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Faithfulness: When Persistence Counts
The Ninth Sunday after Pentecost (Year C, Proper 12 RCL)
July 29, 2007
The Reverend Paul R. Abernathy, Rector
Faithfulness. The subject of our preaching series during this month of July. As an ethical virtue, that reliability, trustworthiness, even loyalty that
we exhibit in our human relationships.
Looking at our scripture passages this day, it would seem that persistence counts concerning our efforts to be faithful. Verily, persistence, staying
at it, is faithfulness in action. Persistence is the incarnation in the concrete circumstances of our lives of the abstract idea or idealized
concept of faithfulness
Now, applying the action of persistence to the principle of faithfulness and looking back over the sermon subjects of the past four weeks…
Persistence counts when I face into situations when the choice is either/or and I want to abdicate my responsibility, deciding by not deciding.
Persistence calls me to choose.
Persistence counts when life doesn’t make sense and I want to throw up my hands in immobilized despair. Persistence calls me not to deny, but rather
to face into my confusion, my perplexity.
Persistence counts when the right thing is hard to do and I’m tempted to compromise my values, searching for the next best, the just slightly less than
right, or the least wrong thing to do.
Persistence counts when it’s a matter of fairness and I, disappointed or discontent at being treated unfairly, choose to address the imbalance, so to
attain justice by my own definition and by my own hand.
Persistence. Again, faithfulness in action, which I see manifestly illustrated in today’s scripture texts.
God, having heard the cry against the wickedness of Sodom and Gomorrah, has come down to conduct a judicial investigation, taking Abraham into the sphere
of divine confidence and influence.[1]
In ancient times, collective guilt was a nearly universally held principle. The whole community could suffer punishment due to the infractions of a few.
Abraham, in the role of defense attorney, presents the case for the people. Interestingly, his argument is not what it may appear to be. He does not
advocate on the side of the individual over the collective. Abraham was a product of prehistoric history and culture, not eighteenth century French
socialism. Ostensibly, the primacy of the individual is not something he would know about or value. What Abraham does, I think, is revolutionize,
radicalize the notion of the collective. If all can suffer for the transgressions of a few, cannot all be saved by the righteousness of a few? That’s
the question Abraham puts to God. Before a punishing judicial authority, Abraham stands faithfully in the defense of the community, persistently
pleading for mercy. That it didn’t work – Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed! – is not the point, for persistence, primarily, is not about being
successful but faithful.
The disciples ask Jesus to teach them to pray.[2] Here, prayer is an act of the collective, offered not by me on my
behalf, but by us on our behalf. But an immediate question arises. Why bother? Not that these things for which we pray aren’t important.
Rather, they are most significant. For the kingdom of love and justice to prevail. For daily bread, the assured provision not of what we want, but what
we need. For forgiveness, the confidence in mutual reconciliation when the bonds of affection are broken. For liberty from trial and tribulation and, if
not, then the strength to stand in the midst of it. The petitions aren’t the problem. Rather, it is the conditions that give rise to the petitions. They
are as persistent as the prayers of those who cry out that the needs be fulfilled.
After centuries of praying, love and justice, in this world, still often are trumped by enmity and inequity. The hungry still cry for bread, vast numbers
of people in this world subsisting, if we can call it that, on less than a dollar a day. The realities of global war and personal estrangements make clear
that forgiveness is often at best aspirational, if not also merely an abstraction. As for trials and tribulations, the axiom remains true – to scratch
anyone hard enough is to draw blood, that is, all of us suffer. So what’s the point of praying, let alone being persistent, “praying,” as the Apostle
Paul would say, “without ceasing?”[3]
Even more, it seems to me, the poor and the oppressed, after countless unanswered prayers, countless experiences, quite opposite of that of the psalmist,
having called and having heard no reply and walking in the midst of trouble and not being kept safe,[4] may learn, if anything,
not to trust God. And the rich, even the moderately well off, who can do so much for themselves in terms of the satisfaction of need, who can afford
countless good gifts for their children, may learn that they don’t need God, they don’t need to ask, seek, or knock.[5] In
either case, poor or rich, again, what’s the point of prayer?
Jesus, I have no doubt, either heard the question from the lips of his listeners or intuited that it resounded in their minds and hearts. Which is why,
I think, he tells a funny little story about a friend who comes at midnight and pounds at the door, crying out for bread so persistently that eventually
we get up and act. All of which reaffirms for me that our faithfulness, our reliability, trustworthiness, loyalty in asking and answering has
to do primarily not with God, but with us, one to another, one with another, one for another. It is in the concrete context of our human relationships
that faithfulness must be made manifest in order for it to mean something, to be something more than an abstract idea or idealized concept.
No use sitting around waiting for the intervention of an external, even eternal deity. Rather, it is our work in community, our work as
community to spread love, share justice, give bread to the hungry, grant forgiveness, and support those in the midst of trial.
To put this another way, God persistently acts through our heads, hands, and hearts to fulfill the petitions of what has been called the Lord’s
Prayer. Whenever we act, it is as if the Lord is praying this prayer and we have answered.
[1] The Hebrew scripture text appointed for the day is Genesis 18.20-32.
[2] The gospel passage appointed for the day is Luke 11.1-13.
[3] 1 Thessalonians 5.17
[4] References to the appointed Psalm 138
[5] References to Luke 11.9, 13
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