21 Pentecost Yr C

Many around the world spent intense hours this past week waiting with one another for the amazing rescue of the trapped workers in the bowels of a Chilean mine. We cheered and wept as one by one the miners and their rescuers were brought to safety. And yet, we can only wonder at the toll those hours, days, weeks, and months have taken on their bodies, their hearts, and their souls. We can’t imagine what life was like in the darkness of the mine; we can’t imagine the ebb and flow of hope and despair. We just can’t imagine.

And yet before us today is a similar story, a story of a people in exile. A story filled with the ebb and flow of hope and despair, a story of crying out to God for rescue, a story that speaks our truth into this so very real world. The power in the scriptures we hear today is that they reveal to us the truth. The truth of our lives, the truth of your life and my life, the truth of the lives of our parents and grandparents, the truth of the lives of our children and grandchildren. All of that truth is contained in what we have before us.

This is a story that not only speaks the truth of a people who came before us; it also speaks the truth of each and every one of us today. It speaks truth collectively and individually. That story may go something like this. Once upon a time there was a young woman, or a young man. This young man worked hard to go to school and get good grades. This young woman graduated from college and got busy working at her job. She was a business major; he caught on with a successful law firm. She worked her way into the management of her company. She fell in love and got married, they had two children. The bottom fell out of the market, they lost their house, they lost their income, they almost lost each other.

Nothing in their lives had prepared them for the difficulty of feeding and clothing their children, caring for each other, rising each morning in a world of lost dreams and despair. Nothing in our lives prepares us for the reality of suffering and loss. Nothing prepares us for the reality of the cruelty of others, whether that is epic like war, or personal, like violence and bullying. Nothing prepares us for the reality of the cruelty of nature, whether that is catastrophic like earthquakes and hurricanes, or the wind bringing a tree down on our house or car.

What gets us through pain and suffering, catastrophe and heartache? What gets me through is that I am formed by this story. I remember this story. I can find myself in this story. A story of a people who had a claim on God. Who believed that God chose them. These people, Israelites they were called, had pursued wealth and power. They were divided into two kingdoms under two different Kings, until they were finally exiled to a foreign place. The chosen people lived in the foreign place, Babylonia, for hundreds of years, until there began to be no memory of live as it had been, life in the promised land. And yet there was a glimmer of the story, a glimmer of hope. Those people didn’t think life could get any worse, the suffering and the shame was immense.

But the wise ones among them kept reminding them of the God who promised to always be with them. They cried out to God, where are you? And they turned to the God who had given them life, who had created them, and who had blessed them.

The story of Israel and Judah that reaches a hopeful place in Jeremiah today is our story. Each one of us asks the question in the midst of our suffering, sadness, grief, where are you God? Why did you leave me, right when I need you? There is so much darkness around me, I can’t feel you, you don’t answer my prayer, you don’t do what I want you to do. What am I supposed to do? Who am I supposed to be?

The people for whom the letter of Timothy was written, the people who originally heard the story of Jesus in Luke, all knew the story of their people, the story of exodus and exile. The story of pain and suffering, of heartache and chaos. They internalized the word of God as we too internalize the word of God. All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, it says in Timothy today, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work. Internalizing scripture, knowing these stories, is what gives us hope and joy in troubled times. It is what carries us and accompanies us always, in the good times and the hard times. We must know who we are so that we may act accordingly, and scripture helps us know that.

And lastly in Luke we hear, pray always, do not loose heart. I trust these words because of the truth of the story. Do not loose heart, pray always. Do not loose heart, those are words that surely are hard to hear in the midst of our darkness, under ground in a mine, or underground in my soul. They speak of persistence in prayer. Pray always, how do we do that? My favorite author, Madeleine L’engle is the one from whom I learned that there is no excuse for not praying, and there is no excuse for not praying morning prayer. She says you can pray morning prayer anywhere, even in the bathroom while you’re getting ready for your day. Unceasing prayer is like that. And when you begin to pray at all times and in all places, your prayer begins to change you. When we persistently pray, what happens is that our prayer turns us outward, it may begin with our own wants and needs, but unceasing prayer by its very nature turns outward, it turns us toward justice.

Let’s just see. Let’s say I’m praying while I’m going for my morning walk. It’s a very good time for me to pray. Another good time for me to pray is while I’m doing the dishes, or driving the car, or waiting in line at Walmart, you get the idea. So I’m going for my morning walk, and often I begin with the Anglican rosary prayers that I like, and then I begin praying for people who have asked for my prayers, and then for people whom I need to pray for whether they’ve asked me to or not, and interspersed in all of that is prayers for me and what is going on in my own life are the many blessings and thanksgivings. By the time I’ve finished walking, I’ve come across a new idea, or someone who I need to contact has popped into my mind, or a problem has been solved, and my problems and needs, the perceived inconveniences and hardships of my life creep into the background as I become aware of the work of justice and reconciliation that God calls me to.

And that is what I think Luke is saying with this widow’s story today. Justice and reconciliation arise out of persistent, unceasing prayer that is grounded in scripture. Prayer changes us. Maybe that’s why it’s so hard for folks to pray. Prayer changes us. We begin to hear and see more clearly the injustice and suffering of our world. But we believe in a God who loves us, a God who came to be on this earth as one of us, who lived, loved, suffered and died just like we do, and so we are not disheartened by our prayer, instead we build this supportive community where people can sustain the crying day and night and not lose heart, where we do not tune out, but live in hope and with a sense of trust that does not make us feel like we have to carry the whole world on our shoulders. For facing the pain of the world, facing the pain of our own heartache is, indeed, a crushing experience which most of us cannot bear and which, without support and acceptance we will inevitably either deny or ourselves become part of the hopelessness.

Unceasing prayer helps us also to know that we are not God and do not have to be God, and that we are not alone. Unceasing prayer helps us to know that faith and hope are possible. The widow shows us that justice arises from unceasing prayer, and that together we have all we need to change ourselves and to change the world.

Amen.