Permission to nag God

Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. He said: “In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared what people thought. And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary.’

“For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care what people think, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually come and attack me!’”

And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?” Luke 18:1-8

I can’t help smiling every time I read this story. On the face of it, it’s almost as if Jesus is comparing God himself to a crooked, hard-hearted judge who is nagged and pestered by a widow to get the justice she’s entitled to.

Of course that isn’t really the message. Taking the Bible as a whole, that simply isn’t what God is like.

True, many of Jesus’ parables work by drawing a comparison between God and a human figure – the story of the “Prodigal Son” is a good example, where God is represented by a loving, compassionate father who, dropping any vestige of dignity, runs down the road to greet his returning, wayward son.

But this story works by drawing not a comparison but a contrast; it’s one of those “how much more” stories, where the point is: If even a bent judge can be expected to deliver justice from time to time, albeit from bad motives, how much more can a perfectly just and holy God be expected to deliver justice to his chosen people who cry out to him?

I have always thought of the story as “The parable of the unjust judge”, which is how various translations and commentaries entitle it. But I notice that it’s more common now (as in the NIV) to see it entitled as “The parable of the persistent widow”.

I think that’s better, because it is surely the widow on whom the spotlight mainly falls, not the judge. Yes, we can focus on the judge to reflect on the misuse of power, or the way that people in positions of influence tend often to bully and treat with injustice those who have no power (why do I find myself thinking of P and O?).

But the real point is the need for God’s people to be stubbornly preserving in prayer. Luke spells this out right at the start: “Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up”.

You couldn’t put it plainer than that, and it’s specially relevant at the present time, as the agonising situation in Ukraine goes grinding on from day to day.

Both on a world-wide scale, and in our own personal circumstances, there are times when the only weapon we feel we have is faith expressed in persevering payer: prayer when we feel like anything but praying; prayer when we feel, frankly, like giving up; prayer when our faith is weak and our doubts are strong; prayer when our prayers seem to be achieving precisely nothing.

I see I’ve used the word “feel” there more than once. I didn’t intend that, but it’s worth thinking about, for it reminds us that the way we happen to feel on any given day is completely irrelevant to our need to pray. Putting that another way: the effectiveness of our praying doesn’t depend on the way we feel. Indeed, you could say that the fact that we don’t feel like praying, but do so anyway, is a good sign that our prayer is motivated by genuine faith.

There are times when it’s relatively easy to pray – we feel spiritually strong, and things are going reasonably well with us. But the real test is that we keep on praying even when we feel flat and inwardly dead. To pray then takes faith! - to pray, if I can put it like this, through gritted teeth.

Looking again at the passage, you can’t help feeling that the final sentence could easily have been left out. Jesus rounds the parable off with a question: “However, when the Son of Man comes (that’s him, of course), will he find faith on the earth?”

Now, why did Jesus add that question? It’s not an ordinary question, of course, the sort where our purpose in asking is simply to get some information (“Did Palace beat Liverpool yesterday?” or “What’s the weather forecast for Saturday?”). No, it’s what’s known as a “rhetorical question”, where the reason for asking it is to make the other person think, or to throw out a challenge.

Jesus asks this question not in order to get his disciples scratching their heads and coming up with a logical, doctrinally correct answer. (After all, of course there will be true believers when he returns in glory! Who else would he be coming for?)

No: he asks it to challenge them, as if to say: “How will you stand on that day? Will you be waiting for me? Will you be ready for me?”

And that challenge applies as much to us today as it did to them then.

Christian, Jesus is coming back – so live every day in the light of that truth!

Lord God, help me to take a lesson today from that feisty old lady in Jesus’ story, so that when he returns I will be ready, waiting, and busily serving and praying. Amen.

People - or things?

Masters, provide your slaves with what is right and fair, because you know that you also have a Master in heaven. Colossians 4:1

Last Wednesday our older son was an officer with P and O Ferries. Today (it’s Saturday as I write) he’s at home with his wife and children wondering what comes next, having been unceremoniously dumped by P and O along with 800 other employees. No preparation; no warning; just clear off.

The Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322 BC) famously defined a slave as “a thing, a living property”, a “tool”. Well, our son wasn’t exactly a slave of P and O: there is, of course, a world of difference between slavery as practiced in the Roman empire and being an employee in our modern world. But in the light of what’s happened it’s hard not to see a distinct resemblance. As thousands of people are now protesting, this is no way to treat human beings, who are, well… people.

The subject of slavery – one group or class of people treating another as essentially property – is a tricky one when we come to the New Testament.

Jesus never condemned it or called for its abolition; indeed, some of his stories seem to regard it as simply a fact of life to be accepted. The early church treated it much the same, judging by Acts and the letters.

The explanation usually given for this – and surely correctly – is that the whole structure of the Roman empire depended on slavery, and any attempt to dismantle it would have led to the collapse of society as a whole, including its many good features - not to mention the destruction of the rebels at the hands of the Roman army (think Spartacus, who lived roughly 100 years before Jesus). It would have been futile.

No, the abolition of slavery was a reform that would have to wait its time. That time, in many parts of the world, still waits; and even in Britain it took a shamefully long time to arrive - the era of William Wilberforce, Lord Shaftesbury and others (many of them Christians), in the nineteenth century.

But the New Testament contains many glimmerings of the change that will one day come, and Paul’s words in Ephesians 6:5-9, and especially Colossians 4:1, are just such a glimmering: “Masters, provide your slaves with what is right and fair”.

Probably that seems pretty small beer to us, pretty feeble stuff. But we need to remember the cruelty and complete injustice with which slaves were often treated in Paul’s time. Those words were in fact quite revolutionary – be nice to your slaves, indeed!

Better still, we need to notice the way Jesus treated those who were despised in his day - his willingness to touch sufferers from leprosy (horrific!), and to welcome women who were outcasts of society (shocking!) being the most obvious examples.

The little letter to Philemon is relevant. It’s the story of a runaway slave and his master, where Paul tries to tread a delicate balance between the eternal truth that all people are of equal value in God’s sight on the one hand, and the need to not come across in an inflammatory or revolutionary way on the other.

Not to mention the stern words of Jesus’ brother in James 2:1-13… In the ancient world, where else but in the church would you find masters and slaves sitting side by side?

But back to P and O and our son…

What this all comes down to is that God is concerned for justice. In his eyes every human being is of equal value, and is to be treated as such, and thus every time an injustice is done it’s right that there should be a burst of outrage in any healthy society. Never mind P and O - what better example could we seek than what’s going on at this moment in Ukraine?

Someone once said, “Any time you see someone sigh, shake their head and say ‘Oh well, business is business, I suppose’, you can be sure they are about to do something they’re ashamed of” (and that applies even if the proposed course of action is perfectly within the law). Those words imply that they are about to go against the demands of conscience, and that is always a disastrous thing to do.

Here are some words from Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, who lived some 350 years after Jesus: “The rule of justice is plain, namely, that a good man ought not to swerve from the truth, nor to inflict any unjust loss on anyone, nor to act in any way deceitfully or fraudulently”.

It’s easy for us to condemn P and O; they’re sitting ducks at the moment. But of course the demands of justice apply to us all, and who can claim never to have drowned the voice of conscience? Not me, I’m afraid. Let’s each of us commit ourselves afresh to act only according to scrupulous honesty and integrity.

And if, of course, you are someone who occupies a position of power over others, in however small a way, let this be a prompt to keep a clear conscience – at whatever the cost.

Father, thank you that in every society there are powerful men and women who maintain the highest standards of honesty and integrity. May I be challenged and inspired by them, however lowly my place in life. Amen.

Incurably religious?

Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “People of Athens, I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you…” Acts 17:22-23

“I’m not a particularly religious person, but I certainly found myself praying…” So wrote a newspaper reporter the other day from Ukraine, as bombs and shells exploded around him.

Religious… It’s a word I hate, because it conjures up all sorts of wrong ideas. Somebody once was filling in a crossword, and his frown of puzzled concentration suddenly turned to a smile as he looked up at me and said, “Oh, you’re religious, aren’t you!”, assuming I would know the answer to a particular clue. I wanted to shout back at him “No! I’m not religious. But I do believe in Jesus, and try to follow him! – which is a very different thing.”

In Acts 17 Paul is killing time in Athens, waiting for his friends Silas and Timothy to catch up with him. He takes the opportunity to look around this great city, and is specially struck by the large number of pagan temples there are. There’s even one dedicated “TO AN UNKNOWN GOD” – presumably the Athenians didn’t want to run the risk of missing anyone out!

He gets into discussion with some of the local intellectuals, and is invited to explain his weird “Christian” beliefs in the Areopagus, a council or forum where matters of religion and culture were debated.

In Acts 17:22 he begins his speech by remarking on what a very “religious” city Athens is. It’s interesting that that word occurs exactly twice – just that - in the whole New Testament (the other time is at Acts 25:19). Paul uses it as a “hook” to hang his message on, a point of contact with his listeners. (Note: he doesn’t start by quoting the Bible at them.) I don’t think he’s being derogatory, it’s just that it’s the best word he can find.

And however much we may dislike it today, “religious” is sometimes the best we too can find, so we just have to put up with it, even if through gritted teeth.

But back to that reporter in Ukraine…

It’s been said that the human race “is incurably religious”, and his comment bears that out: he couldn’t help but pray.

Experts who study human cultures and customs tell us that wherever you look you find some kind of belief in the supernatural, what the dictionary calls “action or conduct indicating a belief in, reverence for, and desire to please, a divine ruling power; the exercise or practice of rites or observances implying this”.

At the lowest level this takes the form of what most people would regard as superstition, “religious belief or practice founded upon fear or ignorance”, to quote the same dictionary.

Such beliefs are still well alive, even in our modern, educated, technological world: a cricket fan watching the West Indies/ England test match the other week stood motionless in one particular spot for the duration of the day’s play, believing that his team stood a better chance of winning if he did so (and it was a very hot day!). Funny if not sad!

Christians can be superstitious. There has been a debate recently in the Church of England, stirred up by the pandemic, about taking communion “in one kind” - that is, the bread but not the wine - with people worrying if that can be “a true eucharist”; as if God would withdraw his blessing if things aren’t done strictly according to certain rules.

And we who perhaps pride ourselves on being pure, biblical, evangelical believers can be superstitious: ask yourself, are you comfortable about  finishing a prayer without tagging on the little formula “in Jesus’ name”? I freely confess I find it difficult.

But, having said all that, there is a positive side also to what we might call “religiosity”. Two things are worth noticing…

First, the fact that people are more inclined to pray in times of crisis doesn’t necessarily mean that God rejects those prayers. He is gracious and merciful. “More things are wrought by prayer/ Than this world dreams of” wrote the poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson; and what Christian would dispute that?

Our world at the moment is a deeply troubled world, with the war in Ukraine and the continuing simmering of the coronavirus just two of the worst symptoms. As people all over the world cry out “Lord, have mercy on us”, who knows how he might respond?

And second, let’s be encouraged that that deep-seated religiosity in the hearts of our neighbours, friends, families and work-mates might do for us what that altar “to an unknown god” did for Paul: that is, give us a point of contact with frightened, even superstitious people. Might it give us an opportunity to humbly point them to Christ?

Lord, help us to be ready if and when that moment comes!

Father, please forgive me if my faith in you ever degenerates into superstition or mere habit. Forgive me too if ever I am tempted to despise those who cry out to you only in times of crisis. Father, as I know you hear my prayers, please, in your mercy, hear theirs also. Amen.

An antidote to cynicism

I urge… that petitions, prayers, intercessions and thanksgiving be made for all people - for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. 1 Timothy 2:1-2

One Sunday many years ago I was given a telling-off at the end of a service I had led. My offence? In the course of the service I had offered a prayer for the prime minister of the day. And a quite cross man said, “I just don’t understand how you can pray for that man!”

Obviously he hadn’t voted for the prime minister in question at the last election! Fair enough – we all have our political views, and disagreement is inevitable. (Indeed, disagreement is healthy if we put any value on democracy.)

But what surprised me was that this man presumably believed that as Christians we should only pray for people we like or agree with. Which, surely, is utter nonsense.

I  can’t remember now what I said in reply, but I hope I had the presence of mind to remember Paul’s words to his young pastor-colleague Timothy in 1 Timothy 2:1-2…

As far as Paul is concerned, we Christians have a responsibility to pray for absolutely anybody and everybody (“all people”), and our prayers can take a full range of forms (“petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving”), and their purpose is, among other things, that our lives might be “peaceful and quiet” and, still more, “godly and holy”.

That’s pretty comprehensive! But I wonder how seriously we take it? Some churches, judging at least by the content of prayer in Sunday worship, seem never to extend beyond the little bubble of their own existence.

Is this a word to some of my fellow-ministers, pastors and worship-leaders? “Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear!”

But I haven’t yet got to the point in Paul’s words which touches on the confrontation between me and that man that Sunday morning. Having told us we should pray “for all people” Paul then goes on to pick one particular group: “for kings and all those in authority”.

Well, there aren’t too any kings (or queens) around these days; but there are certainly plenty of people “in authority”, or at least in positions of power and influence: there are presidents and prime ministers; there are politicians; and, like it or not, they are decision-makers who affect the lives of all of us.

So why wouldn’t we pray for them! – whether we like them or not. The second part of verse 2 suggests that it’s in our own interests to do so because our prayers make a difference. And when Paul speaks of “kings and those in authority” he’s speaking, let’s remember, of people who in his day were likely to be cruel, brutal tyrants. Didn’t Jesus pray even for the men who were crucifying him?

I sometimes wonder if I should be ashamed of a weakness I have for political cartoons. Why? Because they hold up public figures for mockery. They confirm the prejudices it’s so easy to get into our heads – “Politicians? Oh, they’re all in it for what they can get… they’re a load of liars… you can’t trust a word they say…”

No doubt there’s some truth in these prejudices; politicians are, after all, sinners just like the rest of us. But they are prejudices. We don’t know what goes on in the heart of any other person, and, as Jesus taught us, we should be very careful about judging. It’s certainly right that those who make the decisions that affect our lives should be called to account, and it’s good that there are people (including the cartoonists) who “speak truth to power”. But it’s a sad state of affairs if we descend into out-and-out cynicism.

Cynicism – the tendency or habit of always believing the worst of another person – is a poison; just as rust corrodes metal, so cynicism corrodes personality, and we become habitually sarcastic, jaundiced and prejudiced.

Is this the way of Christ?

How many of us, I wonder, would actually like to be a politician? Whatever we in Britain may think about our present prime minister, would we like to be in 10 Downing Street? Two years of pandemic… the health service verging on collapse… shocking corruption in the police service… steeply rising prices… drug and knife crime… Would you like the job of sorting that lot out?

And now, to cap it all, war in Europe, and the frightening threat of it spreading further and wider. That too?

From outside, it’s all so easy. To me, hearing the President of Ukraine pleading with Europe to enforce a no-fly zone over his tormented country, well, it was what is known as a no-brainer – “Of course, give the man his no-fly zone! – it’s the least we can do!” But then you listen to the arguments – the arguments of those contemptible politicians – explaining how this course of action would very likely make things far, far worse and, well, perhaps it’s not so simple after all…

So… pray for the politicians, don’t simply despise them. And pray not only for the ones in position at the moment, but for the generations still to come…

Oh God, the Lord of all peoples and all lands, please guide the deliberations and decisions of those who lead the nations, even those who do not acknowledge you. Please raise up men and women of stature, honesty, integrity and principle to replace them in due course. And in your mercy grant peace to the people of Ukraine, and to all the people of our world. Amen.

Justice - or vengeance?

“They have greatly oppressed me from my youth,”

    let Israel say;
² “they have greatly oppressed me from my youth,
    but they have not gained the victory over me.
³ Ploughmen have ploughed my back
    and made their furrows long.
⁴ But the Lord is righteous;
    he has cut me free from the cords of the wicked.”

 

⁵ May all who hate Zion
    be turned back in shame.
⁶ May they be like grass on the roof,
    which withers before it can grow;
⁷ a reaper cannot fill his hands with it,
    nor one who gathers fill his arms.
⁸ May those who pass by not say to them,
    “The blessing of the Lord be on you;
    we bless you in the name of the Lord.” Psalm 129

 

The two sections of this short psalm are very different from one another.

 

In verses 1-4 the writer celebrates how God has set him and his people Israel free from oppression: “…the Lord is righteous; he has cut me free from the cords of the wicked” (verse 4). It’s joyful testimony.

 

Personally, I would have been quite content if the psalm had ended on that happy note. But it doesn’t…

 

In verses 5-8 it expresses – well, not exactly ill-will towards these cruel enemies, but certainly an unashamed desire for God’s judgment upon them: “May all who hate Zion [Jerusalem] be turned back in shame” (verse 5). And then, in verse 8, “May those who pass by not say to them, ‘The blessing of the Lord be on you…’”.

 

Note that “not”! Not only can he not bring himself to wish his enemies well; he doesn’t want anybody else to either! Even if he’s not being out-and-out vindictive, it might seem almost petty and spiteful. A long way, surely, from Jesus’ “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44).

 

This was my psalm for the day today, and as I finished it I couldn’t help a feeling of anti-climax. That ending is, admittedly, far milder than the terrible climax of Psalm 137, where the writer virtually spits out a curse, a malediction, upon the cruel, marauding Babylonians: “Happy is the one who repays you according to what you have done to us. Happy is the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks” (Psalm 137:8-9). But the mood is much the same.

 

(Have you ever noticed how, when Psalm 137 is read in church, those closing verses seem to disappear?)

 

The reason why, this morning, I specially paused on this psalm – one which, after all, I must have read dozens of times before – is that I found myself linking it with events in Ukraine. Who of us would feel entitled to criticise the people of Ukraine if they were to express the sentiment of Psalm 129 – or even Psalm 137? Not me, that’s for sure.

 

And I realised afresh not just that - of course! - it’s not for me to imply criticism of God’s word by wanting to delete the whole second part, but that this note of just judgment is important, indeed vital. How, ultimately, can there be good news – “gospel” - as long as great evils continue to blight this world? And when we’re talking of great evils there is simply no room for sentimentality.

 

As Christians it goes without saying that our deepest desire even for the deepest of sinners is that they should recognise their sin, truly repent, and find forgiveness. But there can be no rejoicing until that has actually happened.

 

So as we watch the heart-breaking scenes from Ukraine, may we not pray quite unashamedly, “Oh God, bring down this man Vladimir Putin! Put an end to the cruel and wicked things he is doing!”? We pray that prayer, of course, fully aware that we too are sinners in need of God’s mercy and grace; but we needn’t be squeamish about praying it, for justice demands it.

 

And anyway, if it’s falling short of Jesus to pray such a prayer, how much worse is it to act in such a way that people are provoked to fury and, so, determined to see justice?

 

So far I have quoted from two psalms, 129 and 137, psalms that we feel make for somewhat uncomfortable reading. But now here is another one to finish with. In Psalm 58:10-11 we read: “The righteous will be glad when they are avenged… Then people will say, ‘Surely the righteous still are rewarded; surely there is a God who judges the earth’”.

 

And we might say, “Well, there’s nothing wrong with that! The fact that ‘there is a God who judges the earth’ can only be good news!”

 

But wait a minute - what about the part I missed out, where I put dots instead? Here it is in full: “The righteous will be glad when they are avenged, when they dip their feet in the blood of the wicked”.

 

Ugh! I can only comment that I have never remotely imagined one of the pleasures of heaven being to dip my feet in the blood of anybody, wicked or not.

 

It’s metaphorical language, of course; but there is a rightness about its sentiment, the rightness of divine justice. And that can prompt us to pray…

 

Lord God, you are a holy and just God. Please bring your judgment to bear on all who perpetrate great wickedness and cruelty. Yes, Lord, we would love it if they repented and were forgiven. But failing that we cry out to you especially on behalf of the nation of Ukraine: Do it, Lord! And please, please, do it soon! Amen.