Pentecost XX Year C

Genesis 32:3-8,22-30
2 Timothy 3:14-4:5
Luke 18:1-8a

+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

When you ride the subway, every now and then, a beautiful thing will happen on a crowded train: a man will rise from his seat and ask a woman to take his seat. When I see it, it makes my day. Our manners generally have become so utilitarian and spare, often focused more on our own comfort than others. It's lovely and heartening, and even romantic, when we see, or do, a minor act of chivalry - a little majestic moment breaking into the ordinary. I think that it also has a lot to do with why we love the worship here - majesty breaking into the ordinary.

Thirty years ago, Dr. Stanley Milgram, a psychology professor, conducted an experiment in the New York subway. ⁽¹⁾ He had his students board a crowded train and ask someone for their seat. It seems like a simple assignment, but it wasn't. The students found it extremely traumatic; they became nauseous and weak. One student recently recalled, "I was afraid I was going to throw up." Another student recalled, "I start to ask for this man's seat. Unfortunately I turned so white and so faint, he jumps up and puts me in the seat."

Dr. Milgram dismissed his students fears, but then tried it himself. When he approached his first seated passenger, he froze. "The words seemed lodged in my trachea and would simply not emerge." After several unsuccessful attempts, he finally choked out a request. When the man gave up his seat and Milgram sat down, Milgram says, "My head sank between my knees, and I could feel my face blanching. I was not role-playing. I actually felt as if I were going to perish."

One student reduced his anxiety by slipping them a note afterward explaining they had just participated in a psychology experiment. Communicating with people, trying to give others a full picture, a better understanding, improves our relationships. It promotes unity and peace.

One of the male students asked an elderly woman for her seat. She responded, "If I were standing and you were sitting, I think it'd be very reasonable to ask you for your seat, but I'm not going to give you my seat." The elderly woman didn't give up her seat, but the man seated next to her felt so embarrassed for the student that he gave up his seat.

The experiment, however, was not supposed to be about Milgram and his students. What percentage of people do you think gave up their seats? Milgram was astonished that when asked directly, 68 percent of people got up willingly.

Two things in particular struck me about what this story tell us about human beings. First, we have a lot of anxiety about asking for things, about communicating with other people. It's hard to ask for something, but once we do, things often change and improve. So there's a lot of power simply in asking, in communicating with someone; it's important to ask for things and to talk to people. Second, we have very little faith in people. We aren't eager to trust them, and we don't want to rely upon them, and that is especially true if we don't know them, if we don't have a relationship with them.

Today's gospel has everything to do about these human qualities. S. Luke summarizes Jesus message: we ought to pray always and not lose heart. We have to be persistent in prayer, continually asking God for his help, continually talking to him. Jesus tells us, "Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you." (Lk 11:9) Those of us who have been persistent in asking and seeking and knocking know that our prayers are answered, and the answer is usually not exactly what we want, but what we need. Prayer is hard work, continual asking, seeking, knocking, waiting, becoming frustrated, growing weary, questioning yourself. It's not for dilettantes or the faint-hearted. Prayer is not about getting what you want from a your personal genie.

At a meeting to confront some unfair and oppressive conditions in our society, an elderly black minister read this parable and explained, "Until you have stood for years knocking at a locked door, your knuckles bleeding, you do not really know what prayer is." ⁽²⁾ And that's what we see in Christ's own life. Luke tells us that Jesus would pray all night, and in the Garden of Gethsemane Jesus prayed in agony, "and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling upon the ground." (Lk 22:44)

Jesus told the parable of the unjust judge to encourage us to pray with fervor and resolve and persistence. The widow in the parable represents helpless, vulnerable people. In ancient Israel, widows had no property rights and few legal rights. They were left to the care of family members or friends, if they had any. They were allowed to glean the leftovers of a field after the harvest. It was a tough life - certainly unjust according to our values.

The Old Testament teaches repeatedly that judges are supposed to be advocates of the weak: orphans, widows, foreigners, the poor, the victims of the strong and powerful. Jesus also says that his followers have a responsibility to care for the weak, the neglected, the persecuted, the helpless, and to stand up and confront all of the common injustices against them.

The judge in the parable is not an honorable man, having no regard for God or other people and not having any signs of a conscience. He is not interested in justice or in his responsibilities toward the weak. He is interested in himself, his comfort and well-being; he is selfish and cruel.

Jesus' parables in Luke's gospel are full of surprises and ambiguities. They're not simple, moralistic, black and white teachings. They make us think and challenge our conventionality. They alert us to the nuance and subtleties of life. They keep us from being smug. They enourage us take responsibility for our faith.

Who do we instinctively identify with in this parable? The widow. And God is the judge. But that doesn't make sense. God is loving and merciful, wholly giving of himself, whose very nature is love. Each one of us is more like the judge. Not only do we occasionally behave selfishly, but we're relatively powerful, relatively wealthy. Most of us are not in poverty. Most of us could get a lawyer if we needed one. Most of us are nowhere near as vulnerable and desperate as the widow.

While we shouldn't assume that we are already like the widow, Jesus wants us to become like the widow. The selfish, cruel judge eventually does what the widow wants because she is persistent, because she pesters him. Jesus wants us to pray with this kind of determination and commitment. The sleazy judge eventually does the right thing, albeit for the wrong reason. If a corrupt, evil man will do the right thing, we expect infinitely more from our merciful and loving God. Jesus asked his disciples, "What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!" (Lk 11:11-13)

The most important thing that makes for good relationships is communication. Good marriages, good friendships, come from communication. It's no accident that the word 'communication' is so similar to 'communion.' Talking to people fosters communion, unity. We should talk to God and pester him with our concerns not so much to get our way, but to have fuller union with him, to know him better, to allow him to be a bigger part of our lives. There's power in prayer because it unites us with God, because it develops our relationship with God.

Wednesday night at the catechumenate we chatted briefly about the difference between knowing about the faith and having faith. We can be extremely knowledgeable about the faith, know what's right and wrong, knowing the intricacies of the Church's doctrine, but still be devoid of faith. Jesus wants us to have faith, to trust God, to rely upon him. That is far more important than having all the right opinions about doctrine. That is the primary goal of our spiritual lives.

Faith, trust of God, comes from developing a relationship with him, and just like with human beings, developing a relationship takes some effort on our part. We have to make a commitment; we have to give of ourselves; we have to risk something. When we pray, we are making an act of faith, we are witnessing to the reality of God and to his love for us. We're implicitly saying, "God is here for me. He hears me, and he's concerned about me and loves me."

Many of us are fortunate that our faith has been strengthened by experiencing God in our worship here. But a lively faith is more than God coming to us. It requires us to go to him. It requires our perseverance and tenacity, repeatedly asking, seeking, knocking. Like the widow, we have to make an effort to remain engaged with God, to respond to his goodness, to keep the doors of our hearts and minds open for him. That means talking to him and looking for his surprising and often upsetting presence in our lives. Jesus says, "Pray always and don't lose heart." If we pray, if we don't lose heart, if we trust God, he changes us and the world.

+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

1. Michael Luo, 'Excuse Me: May I Have Your Seat,' The New York Times, 14 September 2004. A couple reporters for The New York Times recently tried the experiment again. (Anthony Ramirez and Jennifer Medina, 'Seeking a Favor, and Finding it, Among the Strangers on a Train,' The New York Times, 14 September 2004.) Their less scientific survey found that 13 of 15 people gave up their seats. While some "were theatrically welcoming: one man gestured as if he were a maitre d' motioning to a table," others were more reluctant: "A construction worker looked as if he would refuse to give up his seat, and after long reflection muttered out loud, 'If you were a woman, then. . . .' But he, too, gave up his seat to a male reporter. A nearby man commented profanely on how much 'crazy' stuff he had seen on the subway.

2. This quote, and paragraph and some of the ideas in the preceding paragraph, is from Fred B. Craddock, Luke, John Knox Press (1990), p. 210.