A national call to prayer
Ordinary Sunday 29: 21st October, 2001
Fr John Davis, Vicar of St Peter's Eastern Hill
Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and
not to lose heart. Lk 18:1
Today's gospel presents us with a teaching that is timely and direct. It
provides a very appropriate background to something that every preacher today
has been asked to do, right around the country. A statement has been issued
by the Primate and all the archbishops of the Australian Church calling all
Anglicans and people of goodwill to prayer on All Saints' day at the end of
next week. The focus of the prayer is the worsening international situation.
We have been asked by our own Archbishop to read this statement in all our
churches and to make it widely available, as the focus for this prayer. It
is an official position statement of the Anglican Church of Australia. It
is as follows and is printed in the pew sheet:
It was resolved that this Standing Committee of General Synod:
- observes with deep sorrow the recent terrorist attacks in the USA and
expresses its sympathy for all those tragically affected;
- notes with grave concern the emergence of international terrorism on an
unprecedented scale and supports global efforts to deal with it;
- questions whether continued bombing of Afghanistan will be an appropriate
or effective response to terrorism given the dispersal of terrorists throughout
the world;
- urges leaders of the nations to gather to consider the issues leading to
terrorism and other current global problems, especially third world debt and
the international displacement of people, including refugees and asylum seekers
and settlement of the Palestinian question;
- asks Australia's leaders to look carefully at our national response to
these international questions, and in particular the paradox of rejecting
asylum seekers from Afghanistan fleeing the Taliban regime which we are
opposing;
- urges Anglicans and other Christians throughout the country to seek to
understand Islam more fully and build closer relationships with Muslim
communities.
That statement is issued in the context of a call to prayer – our own
private prayer and our public prayer together next week. In addition we are
offering prayers each Friday in all of the churches of the various
denominations here in the central part of Melbourne. That is to continue for
the foreseeable future. The times as we are constantly reminded are uncertain
and distressing. These prayers, as the Primate's press statement makes clear,
are 'for peace, for justice, for reconciliation, and for a more compassionate
response to asylum seekers and refugees in our midst'. There are indeed times
when all the problems and difficulties that confront us daily in papers, on TV,
or in the instant communication with friends around the world that is now so
easy, get close to being overwhelming. There is a sense of helplessness in the
face of so much. And there is now, and always, that call to prayer.
Prayer and faith and the possibility of 'losing heart' – that is at
the centre of today's gospel. This is not an experience that is totally
foreign to any of us. It is possible to be of quite a sunny disposition and
still, from time to time, to feel depressed and heavily burdened by the weight
of the world. One starts to lose heart when it all just becomes too much. When
too many areas simultaneously are not right, we can find ourselves simply
grinding to a halt with no energy left for anything, no sense of purpose or
direction, no desire to do things better. That is 'losing heart'.
We live our lives at various levels. It is possible for things to be going
well in some and not in others. We have our own personal interior life that is
perhaps shared with a partner, a family, friends, or companions on the way.
There is an immediate context of neighbourhood, workplace, or parish. There
is a wider context that one still has many points of connection with. And then
there is the world. Certainly, if more than one of these areas is in bad shape,
there is indeed the potential to 'lose heart'. The connections we share with
world, the nation, even the Church all can be moving in ways we do not feel
we have any influence over. This can be profoundly unsettling. Even individuals
can at times feel rather like a cork on a stream.
Without faith, and a prayer that is grounded in living experience and
relationship with God, it is certainly possible to go under. But it is
precisely that reaching beyond our own human resources which is at the heart
of today's gospel. This is the action of a faith that moves towards, that
trusts and believes in, and longs for a relationship and understanding with
God; with that higher power. Prayer is based on the presupposition that there
is and can be communication, awareness, gift, communion. There is not only the
desire and the need for justice and mercy; but also the desire and need for
discernment and guidance and assurance. For hope where formerly there was none.
Prayer is all this and more.
Prayer and faith go together. Faith then is the belief that there is a
divine justice, grace and mercy that will prevail. Faith believes that we will
experience this in moving towards it, praying for it, even though that truth
may remain obscured by the events and processes of whichever part of our lives
or world is causing us to lose heart.
Because we hope that things can and should be better than they are, we seek
the discernment to know the way forward, insofar as we have choices to
exercise. We pray. We seek to come close to God, in whatever way we can. In
this way of course prayer is much more than a simple wish list of things to
be done. Yet of course we pray for peace or protection as well as for that
clarity of heart and mind when an important decision looms. But prayer is
also simply placing ourselves in the presence of a loving God: attempting to
live in that context in worship and service.
This is not easy; and yet, in the midst of injustice, deep troubles and
stress, today's gospel proclaims a call to prayer. Why pray? Why ask?
Why seek? Why bother?
We pray in hope that God listens! Look at the example given in today's
parable. The lead character is a tireless widow who would not give up in her
petitions to a judge – one who is unjust, and possibly corrupt. What an
incongruous image for the Lord to use, but how pointed, and focussed on the
importance of making our needs known: our hunger for understanding and peace
and meaning in our lives. And if that sort of judge, tired and bored and
simply wanting to avoid being bothered, is able to deliver, then how much
more so will God "grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and
night? Will he delay long in helping them? I tell you, he will quickly grant
justice to them." Lk 18:7-8.
Why bother praying? Because, in light of today's gospel, we consider that
it will have some effect. Because we believe that it will make a difference.
Because in the end we believe and have faith that Christ will be all in all.
That the final word of life is good, that the ultimate reality is God's grace
over all. At the centre of the Christian gospel is resurrection: this is the
hope and the proclamation that there is new life, that there is a rising glory
and justice and mercy that we will all share. Today's gospel is, in fact,
a strong encouragement to take heart, not lose it – to live, then, and
pray in hope.
Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always
and not to lose heart. Lk 18:1
The Lord be with you.
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Views is a
publication of
St Peter's Eastern Hill, Melbourne Australia.
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