Lenten Midweek 5 – March 20th, 2024
Trinity Ev. Lutheran Church, Paola, Kansas
Rev. Joshua Woelmer
Text: Luke 18:1–8
“Answers in Christ”
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
When talking about prayer, most people want to skip to this part of it: how God answers prayer. It’s also the reason I left it for last. It’s kinda like how people want to be millionaires, but they don’t want to put in the work to earn that million dollars. They want to get it the “easy way” or the illegal way. One phrase we use to describe this is “putting the cart before the horse.” I guess in modern contexts that would be “putting the trailer in front of the pickup.”
Here’s the thing: everything that we have been looking at this Lent feeds into God’s answer to prayer.
Here’s what I mean. Our first Lenten service we looked at the invitation to pray to a Heavenly Father. Whether the answer to our prayer is yes or no or not yet, we should know that God loves and cares for us despite the precise answer to our prayer. When He says “yes” to our prayer, He is good. When He says “no” to our prayer, He is good, and He is inviting us to continue in faith and prayer. When He says, “I have something better planned for you,” He is teaching us to seek His will. When He says “not yet,” he is inviting us to be patient children who rely on Him for everything.
But being patient doesn’t mean that you are doing nothing. In fact, Jesus gives us “a parable to the effect that [we] ought always to pray and not lose heart” (1). The gist of this parable is that there is a hard-hearted just who doesn’t care about anybody—God or man. A widow wants justice against some adversary—the problem itself isn’t important for us to know in this instance. Her problem is not that some guy is cheating or not paying rent for farmland or anything else. Her problem is this judge who won’t listen to her case. Back in those days, and even in some places of the world today, you don’t get anywhere without bribes. This judge was probably no different. He knew he wouldn’t get any bribes from this widow, so why should he bother himself to hear her case?
But here’s another idiom for you: “The squeaky wheel gets the grease.” And yet, the emphasis of this parable is that she “kept coming to him” (3) so much that he said to himself, “yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming” (5). This parable is probably amusing to us because we may know of people who are like this—persistent to the point of annoyance. But that’s also good. Why? Because God approves of patience and persistence being understood together.
Persistent requests without patience is just trying to get your own way on your own time. Patience without persistent requests might be ignoring how God actually wants to work in your life through prayer.
God, after all, is not a giant gumball machine in the sky who gives you a treat for every quarter that you put in. We should not see prayer or works or any goodness in us as quarters that we’ve got to feed into the slot to get something back from God. I was at the car wash the other day, and I used the manual car wash where you’ve got to feed it quarters. I thought it only needed six quarters, so I fed those in, and then it said I needed fifty more cents. So I had to go back in the car, get two more quarters, and feed them in before I could wash my car. The carwash wouldn’t start until I had done that.
That’s not how God acts. He doesn’t say, “Two more quarters, and then I’ll answer your prayer.” Nor is he like the wicked judge who is only beaten down by the persistent widow’s constant nagging.
God tells us, “And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? I tell you, [God] will give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” (7–8). Although that word “speedily” may not be according to our timetable, “I want justice NOW!”—God will answer the prayers of widows and all those in need. He does hear your prayer. He will answer it, in His own time and by His own will.
Sometimes that means that God will grant us unbelievable results that we could perhaps call miracles. My uncle, for example, underwent treatments for lung cancer. The doctors gave him a 5% chance of survival. But he did go into remission, for another four years or so before it came back and took his life. But that was another four years with his young children. It was another four years with his wife and family. Did God answer his prayers? Yes, with what the doctors were calling a miracle. Did God take my Uncle Nathan to a better home in the end and answer his prayers to “deliver us from evil”? Yes. As a Pastor, I do see amazing answers to prayer. I also see some prayers that are not answered in the way that people were expecting. But above all else, I am thankful for faith on this earth that trusts in the Son of Man throughout all the trials and tribulations of this world.
So as we pray to God persistently and patiently, we can continue to pattern our prayer after the Lord’s Prayer. We can pray to him prayers of thanksgiving, confession, intercession, requests, and praise—for there are many prayers that are answered speedily by God. If you pray for forgiveness, He gives it to you in the asking. If you pray that God’s kingdom would come and His will be done in your life, God is swift to do that for you.
So my final encouragement is this: find time to pray. Be persistent and patient in your prayers. Pray with your family, and pray by yourself. “Pray without ceasing” (1 Thess 5:17).
Now may the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Amen.
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