Readings for the Day:
Sermon:
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Original Manuscript:
During the end of the second semester of my second year in seminary, I was applying for a chaplaincy program for the summer. I really wanted to get into a program at The Training and Counseling Center (TACC) in Atlanta. It was a program with options to serve throughout the city. There was even the possibility to work an Episcopal church, Holy Comforter, that served people living with various mental illness, which is what I really wanted to do.
The supervisor got in touch with me and let me know that I hadn't got the position. I was very disappointed, but I had a back up plan ready to go.
When my mother heard what had happened, she immediately prayed to God. She has been praying especially hard for me that semester. This was due, in large part, to my undergoing Occupational Therapy after two surgeries on my hand, one when I was abroad in England and one once I got back home. My mother prayed and prayed for things to get better the whole time.
When I didn't get the summer position at TACC, my mom's prayer to God was this: "God, can't you give him a break?" Very soon after that prayer I got an email from TACC saying another person had dropped out and I was, in fact, being excepted into the program.
When I was telling my spiritual director this story, she told me how wonderful it was that my mother has this kind of relationship with God. She's absolutely right. This is, in fact, the relationship that God calls us and wants us to have with Him.
This is the kind of relationship that Jesus discusses and illustrates in the Parable of the Unjust Judge today. In the parable, a widow continues to come and demand justice from this unjust judge. She comes each and every day in order that he may hear her cry for justice.
Now this judge doesn't care about what happens. As Jesus tells us, he doesn't care what God or the people think. But he gets fed up with the woman's cry, and so he does exactly what she wants; he grants her justice.
This is exactly what God wants from us. God wants us to cry out to Him. God wants us to pester Him. God even gives us direct permission to do so in the words of Jesus Christ.
God wants us to pester Him with our prayers because God wants us to be in relationship with Him, and in a deep relationship at that. Our closest relationships involve talking with those we love each and every day for as often as we can. With God, we are in the presence of one who is never absent. We always have the opportunity to speak with God, and God wants us to do just that. God wants us to talk with Him as frequently as is possible for us.
When we pester God with our prayers it means that we are speaking to Him with great frequency. It means we are in deep relationship with God. Thank goodness for that!
Most of all, being in a deep relationship means we talk about all sorts of things, even seemingly small and insignificant things like what's our score on the newest app game we have or even what's for dinner tonight. God wants us to have those kind of conversations with Him too. What may seem trivial to us and what may seem disrespectful, like pestering the Lord night and day, means we have a close relationship with God. Through Jesus, God gives us permission to have those conversations and to have that relationship.
Most of all, God is asking us to have faith, that is to trust in the Lord. If we trust in God, we believe that God will answer our prayers even when it seems our tone or even our asking is, on the surface, disrespectful. Trust means believing God is listening and cares, even when we speak to God like we would a loved one or a friend. Trust is what relationships are built upon, and it is trust that builds our relationship with the Lord.
You want to know how to pray? Jesus tells you how to right here. Don't be afraid to put any thought, concern, or fear before God. Speak to God like you would a loved one. Speak to God as if you trust Him. Speak to God as if both of you are in a deep, abiding relationship.