Please! Prayers to Intercede

We have been in a series of sermons about one-word prayers. The kind that we often pray without even fully understanding that we are praying. It is the OOpps, that we talked about on Ash Wednesday; the Help! And the Why? Today, we turn to look at please. Please that you will hear us God and please that you will attend to my needs and the needs of others. Notice the nearness of the words “please” and “plead”. Plead comes from the word plea, as in what you enter in court in reference to a case against. To plead guilty, for instance. Please comes from seeking favor as in, Would it please you if I shared my ice cream?

Luke’s parable of the persistent widow takes both nuances of pleading and pleasing to consider prayer. The parable starts out about prayer and not losing heart, moves into a story about justice, and ends with a question about faith. This sounds just like God meeting us where we are and taking us beyond our imaginations. Widows in ancient times were regarded as vulnerable without the protection of a husband, and in the case, without family. The widow entreating the judge herself highlights her vulnerability and desperation. It also highlights her ingenuity and creativity. Here, she has God on her side. The Bible consistently gives special attention to the most vulnerable among us.

This is not the first mention of prayer in Luke, in fact Luke is stitched together with the pray. There are those who pray at the temple, prayer at Jesus’ birth and baptism, Jesus and disciples both withdraw to pray, as well as the full of Holy Week which is grounded in prayer. There are instructions on how to pray and who to pray for. So, we find a widow beseeching a judge, known for his cruel and unfeeling ways. We do not know what justice she is requesting from the judge or whether her case is just. We know of her persistence. The judge ultimately relents and we have his reflections of exasperation. The judge is exhausted by her persistence. A more literal translation of the judge’s grievance (18:5) is that the woman “is giving me a black eye.” Like all black eyes, the one the widow’s complaints threaten to inflict have a double effect, representing both physical and social distresses.
Jesus teaches us that our persistence in prayers of intercession, of please, need to know persistence. “If even the most unjust of judges will finally relent to the ceaseless petitions of a defenseless widow, then how much more will God — who is, after all, a good judge — answer your prayers!” God’s goodness and eagerness to bless are in direct contrast with the unjust judge. Do not be troubled or afraid to bring your petitions and intercessions to God.

After highlighting the persistence of the widow, Jesus ends with a question that changes the tense from the here and now of the widow and the judge into the future of tomb and resurrection: “And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” We may find the beginnings of an answer in those lifted up for their faith:
the centurion who believes Jesus will heal his slave, even from a distance;
the sinful woman who anoints Jesus’ feet and loves much;
friends of the paralytic who are willing to dig through a roof;
the bleeding, unclean woman who touches Jesus’ clothes in the crowd and is healed;
the Samaritan leper, whose gratitude turns him back to Jesus where he falls at his feet in thanksgiving;
and the blind beggar later in this chapter who sees Jesus for who he is and calls to him.

And in the lives of many today. A researcher at Duke recently shared this story from her husband’s family: “Uncle Emil, the oldest of the remaining brothers, told how, in the last months of the war (World War II) he and hundreds of other 16-year-old Germans were forced into the army by the desperate Nazis. Not trained or equipped to fight, they were captured almost immediately by the Allies and confined for three months in an open-air field. Two-thirds of these German teenagers died from exposure and starvation as they stood packed in like cattle through the nightmarish months.

When the war ended, the gates were opened and the young men who were still alive were told to go. Uncle Emil described how, barely alive, he stumbled out of the prison field and walked to the nearest town. He knocked on the first door he found. The family living there took him in, fed and clothed him, and adopted him as their son until, months later, he was able to locate his own family and emigrate to Canada.

The love this family showed to a stranger, no questions asked, provided Uncle Emil with hope and faith in God’s grace and mercy at a desperate time. Against the horror and inhumanity that surrounded them, the family willing to take in a stranger embodied the faith that ultimately helped the Wirzba family survive.”1

Can you imagine the prayers of the young Emil? Barley whispering please to God, barely whispering please to the first house, he stumbled into. Can you imagine the prayers of the family who were likely experiencing their own loss, their own fear and devastation, as so many families during World War II were?

It was the simple and life-changing act of this anonymous family allowing themselves to be used as an answer to prayer that years later the first family was able to celebrate. It is the simple and life-changing act of allowing ourselves to be used as an answer to prayer that gives others life. “Praying for another’s well-being allows God to weave us into that other’s well-being. In this manner, we become part of those for whom we pray, and they become part of us.”2

Each time, we hear someone ask us for prayers, each time we read a request through the prayer chain, each time our hearts are moved with compassion to plead and ask please on someone else’s behalf, we open ourselves up to God for God’s use. “We risk being used by God to our own prayers.” 3

We allow ourselves to be an instrument of God’s when we imagine how we might serve those in need that we have prayed for. It is when you and I pledge to pray for our Family Promise families and those without permanent housing , and then find ourselves days later pointing together Hope Totes for those who need them most to be handed out on Easter in Wilmington. God has used us to begin to answer our prayers. It is when you and I agree to pray for a family member going through cancer treatments and then our hearts are opened to hear about a treatment someone else is going through that might benefit our family member and share it. It is when you and I pray for God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven and then discover tenderness in our hearts to those we don’t like. For all of us who wonder, what difference our prayers make. For all of us who feel as though we have prayed and prayed and not seen the visible result that we had hoped for, this parable is for us.

In your bulletin, there is a post-it note, would you find it? Each week, we have been growing our prayer tree in the lobby, adding our prayers, and inviting others to pray along with us. Pause now and would you write a “please” prayer? Intercession for yourself or another in need of God’s attention.

After service, don’t forget to add your prayer intercession to our growing tree outside in the lobby. In this intentional time of prayer, during Lent, I also invite you this week to continue in prayer and this week, be intentional about please prayers, intercession prayers for the needs of our world and others. For God is good and hears our prayers, answering them faithfully in God’s time and God’s wisdom.
This is the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, thanks be to God, Amen!

1https://www.faithandleadership.com/gretchen-e-ziegenhals-what-stories-should-we-tell?utm_source=albanweekly&utm_medium=content&utm_campaign=faithleadership

2Suchocki, Marjorie. In God’s Presence. 47.
3Suchocki, 50.

New Testament Lesson: Psalm 6:1-8
O Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger,
or discipline me in your wrath.
Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am languishing;
O Lord, heal me, for my bones are shaking with terror.
My soul also is struck with terror,
while you, O Lord—how long?
Turn, O Lord, save my life;
deliver me for the sake of your steadfast love.
For in death there is no remembrance of you;
in Sheol who can give you praise?
I am weary with my moaning;
every night I flood my bed with tears;
I drench my couch with my weeping.
My eyes waste away because of grief;
they grow weak because of all my foes.
Depart from me, all you workers of evil,
for the Lord has heard the sound of my weeping.

Gospel Lesson: Luke 18:1-8

The Parable of the Widow and the Unjust Judge

Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart.  He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people.  In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Grant me justice against my opponent.’  For a while he refused; but later he said to himself, ‘Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone,  yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.’” And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says.  And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them?  I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them. And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

Meditations For Your Week
Sunday, February 28 ~ Saturday, March5

Sunday: “Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart.” Luke 18:1. Prayers of intercession require tenacity and collaboration. Who can you help by adding your prayers to their need?

Monday: “In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, “Grant me justice against my opponent.” Luke 18:3. The story of the persistent widow is an invitation to prayer for your needs and for the intercession for others. Prayerfully consider how you can be intentional and persistent.

Tuesday: “Yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.” Luke 18:5. Even an unjust justice is worn done by the determination of the widow, where is God calling you to be persistent in prayer?

Wednesday: “I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them. And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?’” Luke 18:8. God is just. Prayerfully consider how you may be just as God is just.

Thursday: “My soul also is struck with terror, while you, O Lord—how long?” Psalm 6:3. When we find ourselves in the darkest of places, let us turn to God and God’s people for our intercession.

Friday: “Turn, O Lord, save my life; deliver me for the sake of your steadfast love.” Psalm 6: 4 God is loving and just. God will deliver you. Where do you need God today?

Saturday: “Depart from me, all you workers of evil, for the Lord has heard the sound of my weeping.” Psalm 6:8. The Lord hears our cries. Pause today in prayer.