Persistent, Pestering Prayer

'The LORD said to Abraham, "How great is the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah and how very grave their sin! I must go down and see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry that has come to me; and if not, I will know."

So the men turned from there, and went toward Sodom, while Abraham remained standing before the LORD. Then Abraham came near and said, "Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city; will you then sweep away the place and not forgive it for the fifty righteous who are in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?" And the LORD said, "If I find at Sodom fifty righteous in the city, I will forgive the whole place for their sake." Abraham answered, "Let me take it upon myself to speak to the Lord, I who am but dust and ashes. Suppose five of the fifty righteous are lacking? Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five?" And he said, "I will not destroy it if I find forty-five there." Again he spoke to him, "Suppose forty are found there." He answered, "For the sake of forty I will not do it." Then he said, "Oh do not let the Lord be angry if I speak. Suppose thirty are found there." He answered, "I will not do it, if I find thirty there." He said, "Let me take it upon myself to speak to the Lord. Suppose twenty are found there." He answered, "For the sake of twenty I will not destroy it." Then he said, "Oh do not let the Lord be angry if I speak just once more. Suppose ten are found there." He answered, "For the sake of ten I will not destroy it."'

--Genesis 18: 20-32

'Jesus was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples." He said to them, "When you pray, say:

Father, hallowed be your name.

Your kingdom come.

Give us each day our daily bread.

And forgive us our sins,

for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.

And do not bring us to the time of trial."

And he said to them, "Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say to him, `Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.' And he answers from within, `Do not bother me; the door has already been locked, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.' I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, at least because of his persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs.

"So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish? Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!"'

--Luke 11: 1-13

What is the first prayer that you ever learned? I remember mine, which hung on the wall of my bedroom from the time of my birth until I left for seminary. “Now I lay me down to sleep; I pray the Lord my soul to keep; If I should die before I wake; I pray the Lord my soul to take. Amen.” My mother and my dog prayed that little prayer with me every night, it seemed, for the first 10 years or so of my life. How sound the theology was never entered my mind, it just made me feel a closeness to God. It gave me words to say at a time when I scarcely had any of my own.

My first prayer.

As I got older my father introduced me to another form of prayer: Compline, which he had first learned in camp settings in the 1970s. He and I would pray that Office, which is on page 127 of our Prayer Book, during my tween and teenage years, until it got so deep in my bones that I had it memorized. In both of those cases, prayer was intentional, it was repetitive to the point of becoming firmly a part of my being, and, perhaps most importantly, it was modeled for me by the people who loved me. 

Humans are memetic, like all of God’s creatures, we learn by observing and mimicking others, particularly our elders. If we want to learn a principle for just about anything, it helps to look for someone who lives it. Why should prayer be any different? When one of the disciples asks Jesus to pray, it is most likely because that person has noticed Jesus spending time alone, praying.  While familiar with John the Baptist’s teaching about prayer – which, according to some scholars, Jesus knew well, because he may have been a disciple of John himself – this disciple of Jesus has not been able to make a beginning, to start praying on their own. They still stand in that dark and silent space of wanting to pray but being unable to do so, that wide gap between desiring and doing.

How relieved that disciple must have been – and perhaps how relieved we are – to hear Jesus say confidently, as though everyone within earshot will understand, “Here’s how you do it!” The outline he gives is simple: ask for God’s way of doing things to become our way; ask for everyone’s daily needs to be met; ask to be forgiven and to forgive others; and then ask for the strength to resist any of the temptations that tug us away from all of this. And to get us in a right mindset, Jesus has us not address God as some kind of “divine you up there,” far away and unknowable, but to address God as a child addresses a parent. Jesus used “Abba!” which means Father; you may have a different word. Whatever that may be, the rationale is pretty sound, that prayer begins with the hopeful, innocent, curious heart of a child reaching out to a loving parent. 

This so-called Lord’s Prayer, which appears here and in the Gospel of Matthew as part of the Sermon on the Mount, gives us not just a handy dandy prayer to go to when all others escape us, but it also provides the model for every prayer that we make. It’s relational – addressing God in a direct and familial manner – it asks only for what is needed right now, nothing more, and it is rooted in God’s goodness and mercy. What it is not is a cosmic vending machine, whereby Jesus shows us the right combination of words to get the thing from God. Nor is it a magic potion – a dab of this and a pinch of that – which, when done in a precise manner, will accomplish exactly what we want or need. This prayer calls all who pray it away from individualistic notions of God’s provision and places us right in the midst of God’s self-giving love. This prayer, all prayer, Jesus shows us, is relationship. It’s also persistent. 

Look at Abraham, who has a very persistent relationship with God. Due to their egregious sins – those being the lack of hospitality and the neglect of the poor, the widows, and the resident aliens in their land – the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah are being marked for destruction. Abraham, though, knowing that God would never smite an entire people if there were any righteous and good-hearted folks in their midst, pleads on their behalf, pestering God. “What if there are 50 good people? Will you spare everyone?” God says yes. What about 40? 30? 20? 10? Yes, yes, yes, and yes, God will spare them. Abraham is persistent in his prayer for God’s mercy. The negotiating ends there, but we can infer that it went all the way down to Abraham making his plea for God to spare both cities, even if there was but one single good person there. 

Abraham pleads for Sodom and Gomorrah

This gets paired with Jesus using two parables to illustrate the nature of prayer to his disciples: prayer is like a man who keeps knocking on the door of his friend’s house at midnight with a great need; he keeps knocking and knocking until finally the friend gets up to help. Furthermore, prayer for adults is no different than a child who asks for a fish or an egg from their parent. No one would willingly give their child a snake or a scorpion instead, so it is with God, who hears us and does not give us anything that is harmful. Prayer, as embodied by Abraham and illustrated by Jesus, is persistence, it’s pestering God at midnight; pestering God to forgive us, to provide for us, not necessarily what we want, but what we need. It makes me think of a scene from the movie the Apostle, in which Robert Duvall plays a disgraced preacher, who at one point in the middle of the night gets up and shouts so loud and persistently at God that it wakes the neighbors. We can, and even should, nag God to show up in our lives in ways that help us to show up too. We don’t have to stand at the brink of prayer and never make a beginning. We look to the source. To the very prayer Jesus taught us. What is the Lord’s Prayer if not a persistent plea that we make at every single liturgy? Maybe for some us, every single day?

I saw a church sign many years ago that said, “Prayer changes things.” I struggle with that concept because, surely, if prayer worked that way, Gaza would not be in rubble and children in Africa would not have had aid cut off from them by our government. Prayer alone, left there by itself, I’m not certain, changes things, but I do know that prayer changes people, and people – with God’s help – change things. That’s why I’m always quick to remind y’all to never underestimate how important prayer is, because it’s not just words we recite, it’s choices we make, grace we show, forgiveness we give, and bread we share. That’s how the kingdom comes!

It's those persistent prayers that we say again and again and again, which work their way through us like medicine that we didn’t even know we needed, getting into our bodies as well as our souls. Whether its’s Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep, the Lord’s Prayer, the Jesus Prayer, the Magnificat, or the entire Office of Compline, those often repeated, persistent prayers change us. What, I wonder, are such prayers for you? Which ones are you modeling and passing on to others, especially our children? What ways are your prayers persistent? What do you learn about yourself, about God, and about that relationship when you pray? What are the needs for which you are willing to keep pestering God? After all, God is persistent and never stops pestering us.  For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds. 

The Work of an Evangelist

'The Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go. He said to them, "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. Go on your way. See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and greet no one on the road. Whatever house you enter, first say, `Peace to this house!' And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you. Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide, for the laborer deserves to be paid. Do not move about from house to house. Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; cure the sick who are there, and say to them, `The kingdom of God has come near to you.' But whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go out into its streets and say, `Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off in protest against you. Yet know this: the kingdom of God has come near.'

"Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me, and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me."

The seventy returned with joy, saying, "Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!" He said to them, "I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning. See, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing will hurt you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this, that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven."'

--Luke 10: 1-11, 16-20

There is a word which Episcopalians dare not utter. It lingers out there, tempting us, but we are terrified to say it. The “e-word” Evangelism. I got a shudder just from silently reading it! Why is it that so many of us are afraid of that word? Maybe because it’s been co-opted by fundamentalists and the so-called ‘religious right,’ and conjures up images of a certain kind of Christian imposing their views on others? There’s a reason the term ex-vangelical is a thing these days, with more and more folks leaving communities that describe themselves as evangelical. But I wonder if it’s high time we took that word back – much like our Lutheran friends did in 1988 – and reclaim what it means to be an evangelical people, patterning our lives on the very instructions that Jesus gives today, and in doing so, taking back the power from the folks who have distorted that word and weaponized it, often for political purposes.

The word ‘evangelical' comes from the Greek word evangelion, meaning ‘good news’ or ‘Gospel.’ This is why Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are often called the Four Evangelists, the four bringers of the good news. Our baptismal covenant even includes the promise that we will “proclaim by word and example the good news of God in Christ,” which sounds a lot like the work of an evangelist, doesn’t it? Contrary to what we have been shown or taught, being evangelical isn’t about guitars and screens in church, conversion experiences, or standing on a street corner with a sign that warns folks to repent. Being evangelical is being about the Gospel, about the good news, which Jesus summed up back in chapter 4 of Luke as the essential message for the poor, to “proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” So if we’ve been called to be evangelists, how do we do that?

After naming twelve individuals as apostles – as ones who are sent – Jesus appoints 70 others who are to go out ahead of him to places he himself will go. They will test the waters, see where the welcome waits and where it does not. Most importantly, they will leave their sense of security behind and go out, not alone, but in twos, in order to support one another as they meet God’s blessed and bewildered people. 

The 70.

To prepare for such a journey, Jesus tells them not to save up, but rather strip down. Take no money, food, or extra shoes. Ask for nothing special; after all, they’ll find what they need. Receive what is given, release whatever is withheld. Pass the peace, and whether welcomed or not, announce that God’s reign is near.

Do you want to know what I think this sounds like? It sounds a lot, to me, like the No Kings rallies held across the country a few weeks ago. My wife and I attended the one in Durham, and I saw hundreds, if not thousands, of evangelists, people who were there to proclaim the very good news that Jesus charged the 70 with proclaiming. Maybe they weren’t wearing crosses or collars – though I did get a thumbs up for wearing mine from a group of Chapel Hill Jews who very much knew about the Advocate, and someone else who promised to visit when she learned that, thankfully, that we were still in operation – and maybe a good many of them would not willingly say their actions were evangelical, but anything that is about good news to the poor, anything that is an action rooted in faith, in justice, in compassion, and in transformation, is itself evangelical. With the recent passage of an glutenous, cruel bill this past week, which will rob millions of poor folks of medical and food assistance, shutting down hospitals in rural areas and stuffing the pockets of billionaires, you can bet that the days are coming when more evangelical actions such as this will be needed, where folks will be stirred to leave their sense of security behind for the sake of the gospel, the good news, the evangelion that proclaims God’s kingdom has come – in our hearts and our minds – and soon and very soon, will come in its full glory. Until then, we’ll go where Jesus sends us, even if it means going like sheep into the midst of wolves, we’ll shake off the dust from our feet as a protest to those who do would deny good news to the poor, and we’ll do so knowing that Jesus has our back because, as with the 70, there is no place to which we go that Jesus won’t be coming in afterwards. 

With my wife Kristen and parishioner Emily at the No Kings Rally in Durham on June 21.

The work of the 70, the evangelism they are called to proclaim, is transformative, not just for those who received it, but for the 70 themselves. They return from their journey, practically giddy with excitement for what they have done and seen. I wonder if they had stories on the road of the ways they supported each other – God help the one that got paired with Judas, though. They are ready, willing, and more than able to get down to some holy business. Then Jesus tempers their excitement somewhat by telling them that he saw Satan fall from heaven like lighting. This isn’t a description of the past or a prediction of the future, mind you, it’s a present reality. Satan – the adversary, the forces of wickedness that rebel against God and corrupt and destroy the creatures of God, to borrow, again, from our baptismal covenant – is defeated because the Kingdom is at hand and it is proclaimed by the mouths, the hands, and the feet of the people of God, the people preaching with their very lives the good news to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God. As John Wesley, a damn fine Anglican, once put it, “When the 70 went forth, the kingdom of Satan, which was highly exalted, was swiftly and suddenly cast down.”  

Wherever you go, and however you bring good news to the poor, Satan is once again cast down. At times, it can feel like we’re all just lambs in the midst of wolves, and the truth is that not everyone can do everything. That’s why he sent them in twos, so that when one stumbled, the other could be there to pick them up. So it was for the 70, so it is for us. Maybe yours is a more active role, or perhaps it is simply too great a risk to the health of you or your family. Fear not, because whether you are marching in the light of God or speaking truth to power through a phone call at home, yours is the work of an evangelist, which is anything but solitary. And never, ever underestimate the most important tool at an evangelist’s disposal: prayer. That is something that every single one of us can do, without ceasing, in word or action. Because prayer grounds us, it de-centers the pain and fear that can often take hold of us, and centers Jesus, who is the one who calls us, in love, like the 70. Not one of them was too small or insignificant to do their holy work. The same is true for us. We all have a role to play. 

All this has happened before, so says Battlestar Galactica, and all this will happen again. The 70 were sent into a broken system, to a people who were hurting. They were sent in pairs, to remember that one does not undertake such efforts alone. We have all, likewise, been called and are sent into a broken system, where people are hurting. Sent like lambs into the midst of wolves at times, but always sent together, because the work of bringing and being good news to the poor is never done alone. There is no pre-determined quotas to fill, no salvation tallies, or charts of blessings to calculate. No blame or shame to be hurled as insults. Just the work of an evangelist: be who God made you to be. Give what God has already given you. Receive from others, as though you are receiving the very Sacrament in your hand. Whether accepted or rejected, center Jesus and his good news, and know, to your very core, that wherever you are sent, God’s reign is near.