Prayer: A relationship built upon love and trust

Trinity 18 2025 – Luke 18. 1-8

Jesus told his disciples a parable about the need to pray continually and never lose heart.

The parable of the Widow and the Unjust Judge doesn’t work in the way most parables do. The Judge in the story is not an image of God. In fact, he’s the opposite of God, except that in the end he grants the widow’s persistent request. Our Lord’s first hearers would have smiled. He is arguing like a rabbi – “from the lesser to the greater”. “If this, then how much more that”. St. Paul argues like that several times in his letters.

Allow me to state the obvious about the moral of this story. It is not that God could be exasperated or wearied by our persistence in prayer. On the contrary. Jesus here teaches precisely that God asks for our persistence. If anything should weary God, it would be our forgetfulness, our lack of faith, our willingness to give up hope, our readiness to abandon prayer. God is always pleased when we pray to Him. He wants us to turn to Him in our troubles, and He promises to hear us.

But, of course there are times when our prayer seems not to be heard. In the Garden of Gethsemane, you remember, Jesus asked, that the cup be removed from him, and it was not. But a greater good was most certainly brought about by that cup not being removed. Because Jesus drank it to its dregs, we were redeemed. And because Jesus accepted suffering and death, in obedience to his Father, He was raised up to invincible Life. As St Paul says, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name.

There’s a text in the Apocalypse, which gives us a little window into one reason why God may sometimes wish to delay His response to our prayer. St. John sees in his vision the souls of the martyrs waiting under the Altar. They cry out to God in rather similar words to the widow in the parable. When will you take vengeance for our death? And they are told to be patient a little longer, until the number of all the chosen martyrs is made up (Revelation 6:9ff.).

Think back for a moment to Jesus in Gethsemani. Perhaps His prayer was not actually ignored, or somehow not heard, or even put on hold for a while. From that prayer, God the Father endowed Jesus with all the strength and courage he needed to endure his Passion with perfect patience and love. So it is with us. If we don’t receive immediately what we want, we will still be given what we need. What God gives us will always be in response to our greatest need, and our greatest good, which of course is our eternal salvation and union with him in heaven. St Thomas Aquinas taught that suffering is for the benefit of the people who suffer. It is designed to lead people closer to God, to promote the greatest good in the life of any human being: union with God. Ultimately the union of love with God reaches its fulfilment in heaven

Those who have tried it know that as a matter of fact, according to experience, prayer, and especially the prayer of request in time of trouble, is always answered. Prayer is powerful. The Gospel urges us to have confidence in prayer, and to persevere in prayer.

This is what some of the Fathers of the Church say about prayer. They know what they are talking about. St. Gregory of Nyssa, in the 4th century wrote, “Those who fail to unite themselves to God through prayer cut themselves off from God. So the first thing we have to learn is that we need to pray continually and not lose heart. Prayer brings us close to God, and when we are close to God we are far from the enemy. Prayer safeguards chastity, controls anger, and restrains arrogance. It is the seal of virginity, the guarantee of marital fidelity, the shield of travellers, the protection of sleepers, the encouragement of those who keep vigil, the cause of the farmer’s good harvest, and of the sailor’s safety” (On the Lord’s Prayer).

And this is what his younger contemporary St. John Chrysostom wrote, “As water is life for a fish, so is prayer life for you. Prayer makes us temples of Christ. As the sun gives light to the body, so does prayer give light to the soul. If it’s a calamity for a blind man not to see the sun, how much more is it for a Christian not to pray assiduously – if by prayer he does not welcome Christ into his soul!” (cf. On Prayer to God).

Finally here is St. John Climacus, two centuries on from these two. He was Abbot of St. Catherine’s Monastery at Mount Sinai: “The effect of prayer is to hold the world together. Prayer achieves reconciliation with God. Prayer is the mother and the daughter of tears. Prayer is expiation of sin, a bridge across temptation, a bulwark against affliction. Prayer wipes out conflict, is the work of Angels, the nourishment of all Spirits. Prayer is future gladness, action without end, wellspring of virtues, source of grace, hidden progress, food of the soul, enlightenment of the mind, an axe laid to the root of despair, hope demonstrated, sorrow done away with. Prayer is the wealth of monks, the treasure of hermits, anger diminished. Prayer is a mirror of progress, a demonstration of success, evidence of one’s condition, the future revealed, a sign of glory” (Ladder, step 28).

May each one of us receive this sign of glory.

Amen.

The Rev’d Dr James Lawson
St Mary Magdalene Enfield, 19/10/2025