because there is a conviction that God has a purpose. It will not be silenced by threats and hatred. It perseveres to the end.

And what an example of persistent faith we have had in the Chilean miners over the last few weeks. How moving it has been to see those men being returned to their families. How moving it has been to hear of their faith and the faith of their families that did not give up. They went on hoping and praying against the odds. We have seen in them and in their rescuers the power of faith.

And perhaps in a more modest way, we see the power of faith as we near the end of our building project. Over the last few years, as a parish, you have faced many disappointments and set backs as you tried to move this forward. There must have been times when it would have been easy to have given up: to be overwhelmed by the planners or by financial challenges.  And yet you did not give up. Because enough of you shared the vision that this was something that was of God. That he had a purpose for his church in all this.

Today’s parable speaks to us of faith and trust. Faith, said Jesus, can remove mountains. Ask and it will be given unto you. Seek and ye shall find. Knock and the door will be opened unto you.

In other words, be persistent. Be like the poor widow. Don’t give up. Pray for the strength and courage to serve God faithfully in the World.