PROPER 24 (29)Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost Year C October 16, 2022
· Jeremiah
31:27-34 and Psalm
119:97-104 • 2
Timothy 3:10-4:5 • Luke 18:1-14
Perseverance and resilience are traits
that are talked about often in education settings. They are talked about because these are
needed for success and are often lacking in our children. It needs to be explicitly taught and
encouraged constantly. It seems to me
that this same encouragement is given to us through the readings today.
What is perseverance? The dictionary describes it as: persistence
in doing something despite difficulty or delay in achieving success.
Steadfastness. Continued effort to do or achieve
something despite difficulties, failure, or opposition.
Jesus uses a parable to show us what
perseverance looks like and he explains that there was a woman who wanted
justice. She kept going to the Judge
with her plea. She didn’t give up. And because of her perseverance alone, she
received her justice.
Actually, Perseverance is endurance
and hope. In another letter from Saint
Paul (1 Corinthians 13), perseverance is spoken about as an aspect of love; “Love
does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes,
always perseveres.
So much of our faith is about
persevering. We know that we have a God
who loves us and declares good for us, but we live in a fallen world where evil
and destruction are realities. We
persevere because we believe and we have hope… we persevere because we have
faith.
Saint Paul writes to Timothy, “You, however, know all about my teaching, my
way of life, my purpose, faith, patience, love, endurance, persecutions,
sufferings—what kinds of things happened to me in Antioch, Iconium and Lystra,
the persecutions I endured. Yet the Lord rescued me from all of them. In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly
life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted…”
Saint Paul persevered through all kinds of difficult situations because
he was sure about his faith and sure of his salvation in Christ. Remember Saint Paul’s conversion. It was dramatic and he knew, beyond any
shadow of a doubt, that God was who Jesus declared himself to be. Therefore, Saint Paul was prepared to bear
all kinds of unpleasantness. Saint Paul
knew the message of Christ to be worth all and any suffering.
The message of the cross is that all
who are unworthy, and cry to God for mercy, are shown mercy. They are loved and accepted. Our Gospel reading tells us of the Tax
collector who came to God and beat his breast saying, “God have mercy on me a
sinner.”
The Pharisee, in our Gospel reading,
is unaware of his sin before God. (Sin
is simply falling short of perfection). The
Pharisee goes through the motions of faith and accomplishes all that his
religion declares is proper - he feels
righteous because of the things he does - and yet the man who comes in honesty
before God, who asks for mercy, is the one who is right before God.
Where are we in this story of
faith? Do we understand that we all, are
people who fall and are in need of God’s mercy?
Are we aware of how much God loves us?
Do we have the perseverance that comes knowing from knowing God’s love
and being sure of our faith?
Jeremiah was a prophet who
persevered. He endured much suffering
to declare his message, but he continued to proclaim God’s message, knowing Gods
love and that God is the ultimate reality.
In the days of Jeremiah, it was
considered that if you were born with an ailment it was because of the sin of
your parents. There are family problems
that get passed down. We see this, in
genetic disorders. We also see this in
family feuds that carry on over generations, and abuses that continue down the
lines. Jeremiah declares that a new
covenant is coming when each of us will be responsible for our own sin.
Upon reflection, we can see the sins
of the parents operating today. When we,
as a community, say sorry for things like the “Stolen Generation”, this is acknowledging
and bearing the sins of generations before us.
Yet each of us are called to take responsibility for our own actions,
and end the curse by entering into the new covenant.
I suspect, if you are like me, you
are a “New Testament” Christian, not blaming sickness or bad luck etc on
someone’s ancestors, but truth of the matter is ALL of us (if we are not in the
new covenant) are under the curse of our ancestor. As a race, the Bible explains that we are all
children of Adam and bear the consequence of his sin. And all of the earth has also been subject to
decay due to that sin.
In the new covenant, we are still
living in that fallen world, but we are free from that curse and free from that
consequence – at least spiritually. We
have the promise of a future that is free from that curse. Unfortunately, while we live in this physical
body we will always struggle and experience the difficulties of the fallen life. This is why we need to be encouraged to have perseverance.
Whenever I read the Gospel story
about the persistent woman I am a little uncomfortable. There are some who pray and pray and pray and
it seems that their prayers go unanswered.
Is God even harder than the godless and heartless judge? No, of course not. Check out the Bible text; “And will not God bring about justice for his
chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice,
and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the
earth?”
God answers us quickly. The woman was persistent with the judge
because the judge didn’t really care about her and she needed to let him know
that she would not let up until he did something about it. God DOES care about us. He cared so much that he suffered and died
for us. In comparison, God is nothing
like the judge. He acts swiftly and not
because we nag him. We do not have to
nag him, but we do need to be persistent in prayer because there are powers and
principalities operating that we can not see.
Our prayers and our persistence are a sign to those powers and
principalities, that we continue to trust in God, regardless that we can’t see
the answer. Our persistence is a sign of
our faith. Just this week I saw a man
wearing a shirt that said, “My head was bowed and the devil thought he’d won,
until he heard me say, “Amen”.”
There is a little sentence in the
midst of our reading we mustn’t overlook – “When the Son of Man comes, will he
find faith on the earth?” I believe this
needs to be our take away message to ponder for this week.
How can we, the Church, ensure that
there will be faith on the earth when Jesus returns? We need to have perseverance to continue
proclaiming the Good News about Jesus Christ.
In my time in ministry through Street Chaplaincy, I have come to realize
that proclaiming the Good News can only happen by actions. We can’t reason with an intoxicated person,
but we can show love by our actions.
This ministry has also taught me that proclaiming the Good News is not a
sprint, but a marathon. Endurance is
needed.
Many times, I have felt called to try
and make a space where we can encourage faith more tangibly, and so street
Chaplaincy had a time of contemplative prayer.
At another time we had a Bible study.
Another time we ran a prayer workshop. At each activity I felt like it was a flame in
a vacuum. People were encouraged and
then it stopped. Some would say, it
wasn’t the right time. Others might say,
it was not what God was calling us to do.
But these judgments are wrong. We
are always called to go and proclaim the Good News and make disciples. Always.
What activity should we do next?
It doesn’t matter the form, but proclaiming the Gospel and making
disciples is our call… we must persevere.
We live in a physical world, but
there is a most definite spiritual realm.
In that spiritual realm are forces that are good and some that are not
so. The Bible calls them Powers and
Principalities. Sometimes these Powers
and Principalities cause the “ground” where we work to be hard. When we persevere, we are making a statement
in the spiritual realm and we are claiming the ground. No act is pointless, but I believe that we
are doing a vital spiritual activity of breaking ground and declaring faith to
those Powers and Principalities.
I have a garden that has dreadful
soil. I chip away at it and slowly it
improves – by hard and constant work. If
I give up and think it is too hard, I have to start from scratch. This is the same with the ground we are
working as we proclaim the Good News. We
need to persevere.
You know, on Good Friday the ministry
of Jesus looked like it failed. Even
after the resurrection, only those close disciples were encouraged. Even those, probably thought things could
have been done differently, so that the ministry could be seen as undeniably
victorious. But God had other
plans. Faith is proved in our
perseverance in the face of difficulties and when all looks grim.
That being said, we all need
encouragement to keep us persevering and so, I’d like to share something that
was posted on a facebook group that encouraged me; Kimberly Anne Steven posted; “I met Christ
for a short bit when sick with Covid and pneumonia. He is real.
He is amazing. He loves us so
much! He can’t wait for us to be with
him. He has so much for us- he is
preparing our place and he told me it’s beyond anything we can ever
imagine. Have faith. I met him and he is the King. His robe glows with perfection and his sinless
nature. He knew me and removed my sin as
soon as I felt it in his presence as he walked towards me from his throne. I was wearing a beautiful heavenly gown. I felt my body was still there, a spiritual
body that was a young adult and perfect.
I walked with him and a huge group of people. I felt spirits all around me. He spoke into me. I felt and heard the joy in the place I went
to. It’s real. Don’t ever doubt Jesus,
He is absolutely real.”
What the persistent woman story is
really about, is encouragement to persevere and reassurance that God hears and
cares for everything that concerns us. The
times are truly difficult, and we need to persevere. We need to show that we will be standing firm
regardless of what is around us.
We can persevere when we know the
goodness, the love and the reality of God.
We grow in faith and perseverance by going to church, reading the
scriptures and praying. We mustn’t give up. All that we do to proclaim the Good News in our
own life and to others, encourages faith.
We must continue and continue and continue. Otherwise, will Jesus find faith on the earth
when he returns?
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