Monday, October 23, 2007

Today’s text

Luke 18:1-8

Then Jesus told them a parable about the need to pray continually and never lose heart. “There was a judge in a certain town,” he said, “who had neither fear of God nor respect for anyone. In the same town there was also a widow who kept on coming to him and saying, ‘I want justice from you against my enemy!’ For a long time he refused, but at last he said to himself, ‘Even though I have neither fear of God nor respect for any human person, I must give this widow her just rights since she keeps pestering me, or she will come and slap me in the face.’” And the Lord said, “You notice what the unjust judge has to say? Now, will not God see justice done to his elect if they keep calling to him day and night even though he still delays to help them? I promise you, he will see justice done to them, and done speedily. But when the Son of Man comes, will he find any faith on earth?”

Prayer

You make me smile so early on a Monday, Jesus. Your words conjure a bag lady chasing a self-satisfied soul in a three-piece suit down the street. He trips along quickly as he can, looking over his shoulder, distress in his eyes, while she wields a brown paper bag of clothes and aluminum cans. She strains to catch up and bop him across the head, seeking to gain justice for herself.

The reversal of power and powerless is as ironic as it is pointed. Surely, I have no more power over you than the widow has over the judge, less in fact. But surely, God does not refuse mercy until I pound on heaven’s door to wake the divine majesty from underachieving lethargy.

For the Loving Mystery is as far removed from the self-serving judge as your heart is from mine, holy Jesus. Your mercy and justice soar to heights unknown by the wings of my imagination.

Yet, you urge me to pray and pray again, to enter the intimate relationship of holy longing with you who are Mercy Unbounded. You invite me to bring all that I am, not to win your attention or favor but simply that I might know you, who are the secret desire of every prayer.

So I come to you again and again, pounding on your door, not to wake you from slumber, for you neither slumber nor sleep. I return that the desire of my heart may find its final answer in you who are the fullness of the Fullness.

Pr. David L. Miller