The Rev. Frank Logue
King of Peace Episcopal Church
Kingsland, Georgia
October 21, 2001

Persistent Prayer and the Silence of God
Luke 18: 1-8a

Perhaps it would be better if I said nothing at all. 

God is silent, therefore I speak. Week after week, God is silent, and I speak. That fact was brought home to me this week as I read Barbara Brown Taylor’s book, When God is Silent. She writes, “If God spoke directly to people, then preachers could retire. As it is, God’s reticence is the problem that clergy are hired to address.”  

I was drawn to Taylor’s book this week as I meditated on the scriptures for this Sunday, trying to decide what to say. I read through the lessons for the week. In The Old Testament, we get the story of Jacob wrestling with God in the flesh, having his name changed to Israel and receiving God’s blessing. What an odd story from our perspective. God does not seem quite so loquacious these days as the God of the Old Testament does. The prophet Amos predicted a time in the future when there would be a famine of hearing God’s word. Amos was right about that as people don’t seem to hear God speaking in a clear audible voice so much. They always seemed to hear God directly in the old days. Then there are the stories like this one of people encountering God in the flesh. It’s hard to relate to our day to day lives.  

So my choice as a preacher is to acknowledge the reading as scripture, pray that one day Jacob’s wrestling match with God will speak to me more directly and move on. That is a safe move. Sometimes a scripture that never meant much to me before can seem so fresh and relevant that it is astounding. So rather, than toss out the story of Jacob wrestling with God as outdated or wrong, I trust God and set it aside for the future. 

In Paul’s Second Letter to Timothy, I found many interesting sayings that could easily preach. But not quite sure where to go with them, I pushed on to the Gospel. There I read of a widow begging an unjust judge until he gives her justice. The saying is supposed to show how if even an unjust person might grant justice, how much more can we count on God to do so. I pause to consider the many injustices I have seen in the world and push on to read the Psalm. There in Psalm 121, I read the comforting words of how God will not let evil befall his children. Once again, I consider the world today and wonder how to preach that text with integrity.  

Left wondering how to apply the passages for this week to our lives, I ran for the solace of books. Scanning my bookshelf for the title I knew was hiding there somewhere, When God is Silent. Why not go looking for that book? If God were as talkative as I am, then I wouldn’t be in a bind to find words to speak this morning. I wouldn’t have to speak at all. There would be no need to go in to stories of a wrestling patriarch and an unjust judge. God could give us God’s own words for today. 

Instead, I have spent some hours this week thinking of God’s silence. Mostly the time has come in smaller bits of time as I drive here and there, or as I am trying to settle my mind to sleep at night. Here’s what I’ve been turning over in my head. Sometimes, I pray and those prayers seem to be answered quickly, easily, as if God is standing at the ready to do my bidding. Then other times I pray and pray to no avail. What am I doing right when God answers my prayers so quickly or what am I doing wrong when God fails to act the way I want God to act? These thoughts bring me back to the unjust judge. 

Luke tells us that Jesus told the story about the need to pray always and not lose heart. In the parable, a widow takes her case for vengeance to an unjust judge. Jewish law called for special concern for widows as they were powerless in society. In fact we find throughout scripture an emphasis on the importance of taking care of the outcasts, and others on the fringe of society. We see this concern in the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy, which says, “Cursed be anyone who deprives the alien or the orphan and the widow of justice” (Deut. 27:19). 

But the judge in this case doesn’t care about that curse, or particularly whether this widow ever sees justice. We have to assume that he is more interested in what the people in the cases he sees can do for him. How will he benefit from the verdict? The widow is incapable of bribing her way to justice. Instead, she wears the judge down by continually come back and demanding justice. The widow has nowhere else to go. There is no appeals court, no supreme court, not even a jury. There is only the unjust judge, so she hammers at him persistently. The Greek text of this passage is clearer about how the judge feels. The judge says literally, “because this widow beats me up, I will grant her justice lest in the end she comes to give me a black eye.” The woman is beating him up with her constant cries for justice, so he relents and is just in spite of himself. 

Jesus does not set up the simple equation “unjust judge equals God,” but rather opts for “God is greater than the unjust judge.” Therefore, if even an unjust judge will relent and grant justice when persistently approached how much more can you count on God to answer when you persistently pray? Maybe an even better equation is to say, “God is the opposite of the unjust judge.” For God’s law called for compassion for the powerless and the oppressed. Jesus said the kingdom of God was Good News for the poor and the oppressed and he was always working with people on the margins of society. God is compassionate, loving, and fair—everything the unjust judge is not. 

God is ready to respond with compassion for the needs of the downtrodden. We have to be faithful to keep lifting up those needs in prayer. But why? Will God forget about the need if we stop praying? Why do we have to pray anyway? Doesn’t God know our deepest thoughts before we give them voice? Yes, God does know the desires of our heart, but giving them voice is a way to make the needs real to us as to God.  

Sometimes we have to pray persistently because it is only after we have prayed and prayed that we will run out of our own words and be able to hear God in the silence. Usually I have to pray all I know how to pray before I can admit that I don’t have the answers to the problem. Then I can really turn it over to God, finally able to admit, “God I have no idea what to do about this problem, so I’ll just give it to you.” Then when the answer to prayer comes in the form of a different solution from what I first prayed for, I can see it as God working in spite of my first prayers. I have to let go of my answers to let God be God.  

This past January and February, we were up against the wall literally. We had fifty chairs over in the back corner for worship and one we had 52 bodies to put in them. I set about getting a building permit for the garage space and ran into lots of problems that slowed things down. I prayed and prayed for God to make a way for us to build out the garage. Finally, by the second week in March I had prayed myself out. I said, “God, I know we need more room, and I don’t know how to get it.”  

That week, three engineers were at King of Peace to look over the garage plans (all for free of course). When they advised that I start first by enclosing the porch, I knew enough to see God’s plan instead of waiting for things to happen the way I wanted them to happen. We started to work at once on the porch project. No sooner was that shorter project completed than the permit came through for the garage. Looking back on it, it is easy to see how we had to expand on the porch first and then build out the garage. Persistent prayer helped, but mostly in that I didn’t lose heart. What I did was lose confidence in my own solutions and turn the problem over to God in prayer. Once I let go, a miracle occurred and by April 7, just two weeks later, we had room for 67 people in worship and the much coveted building permit was in hand.  

Returning to God again and again in prayer is a way to rely on God for the solution. Perhaps, God has already set the gears in motion to answer your prayer. In any case, don’t stop praying. You are not going to bug God with your begging. Just keep bringing your needs to God. Be faithful in prayer and trust God to answer. 

God wants what is best for you. God might not want for you what you desire. God will probably not want it to happen on your timetable. But keep praying, for that is your communication line to God. Keep that link active and you will see what amazing things will happen.  

We may be in a famine for hearing God speak in a clear and audible voice, but I have experienced the power of prayer too many times to doubt that God hears and answers prayer. The key is to stop talking every once in a while long enough to hear if God is trying to get your attention. God is as present in the wait for an answer and the silence as God is present in the answer to prayer. Don’t lose heart.

Amen.