At our AC meeting last Monday, our chair of Finance announced that 57 pledges cards have so far been returned (representing about 25% of the budget or 137,490.) Of those 57 pledges over ½ increased the amount from the previous year. That’s truly something to celebrate!

Are you “down on paper” in your support of God’s mission through Holy Covenant? We give because all we have and all we are belongs to God. It is an act of faith and worship and a demonstration of who we are and what we value. If you’ve not turned in your pledge card, please do so. Your pledge of gifts and service is needed! If you don’t have a pledge card or service sheet, extras are available in the narthex.

Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart. 2He said, ‘In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people. 3In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, “Grant me justice against my opponent.” 4For a while he refused; but later he said to himself, “Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, 5yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.” ’ 6And the Lord said, ‘Listen to what the unjust judge says. 7And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? 8I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them. And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?’

God, we love you. We praise you. All that we have comes from you. We rejoice in your presence. Amen.

Jesus’ parable about a Grave Injustice; a Persistent Widow, and a Reluctant King I find quite troubling. A monarch (or judge in the NRSV) who fails to act justly betrays his or her people. And if this is what prayer is like: an attempt to pressure a reluctant God to act justly? Makes you wonder just how good God really is? Of course, this is not the picture Jesus paints of God through his teachings or his life. Rather the picture he paints of God is a God who loves us, and who loves us well! So I want to state “upfront” that this is not a parable about the injustice of God but rather a parable about the relationship between prayer and justice.
Prayer is a two way street. What does a two way street sign look like? An arrow pointing up next to an arrow pointing down. We speak, God listens; God speaks, we listen. At least that’s how it’s supposed to work. For most of us, discerning God’s voice is a growing edge. Still, if prayer really is a two-way street then this parable can be understood in two ways.

st, We can be the one who prays to God for help.
2ndly, God can be the one who pleads with us, to act justly.

God tugging on my heart.” Every felt that? It is God within that stirs us to be moved by human suffering. I think everyone here can get on board with that! The challenge is realizing that God wants us to do something about human suffering.

am often driven to distraction! This may be God’s world but it takes everything I’ve got to maintain my little corner of it. Who has time to execute God’s justice?” Yet Jesus is clear; we are to pray and work for “God’s kingdom come,” not our own. To settle for anything less is to settle.

The widow’s petition to the King can be interpreted both as a request for help but also as a call to accountability, She tells the king, “Remember who you are.” The widow calls this ruler to remember who he has been crowned and empowered to be; one who advocates for the well-being of his or her people.

Writes the psalmist, “The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and God’s ears are open to their cry.” Psalm 34:15
God hears the cry for justice in situations where there is human suffering. And the question is how does God respond? Does God merely wave a magic wand and suddenly [POOF] people receive justice? That would be cool! History tells us something different. Schindler, King, Romero, Gandhi, Teresa. God incites openhearted people to act justly. That tugging on your heart? God is praying with you, pleading really… “REMEMBER WHO YOU ARE!”

My favorite creed is the statement of faith of the united church of Canada (p.883 of hymnal). It says in part,
“We are called to be the church: to celebrate God’s presence, to seek justice and resist evil, to proclaim Jesus, crucified and risen, our judge and our hope.”

We are to:
•    Celebrate God’s presence
•    To Seek Justice  (that is resist Evil)
•    And to proclaim Jesus…

That’s our mission! Justice is a Kingdom issue. “Thy Kingdom come!”  But it doesn’t stop there. Remember the rest of Jesus’ prayer? “Give US this day OUR daily bread.” Jesus is teaching his church to pray communally. And what is the daily bread of the church? It’s the stuff we need to do the work God calls us to do collectively.

And where does our “daily bread” come from? Does God wave a magic wand and poof? Would be cool! So what does God do? God tugs on ours hearts to share what we have. The very thing we pray for, our daily bread, is the very thing we as church members are asked to provide!

I’ve always thought the critical moment in the feeding of the 5,000 is that after blessing the 5 loaves Jesus gives the bread to his disciples. It is only as they share what little they have, that there is enough to go around and then some.

Discipleship is a two-way street. God gives so we give. Discipleship calls us to become God’s answer to the cry of the poor, the hungry, the homeless, those seeking a deeper experience of God. It’s much more demanding then giving some money to the church or volunteering a few hours here and there or semi-occasional worship or prayer. Discipleship is a radical lifestyle. You cannot follow Jesus and ignore this ↑↓.

When 107 members of this church walked together to fight world hunger, we were doing ↑↓. When this church raised 31,000 in one night for local and global mission, we were doing ↑↓. When 12 of us took a week of vacation to help rebuild a community still reeling from disaster we were doing ↑↓. We are God’s answer to someone’s prayer.

In the classic musical Fiddler on the Roof, when the 2nd daughter chooses to follow her revolutionary lover into Siberia, her father [Tevye] waits with her for the train that will carry her far away from her family home. He acknowledges that they do not know when they will see each other again. Then his daughter gives him this promise. I promise you I will be married under the canopy.
In the Jewish wedding, the canopy represents not only the home that is formed by that union but also the faith of Israel. She is promising her father that the fabric of meaning into which he has woven his life will be sustained and will transcend both miles and ideology.

Discipleship is the sacred canopy under which we live. It redefines how we view the world and everything in it. It drastically reorders how we live and how we relate to others.

Discipleship is a two way street! Jesus doesn’t just call us to a radical lifestyle. Jesus calls us to a radical interior life, at least if you believe the likes of Thomas Merton, Henri Nouwen, and others.

In reflecting on the spiritual life, Thomas Merton penned in his journal: The great joy of the [interior life] is not found simply in quiet, in the beauty and peace of nature, nor in the peace of one’s own heart, but in the awakening and attuning of the heart to the voice of God-to the inescapable, quiet, definite inner certitude of one’s call to obey Him, to hear Him, to worship Him here, now, today, in silence and alone, an that this is the whole reason for one’s existence, this makes one’s existence fruitful and gives fruitfulness to all other. p.249 Intimate Merton

God calls us not only to a radical lifestyle. God calls us to a radical interior life. God speaks, we need to learn how to listen!
Discipleship is supposed to be two way, a life choice that recognizes everything we have is from God.

Ps. 24:1, “The earth is God’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein.”
Discipleship is about ministry. And sharing God’s gifts is a demonstration of who we are-and what we value.

No interior life and the River Runs Dry. No outflow of justice and we become a Dead Sea.

Jesus ends his parable with these provocative words in verse 8:
8I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them. And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

Each of us here will spend the rest of our lives determining how that question will be answered. And still, Jesus says, “Come follow me.”

Lord, we love you. We praise you. All that we have comes from you. We rejoice in your presence. Amen.
Pray with me: God, we love you. We praise you. All that we have comes from you. We rejoice in your presence. Amen.