Somebody once told us that parables are Jesus’ way of offering life-lessons by telling simple little stories. But that guy must have been sleeping late the Sunday this parable was read. Of all the parables, that of the “Unjust Judge” may just have what would seem to be the weirdest implications of all. This one has bothered Christians for centuries – which is very possibly what Jesus intended! Are we to understand, by simple substitutionary reasoning, that Jesus wants us to be like the persistent widow in the story? Does he mean to tell us that we are to nag unceasingly until God just can’t stand it anymore and tosses us a favor to shut us up? Somewhere, we recall, Jesus has praised his Father’s marvelous parenting skills. But is this really a model for good parenting - giving in to begging?

Every parent who has made accompanied trips to the grocery store can certainly understand the temptation to give in unceasing annoyance. But we also know it is not wise to do so. Giving in does not teach responsibility - it will, however, over time encourage immaturity. Therefore we do not expect God to want us to beg without ceasing, simply because that would not bring out the best in us. So at some base level we know that an allegorical reading of this parable is a mistake, providing us with a distorted picture of the God of the universe.

What’s more, if the point of this parable were that by continually pleading your case with God you’ll always get what you want, then it would be a lie - and Jesus tells no lies. Nearly everyone who has tried to engage in a life of prayer knows this: there is such a thing as the crisis of unanswered prayer. Many have prayed hundreds, thousands of times to change a particular, painful circumstance in their lives or in the world - but no intervention occurred. Imagine a young mother, recently and unexpectedly single, with three kids and a daycare bill that gobbles up half her income. She says to you in a quiet moment: “It isn’t that I don’t believe in God. I just haven’t got it in me to pray anymore. It seems as if I pray and pray, and then if something good does happen, it probably would have happened that way regardless. If nothing happens, I have to deal with disappointment all over again. So I just quit.” How would you reply to her? She wants to believe that God cares and is involved in our lives. Could you answer her? Could you relate to her?

Maybe your answer would be stronger, more powerful if you could relate to what she’s feeling. We know that some folks don’t pray because they have seen no evidence that prayer works. Others insist everybody should pray because prayer is powerful and always works. But still others, I think many, are adrift somewhere in the middle, certain that we should be praying, but still at something of a loss to explain why prayer “works” sometimes, but not others. We know prayer is always an “under-construction” part of our lives: we continually need to improve our discipline of prayer. But the reason we generally don’t may not be only because we’re busy, or plain reluctant to change. For many of us, there is a deep-seated concern that even if we pray sincerely, God might not answer our prayers.

Then we’d be seemingly forced to face one of two possibilities: either we weren’t doing it right, though goodness knows why not, or God doesn’t answer all prayers. Either way, we who struggle to live as Christians might find ourselves having to deal with uncomfortable realities. The Bible only presses the tension: Paul tells us to pray without ceasing (1 Thes. 5:17); Jesus says that everyone who asks will receive (Luke 11:10). The Scriptures are full of miracles that happen by means of prayer. So there is in the Bible an urgency and a radical confidence about prayer. We hear the message: believe it, prayer works!

But does the Bible say anything about unanswered prayer? Perhaps the most memorable example, and a perfect one for Lent, is Jesus’ prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane. You know the story: Jesus is praying alone, because his friends cannot stay awake. His mind is full of vivid images of what the immediate future holds from him. From somewhere down in the ravine comes the scrape of a spear-point on a shield; that is the sound of his death approaching. In perhaps the most heart-rending prayer of the Bible, Jesus gasps, “Abba, Dad, all things are possible for you. Take this cup [of suffering] away from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will” (Mark 14:36). From the standpoint that Jesus pleads for an escape from that unfolding darkness, his prayer in Gethsemane would seem to go completely unanswered.

Now back to his strange story about an unrighteous judge. A Hebrew widow, wholly unprotected by laws regarding the inheritance of her husband’s estate, has the misfortune of pleading her case before a corrupt jurist. Someone is conspiring to steal from her the little bit she has to live on, and she is stuck with a judge who is ignoring all the Deuteronomic laws about how widows are to be shown mercy. (Imagine that! A powerful person exploiting his position, maybe even holding out for a bribe!) But even this man, a person oblivious to God and basic human decency, can do the right thing for someone who won’t quit asking. By implication, Jesus seems to be saying what he’s said before: “How much more will your Father in Heaven look after you, our Perfect Father who wants to give his children good things. Don’t you think that in a world of corrupt officials and little people begging for justice, you can do no better than to trust in the God whose way is true Justice?”

So what do you think? All the insurance nightmares, all the stolen pension funds, the bumped-up bonuses for bailout millionaires - do these realities make you more likely to seek God’s intervention by prayer, or less likely to do so? As for me, some days I find it easier to pray in the face of injustice, just because it’s there. And some days, I find it very difficult to pray.

We said that many people debate prayer on its perceived effectiveness. But somewhere along the way I let go of praying based on the certainly that “prayer always works.” That belief proved, at least for me, too fragile a motivating force, because I can’t always see prayer working, at least not in the ways I am seeking. I pray because I am convinced that in Christ, God is at work on the injustice of the world. I pray because I believe that by the power of Christ, evil is being beaten back. Not in a final showdown (not yet). But for those of us paying attention, there’s a whisper on the wind: this human injustice is not going to stand; a relentless tide is already coming in, invisibly, steadily, inexorably. The victory is already won because God is good.

The Letter to the Hebrews says that in Jesus Christ, we have one who intercedes for us before God - one who has been tested in every way, as we have been...but even more so. He is the one who lifted up his petitions and prayers with loud cries to the Father who could answer his cries, who had the power to rescue, the power to save! That prayer in the Garden – did it really go unanswered? You know, not so long ago it occurred to me that maybe God did answer that prayer in Gethsemane. Right then, too, not later, on the third day. Jesus found his night-watch so lonely, so painful, that three times he went and sought the company of his friends. Three times he found that they couldn’t even bother to stay awake.

And I wonder. He sees the failure of these men, who knew better than anyone the importance to Jesus of those dire hours in the darkness. Did Jesus see in their failure that we were all not going to make it any other way? Was the failure of the Eleven, and the one who had already walked out, the answer that Jesus finally needed to the anguished question, “Father, isn’t there another way?” Maybe God answered “no.” Praise God that “No” was answer enough for Christ.

And those of us living in the shadows of that Garden - most days we want to make the Living God a part of our lives. At our best, we want to experience a close relationship with the One who made us. We know that prayer, prayer alone, is the way to do this. Prayer’s a natural part of life: it is probably not too much to say that just about all of us pray, those of us here today and those who seldom or never come here. We all have times when we just plain have to pray.

But we don’t have to do is pray because ‘we know it always works.’ God always works. By prayer, God works on our circumstances, and gets to work on ourselves. God works powerfully in a “thinking that is opened to God” way of praying. But the power that opens the door for change begins not with I-ask-and-I’ll-get-justice certainty (that frankly not a whole lot of us have, anyway). We pray out of confidence that in Jesus Christ, the perfection of God’s justice met the worst that humankind could do. Do you believe that God is good, and in Jesus Christ, we have seen God’s very best? If you believe this, then you are not far from the kingdom of God. Believe this, and as he said, “the Kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21). Pray because you believe God is at work in the world, and then because you pray, you will see that God is working in your world.

So be it. Amen.