“The Power of Persistent Prayer” by the Rev. Dr. Don Wahlig, October 19, 2025, Year C / Proper 24 (29) – Jeremiah 31:27-34 ¨ Luke 18:1-8 

THEME:  Persist in prayer, which is rooted in faith, and gives rise to hope – for us and others, especially the marginalized – that the Kingdom of God is a present reality as well as a future certainty.

I have a question that maybe you can help me answer. When will Jesus return?  Any ideas? For 2,000 years, Christians have been asking this same question. This speculation even has a name. It is called apocalypticism. It focuses on predicting the specific date of the End Time as described in the book of Revelation. This is when a period of great suffering will precede Christ’s return to finally and firmly establish his Father’s Kingdom on Earth. We experienced this speculation not long ago during the decade leading up to the year 2,000. Remember all the anxiety surrounding Y2K? That was when computers across the globe were supposed to fail. 

The fear was that they would take down everything from power grids, to banks, to governments. Some thought it was the looming disaster that would lead to the End Time:  the second coming of Christ and the final judgment of humankind.  It did not, unless, of course, we have all been left behind and we don’t know it. This fear led to the publication of the Rapture series of books. Remember those? That was by no means the only apocalyptic movement that has ever caused an uproar. In the 1800s, for example, Europe was in turmoil over anxiety about the End Times. In the suffering of the Napoleonic wars and the sweeping change of the Industrial revolution, prominent religious figures saw signs of the coming apocalypse. Among them was a Scottish Presbyterian pastor named Edward Irving. He preached powerful sermons urging his London congregation to prepare with all haste for the imminent, sudden judgment associated with the return of Christ and the Kingdom. 

700 years earlier, toward the end of the 12^th Century, an Italian monk and mystic named Joachim Fiore caused huge social anxiety by making the same prediction. These are just some of the hundreds of apocalyptic movements that have occurred throughout history. What they have in common is that they all feed on our secret doubts and fears.  These insecurities are always there, lurking in the background of our awareness.  Whenever disasters happen, whenever authority gives way to anarchy and war, when pandemics arise and spread, these fears leap into the foreground of our minds and our lives.

Evidently, the Pharisees of Jesus’ day also shared these fears. One day, they approach Jesus and they ask him “When will the Kingdom come?” It is not a surprising question. Jesus’ number one teaching topic was the Kingdom of God. He spoke about that more than anything else. But, it is clear that the Pharisees misunderstand him. Jesus tells them that the Kingdom is already among them.  What they do not realize is that the Kingdom is present in the one to whom they are speaking.  Can’t you just imagine them walking away, baffled, and shaking their heads in confusion and frustration. Then Jesus turns to his disciples. He gives them a fuller explanation. The days are coming, he says, when he will no longer be with them. He will suffer and be rejected.  They will look for him in vain. He will leave. But he will return. In the meantime, they have to be sure that they do not lose faith and hope. They have to persist in prayer, because God hears and answers prayer, especially prayer that this world might look more like the Kingdom to come.

To make his point, he tells them the parable of the widow and the unjust judge. Day after day, this poor widow comes before a callous, corrupt judge to plead her case. Day after day, he refuses to grant her plea.  Yet she persists. We do not know what her case is, but we do know that there is no one but this judge to whom she can take it. Further, she evidently has no family to help her. She is on her own. Her only recourse to justice is this judge who cares neither for God nor God’s people. In this parable, this widow represents all the vulnerable, marginalized persons whom Jesus commands his disciples to love: widows and orphans, immigrants and strangers, the poor and the sick, the lame and the lost. Jesus is pointing them to Leviticus 19 where the law requires that we love our neighbor, especially by working for justice for the ones Jesus calls the least.

Finally, the widow’s persistence pays off. The judge relents, simply to escape the constant barrage of her pleading. How much more quickly, Jesus asks, will God grant the persistent prayers of the disciples for justice? The message is this: God loves you. Do not lose heart. Continue to pray, trusting that God hears and God acts on your prayers. Friends, that is the lesson for us. Prayer is an act of faith. Every time we pray, we are declaring our trust in someone other than ourselves. We are trusting that someone is listening, and the one who is listening is God, who made us and loves us without limit.

Prayer expresses our faith even as it nourishes our faith. The mere act of praying strengthens our trust in God, even before we get an answer. But wait a minute. We all know there are times when we pray for this world to look more like God’s Kingdom, for his righteousness and justice on behalf of the vulnerable ones, like this widow, and yet it doesn’t seem to make any difference. Maybe things have even gotten worse. We find ourselves questioning God. We faithfully pray “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” but it is hard to see where God’s will is prevailing. Does that mean God has not heard our prayer, or that he refuses to grant it?  This is the assumption that leads many people to doubt their faith. Some even stop praying altogether.  

Jesus knows this. This is why he urges his disciples to pray constantly.  He is saying that something happens when we persist in prayer. We do not know the mind of God, but it may be that our prayers, along with those of others, pile up and gain power as they do. When their frequency and fervor are sufficient, God may finally grant them. But, equally, it may be true that God delays in granting our prayers because we have not done our part to make his justice a reality here and now. Our prayer is not only for the future reign of Christ, but for the present earthly reality of the heavenly Kingdom over which he rules. This is what Jesus means when he tells the Pharisees “the Kingdom is among you.” 

One of the greatest themes of the gospels is the need for everyone – disciples, pharisees, and pagans alike – to put love into action to meet the needs of their neighbors, especially the marginalized. This is the second part of Christ’s great commandment, and it comes directly from Leviticus 19. This is how the Kingdom becomes visible in the present. It is a sign pointing to what will one day be our full and joyous reality: the day when we will all revel in the righteousness of God’s Kingdom when Christ brings it to earth. What we miss is that our prayers are more than words. Our acts of self-giving love are also prayers. Prayer and action belong together. 

Praying without acting is asking God to do all the work and refusing to do our part. On the other hand, action without prayer is the tacit assumption that God cannot or will not act on our behalf.  Prayer without action is lazy faith. Action without prayer is no faith. As the early church bishop Augustine of Hippo famously said, “Pray as though everything depends on God.  Work as though everything depends on you." Through words and actions, prayer creates hope. As people of faith, the ultimate hope is that the Kingdom of God will become increasingly real. We all need this hope. None more so than those who struggle, those who have been pushed to the margins of life: widows and orphans, immigrants and strangers, the hungry and the poor, the elderly and the sick, the least and the lost.

When Jesus tells this parable of the persistent widow, it is clear that he has these folks top of mind.  What about you and me? Every Sunday, you and I pray “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done.” Who do you know that most needs, not only our spoken prayer, but our loving act of prayer as well? What might life look like if we all persisted in praying like this? How would our community be different? How would our country be different? How would our world be different? I do not know for sure, but I do know this. This world would look a lot more like the one to come. 

Friends, none of us knows when Jesus will return. But we do know that the Kingdom he rules is already among us. It becomes visible every time we pray – with words and action – to establish the justice that Christ commands, especially on behalf of the marginalized.

May it be so.