Christ the King Epiphany Church, Wilbraham

The Rev. Martha S. Sipe

October 19, 2025 / Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost / Lectionary 29C

Luke 18:1-8

Pray always and don’t lose heart.  

There is, my friends, so much to pray about, and it is so difficult not to lose heart.  According to a report published this week, the planet has now reached its first tipping point for climate change because of the conditions on warm-water coral reefs.  Although a shaky ceasefire might hold in Gaza, nevertheless the UN estimates that 90% of the buildings in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed and predicts the cost of reconstruction at $70 billion.  Here in the U.S., our government which has really not been functioning well of late seems to have stopped functioning altogether.  And even if we buried our heads in the sand and refused to watch or read or listen to any news about the condition of the earth or the plight of Gaza or the government shut-down, there are all the little things – little things only in the big scheme of things, but huge issues in our own individual lives – financial strains, declining health, relationship issues, the ever-present and loudening hum of stress . . ..  These are the times 

in which we live and the struggles we face.  It’s very disheartening.

But Jesus, in his parable, suggests a strategy for not losing heart:  prayer.  And not just prayer in church or before a meal or when we get up or go to bed – though those are all excellent times for prayer – but persistent prayer.  This is what Jesus seems to have in mind when he tells the parable about the widow and the judge.  The widow keeps pestering the judge to decide a case in her favor.  And even though the judge is an unfair and ungodly one, he finally gives the widow what she wants because she has been so persistent in asking.  Jesus’ point:  If an unjust judge will grant the request of a powerless widow, how much more is God, who is faithful and just, ready and willing to give us what we truly need? (Repeat?)  We should be as persistent as that widow in our asking.

And so what I’m suggesting is this:  that we all keep on praying, persistently, for the things that are on our minds.  We are called to pray for the health of our planet.  We are called to pray for the people of Gaza.  We are called to pray for our nation’s leaders.  And we are called to pray always for people in need.  

But to pray always “does not mean giving God a to do list and then sitting back expecting God to magically fix everything.  To pray always means that we offer our cry to God and then we do whatever we can to bring about the change we seek trusting that God also is already doing what God needs to do.  Maybe that means we seek counseling or a support group.  We feed the hungry.  We offer compassion to the grieving.  We speak and teach against hatred and prejudice, respecting the dignity of every human being.  We strive for justice and peace.  We make our case not just before God but with God.  We join God in answering our prayer.”[1]

We join God in answering our prayer.  Here’s a real-life illustration.  These hats and scarves and gloves and mittens are prayers for the children of the Benjamin Swan School in Springfield, nearly all of whom are from low-income families (according to the donorchoose website).  No matter how we may feel about the root causes of poverty, no matter what we may believe about the socio-economic and political dimensions of the issues of poverty, we can all agree that it is not children’s fault that they lack sufficient protection against the cold.  And so we regularly remember the poor, and children, and especially poor children in our prayers, both here as a collective body at worship and I imagine also in our individual prayers.  We “offer our cry to God and then we do whatever we can to bring about the change we seek . . . [like donating hats and mittens] . . . trusting that God also is already doing what God needs to do.”  We persist in our prayers – both in our asking, and in our doing.

And all the while, our trust in God’s activity keeps us from losing heart.  We persevere.  As Christians, we are a little like the Peanuts gang.  Charles Schulz, the creator of Peanuts, once wrote:  “All the loves in the [comic] strip are unrequited; all the baseball games are lost; all the test scores are D-minuses; the Great Pumpkin never comes; and the football is always pulled away.”  “But Peanuts wasn’t really about failure,” wrote Boston Globe columnist Ellen Goodman.  “It was about perseverance.  It was about a hopeful moon-faced boy holding a kite string, day after day, until the rain forced him indoors.  It was about his characters’ perseverance.”[2]  Jesus understands that we are not going to be perfect in this life – not in our prayers, and not in the way we respond to the brokenness of the world.  He only asks that we try to be like Charlie Brown – that we keep trying, that we keep asking for God’s help, that we keep listening for how the Holy Spirit is nudging us.  For when we are asking and listening and responding, then we remain connected to Jesus.  And as long as we are connected to him, we have reason to hope.  We need not lose heart.

I don’t know what the future holds for any of us.  I don’t know the answers to any of the weighty questions and problems that we face.  But I do know that when the Son of Man comes, I hope he will find us all faithful – praying persistently, listening to hear God’s call to action, and trusting enough to follow.  All these things we can do, through the power of God which strengthens us. 

[1] https://interruptingthesilence.com/2010/10/18/overruling-the-unjust-judge-a-sermon-on-luke-181-8/

[2] https://www.deseret.com/2000/2/18/19491517/schulz-s-life-enthroned-perseverance-love-of-work/