Sermon for Pentecost 21

Genesis 32:3-8,22-30

21 October 2007

2 Timothy 3:14—4:5

(Proper 24, Year C)

Luke 18:1-8a

©by

The Rev. Robert E. Witt, Jr.

Psalm 121



    Last Sunday the appointed readings from Saint Luke’s Gospel began a discourse on something common to all of us.  The appointed readings began a discourse on Faith.  . . . I say that Faith is common to all of us because it is.  I know it’s tempting, from time to time, to think yourself impoverished or inadequately possessed of Faith, . . . but Jesus has said that none of us are.  . . . Because, you see, Faith is not the result of the effective operation of either the human mind or of the human will.  Faith is not the product of positive thinking, nor is it the outcome of focused energies.  Faith isn’t even the consequence of being particularly religious, although the regular worship of God makes Faith more accessible to us.  . . . This is because Faith is a grace; Faith is a grace which comes from God.  You have Faith because God gave it to you; . . . God gave you Faith like He gave you your five senses of sight and hearing and taste and touch and smelling.  And like your five senses, . . . Faith has a number of important functions essential to life:  . . . Faith saves, Faith strives, and Faith absolves.

    Last Sunday we looked at how Faith accomplishes the first of the vital functions essential to life; . . . we looked at the saving effect of Faith.  . . . We looked at the saving effect of Faith and discovered that Faith saves by evoking gratitude!  Faith evokes gratitude, and gratitude brings us into the Presence of God; . . . gratitude brings us into the sacred Presence of God, where we are bathed, body and soul, in the wholesomeness -- the shalom -- of God’s precious Being.  . . . And that is how Faith saves.  Faith saves us from death by bringing us into the Presence of Life.  . . . Your Faith, if you allow it to govern your soul and to discipline your mind and body; . . . your Faith makes you well, Jesus says.

    Today Saint Luke tells us what Jesus has to say about Faith’s second vital function essential to life; . . . today we hear about Faith’s striving.  . . . Jesus says that Faith is a little widow woman who appears every day before the local judge who neither fears God nor regards men, . . . but takes from the docket those cases which will provide the most lucrative fines . . . or which are accompanied by the most generous bribes.  . . . And yet, every morning Faith appears in court to cry out to the judge, “Vindicate me against my adversary.”  . . . Jesus goes on to say that for a little while the unrighteous judge will ignore Faith; . . . because her case involves neither great fines nor handsome bribes, the unjust judge will ignore Faith’s pleas.  . . . But it will not be many days, Jesus says, before the judge will hear the widow’s unprofitable case; . . . he will hear the case simply to be rid of the annoyance of Faith’s persistence.

    And we learn from this parable that a second function of Faith is to evoke prayer.  . . . But it is prayer of a particular character.  . . . The prayer of Faith strives with God.  . . . Now what do I mean by that?  . . . Well, Holy Scripture teaches us about prayer which strives with God in the portion of the Book of Genesis which it has been our privilege to hear today.

    As you will recall, the Lesson appointed is an account of one of the patriarchs.  He is a patriarch with a very peculiar name.  He is the patriarch named “Jacob,” a name which, in Hebrew, means “Cheat.”  . . . Now, Jacob was aptly named, because a cheat is exactly what he was.  Jacob was a cheat from the day of his birth.  Perhaps you remember the story:  Jacob is the twin of his brother Esau.  Jacob was not the first born, but he tried to be; . . . for when Esau was drawn from his mother’s womb, . . . Jacob came with him, clinging to his heel.  . . . And while Esau was an easy-going, trusting fellow, . . . Jacob was a schemer.  Jacob eventually, by bribery and by trickery, cheated Esau out of his right to inherit, and he made Esau his servant by cheating Esau out of his father’s patriarchal blessing.  . . . I said that Esau was an easy-going fellow, but after the blessing incident he lost his temper.  And fearing that Esau might kill him, Jacob fled the country.  . . . Today it is some twenty years later, and a rather prosperous Jacob (having cheated his father-in-law out of half his property) . . . a rather prosperous Jacob is on his way to Bethel with his entire family and all of his wealth.  . . . But then Jacob gets word that his brother Esau is heading toward him with a company of four hundred men.  And Holy Scripture says that Jacob “was greatly afraid and distressed.”  “The Cheat,” haunted these twenty years by the guilt of his crimes against his brother, and seeing that his shifty deceptions are about to catch up with him, . . . Jacob is “greatly afraid and distressed” because he is certain that he’s facing, not simply Esau’s revenge, . . . but God’s chastisement as well.

    And so, Jacob attempts to cheat even God.  He divides his riches into two companies.  The one is sacrificed to Esau, being sent directly at him as a kind of peace offering.  The other company, containing Jacob’s children and his two wives, . . . the other company Jacob sends off in another direction.  But he dares not go with them.  . . . Jacob cannot go with his wives and children lest Esau is not distracted by Jacob’s gift but presses on with the intent of catching Jacob himself.  And so, Jacob is left alone shivering in the night.  . . . Well, Jacob isn’t entirely alone.  God appears to Jacob in the night; . . . God appears to Jacob in the night, and Jacob strives with Him.  Hebrew Scripture likens it to a wrestling match.  God wrestles the obstinate and unyielding Jacob to the ground; . . . and yet, while Jacob cannot win, he refuses to release God.  Jacob obstinately clings to the One with Whom he strives.  And so, God asks Jacob his name, . . . and Jacob, clinging tightly to the One he fears, . . . Jacob confesses all of his sinful nature:  “My name is Jacob,” he says; . . . Jacob, The Cheat.  . . . But God says, “Your name shall no more be called Jacob, but Israel . . .”;  you shall no longer be The Cheat; you shall be Israel -- “he who strives with God”; . . . Israel, the man of prayer:  father of a nation; father of Twelve Tribes; ancestor of Moses who received God’s Holy Law and blessed our lives with the visible light of God’s commandments of love; . . . ancestor to Joseph who was husband to Mary, the Mother of Jesus -- Jesus by Whom we have been redeemed from sin, saved from death, and brought into the unseen glory of God’s eternal Life and Love.  All this because Jacob strove with God; . . . all this because Jacob prayed.  Jacob prayed, and the God of Abraham and Isaac redeemed Jacob and gave him a new nature.  He is no longer the same man; . . . he is no longer The Cheat, . . . but Jacob is a new man:  he is Israel . . . Man of Prayer.  . . . And then the Lord God does one thing more:  . . . the Lord God Almighty makes Israel His own:  God blesses Israel.  . . . What is one of the Old Testament names for God?  Do we not speak of The God of Israel?  Well this is the moment in which that particular Name for God came into being.  By His blessing, God makes Israel His own, and, by that blessing, God’s identity becomes inextricably united to Israel.  The God of Abraham and Isaac is now known as The God of Israel as well.  . . . By his striving and tenacious clinging to God, Jacob, who is now Israel, is blessed by God so that they are now united:  Israel . . . and The God of Israel.

    And so, . . . when Jesus tells us about the prayer which Faith evokes, . . . He is not instructing us to pester God, when we need something, until God gives it.  Oh no.  The prayer which Faith evokes is not about asking God for stuff.  When Jesus tells us about the prayer which Faith evokes, He is preparing us for the loneliness of shivering in the dark and wrestling with God.  . . . When Jesus tells us about the prayer which Faith evokes, He is preparing us to strive with God.  For, the prayer of Faith is one by which we encounter God.  The prayer of Faith clings to God and does not let go.

    . . . But, of course, Jesus says, . . . the God to Whom we cling is not an unjust judge.  The God to Whom we cling is a Father to us; . . . the God to Whom we cling is a Father Who loves us.  And so, the prayer of Faith clings to God so that He might continually cleans each of us by causing us to confess the shame that soils our name.  The prayer of Faith illumines each of us with the divine light that drives out darkness so that we might see our true nature; . . . so that we might know our real name; . . . our name that is precious to God -- the name that sings the music of the Divine Image which is the beauty of the being of each one of us.
    Faith evokes prayer which changes each of us; . . . which vindicates us, Jesus says.  Faith evokes prayer which strives with God and makes each of us holy.  Faith evokes prayer which, in the end, unites each one of us to the One True God to Whom we cling.


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