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Dr. Mark Owen Fenstermacher THE MYSTERY OF UNANSWERED PRAYER

January 13, 2013

Luke 18:1-18

First United Methodist Church P.O. Box 936

Bloomington, IN 47402 The Cup of Coffee. It felt pretty good getting the call. Well, actually, it was an email. The email was short and sweet. This young professional wondered if I might have time for a cup of coffee.

He and I had talked over a coffee a year or so earlier. After he had sent me an email, introduced himself, said he had heard some things about me, and wondered if we could meet.

So when I got the follow up email, asking for

some time to just check in with each other, I smiled. I had enjoyed being together and it felt pretty good knowing he wanted to share a table again. We set something up. We met at one of my favorite watering or coffee-ing holes. We leaned back and talked about the weather and about our families. Much younger than me, the father of several young children, he talked with me about some of the joys and challenges of being a dad. We talked about what it is like to try and find community, create community, and connect with other people at a deeper level in a world where everyone

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seems on the move. He told me about a TV series he and his wife were watching when the kids were finally safely in bed at night, and I told him about a film we had seen. I told him about hanging out with Ella and Olivia.

It was pretty cool. The place where we were was full of people-

there was this buzz around us-but it felt like the table was a sanctuary. It is an amazing thing to be with someone who just wants to hang out with you, isn’t it? Those moments renew me. Those moments refresh me.

So here we are, sitting at a table, each with a

cup of coffee, talking about big stuff and little stuff, family stuff and soul stuff, sports stuff and film stuff, and I am thinking, “Wow, this is cool – someone who just likes hanging with me!”

And then, as I pulled on my baseball cap, he

said, “You know, I was wondering if you would do me a favor. And I understand if you can’t…”

I listened. I told him I would do what I could do. And I thought, “Is this what this was about? Is

this what the email and the phone call and the cup of coffee was about? Did he get in touch because he wanted to get in touch, or did he get in touch because he wanted me to do something for him? Was I being blessed…or used?”

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He is a great, young guy. And I hope we’ll get together, again.

Prayer.

Last weekend we stepped into a three-week series of messages we’re calling THE MYSTERY. We explored The Mystery of Suffering last week and today we’re look at The Mystery of Unanswered Prayer. As we start digging into The Mystery of Unanswered Prayer I find myself thinking of that cup of coffee with the young professional, the young dad that ended with the statement, “You know, I was wondering if you could do me a favor.” Communion.

The reason I am thinking about my time in the coffee shop with that super cool, super bright, super loving young father is because prayer is -at one level-sharing space and time with God. To put it another way, prayer is hanging out with God-lingering with God. The first weekend of every month we, like many Jesus communities, gather around a table. We call that sharing of bread and juice “communion”. Prayer is a profound, mystical, soul-engaged kind of communion. It is community with God…intimacy with God.

It may happen while we are fishing for small

mouth bass. It may happen while we are re-reading the 3rd

chapter of Ephesians or Psalm 23.

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It may happen while we are sitting at our loom or working in dirt back in the garden.

Prayer is sitting across the table from God. Prayer is just being with God in a soul kind of

communion. It is being with the One who knows you best,

loves you best, and will be with you to the end of the age. Communication. At another level prayer is communication with God. Honest, no-holds-barred, soul-engaged communication with God. Speaking. Listening.

For my money Christians often seem way too timid and way too polite when they come to God in prayer.

They’re like the person who covers their living

room furniture in plastic because they don’t want any kind of a mess. They’re like the person who never wants to let anyone past the front door for fear that they’ll see the house isn’t perfect. There is that pile of mail near the phone and the bed isn’t made and the clean clothes haven’t been transferred from the laundry basket to the chest of drawers and closet. We want God to think we have it all together so we don’t want to let even God

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past our front door! We keep the plastic cover on the couch so no one can spill ice tea or pizza on the cushions!

Too often we worry about being polite, not

offending God, not using the wrong verb tense, and not letting God see what we are really feeling or fearing or hoping for. Jews-at least in the Bible-tend to be far more open and far more honest, in their prayerful communication with God. They aren’t afraid to be honest.

I love the kind of prayer relationship Moses has

with God. One of the things the Hebrews were best at was

grumbling. So, in Numbers 11, the people are grumbling, never happy, always finding something to complain about. God, the writer of Numbers says, gets angry. God is so angry that this anger gets expressed as fire that consumes the edges of the camp where the escaping slaves are staying out in Sinai. Moses tells God, “Cool off.” And the fire subsided.

When God gives the people bread to eat,

they’re still not happy: they were hoping for meat! They got cornbread but what they really want is barbecued chicken or roast lamb! The Lord is outraged and Moses is upset.

Numbers 11 gives us a picture of God and

Moses out in the wilderness shouting at one another. “Why have you treated me so badly?” Moses shouts at God. “Why have you burdened my life with the

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responsibility for these people? How did I suddenly become responsible for this band of whiners? Did I give birth to them? Was I in the labor room when they came into the world? Where in the world am I to get enough meat to feed these crybabies?”

God says He is going to send meat. In fact, God

says, “I am going to send so much meat that you’ll not just have enough meat to eat for one day, or two days, or ten days, or twenty days, but for a whole month! You’re going to have so much meat that it’s going to come out your nostrils and make you sick!”

Moses laughs a dismissive, skeptical laugh and

shouts, “I’ve got six hundred thousand people on foot out here! Don’t you see this mob? Where in the world are you going to get enough meat to feed this many people? All the flocks in this part of the world couldn’t take care of this crowd! You could catch all the fish in the sea and still not feed us!”

And so it goes. Don’t get lost in the details of the story. The Hebrew Bible is letting us know we can be

honest with God; because God is going to be honest with us.

Prayer is communion. Prayer is being with God.

Prayer is intimacy with God. Prayer is fellowship with God.

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And prayer is communication. Look at the prayerful wrestling Jesus does in the Garden of Gethsemane if you want to see an example of what it looks like to be honest with God. Please.

Jesus, in today’s scripture reading from Luke 18, tells a story to encourage people who are discouraged. Who are about ready to give up hope. Who are wondering if prayer is worth the bother. Who are tired of waiting for God to step in and change the world…heal this broken, violent.

This story, which is titled The Parable of the

Persistent Widow in the TNIV and as Justice for the faithful in the Common English Bible, is a reminder that there is a part of prayer that is about laying our needs before God. Speaking to God about what we need and what others need and what the world needs.

Jesus tells the people not to give up. Jesus tells the people to keep praying. And to encourage them he tells this story about

a hard-hearted judge who didn’t care about God or people. In that city, Jesus, there was a widow who kept coming to the judge and asking for justice.

For a while, Jesus says, the judge holds out. For a while the judge shrugs off the woman’s petition. But, finally, the judge says to himself, “I may not fear God or respect people, but if I don’t give this woman what she is asking for she is going to keep bothering me. Keep

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showing up at my house. Keep ringing my doorbell. Keep shouting over the hedge in my backyard, during my pool parties, asking, ‘What about it, judge? Have you looked at the paperwork? Have you given my case anymore thought? Come on, don’t you remember how when you were young you dreamed about a more just world? Remember…before you settled for being comfortable and respectable and going to the club on Tuesdays for the shrimp fest and Thursdays for open bar night…you once dreamed of justice yourself?’” The judge realizes this is going to go on and on, so the judge gives in. He gives the woman what she is asking for. The judge gives the woman the justice she seeks! Jesus says God is going to provide justice for God’s people when they cry out to God. Maybe not today, maybe not tonight, but eventually the cry for justice will be granted! I want you to be careful not to push this story too far. Jesus isn’t saying God is like a hard hearted judge. This is a parable. In fact, in Mathew 7:7-ff. Jesus is encouraging people to seek from God what it is they need, and Jesus describes God as a loving parent who would never give their child a stone if the child asked for a loaf of bread!

So there is a part of prayer that sometimes involves letting God know what we need, what we are hoping for, and not just for ourselves but for others.

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The word for the asking part of prayer is supplication.

Ann Lamott says, as I have reported before, that

there are really only two kinds of prayer. There is supplication. Asking. Please…please…please. And there is adoration and thanksgiving where our hearts name the blessings we see…and have received. Thanks… thanks…thanks.

So prayer is sometimes saying, “Please…please…please.” The Answer. The whole experience of prayer is at the center of our journey with God. The Bible, Jesus and Paul, tell us it is more than okay to ask God for what we need to live faithfully in this world. Sometimes we get what we ask for. When our oldest was just born he was in a great deal of distress. Sharon and my parents knew part of the story, but not all of the story. There was a day or two when Bryan’s life seemed to be in the balance. There was this one moment in the LaPorte Hospital where everything changed for him. There was this one moment when everything stabilized. A day or two later we were speaking with my Mom. We told her that around 9:15 all of Bryan’s numbers went in a positive direction.

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She smiled. She said something like, “I was praying at that moment. I was praying right then and I had this strong sense that something was happening. I almost called you at the hospital to see if something was happening.” Sometimes we ask and it comes to us. It happens. There is a break in an illness. Or the spirit of fear that has held us tight slips away. Or a relationship begins to heal as someone finds the courage to trust. Sometimes we ask for something and it happens! Friends of ours were trying to have children. This struggle with infertility had been going on for more than five years, I think. It had nearly crashed their marriage and led to all sorts of struggles. Sandra said they were okay. She said if they couldn’t have children life would still be good. They would get involved in the foster parent program. They would pour their love into the world in other ways than having their own biological children. But she asked if we would pray. So friends prayed for Tim and Sandra. Then, she was suddenly pregnant. She gave birth to a beautiful little boy. Then, about eighteen months later, she was pregnant again-and then two years later pregnant, again. She asked us all to stop praying for she and Tim to have more babies. But here is the thing: sometimes we ask for things and it never happens. We don’t get the answer we were asking for. I thought of that after the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School. How is it that we can

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pray so hard, ask for such good things, and it doesn’t seem to happen?

I know we often ask for selfish things, but there are times when our prayers are for the right things and we don’t see an answer.

Where is God? Is God testing us? Does God

have a hearing problem? Is prayer-at least the part of prayer that is please, please, please just an exercise in futility? The Mystery. We talked last week about suffering, and I mentioned that Paul, in 1st Corinthians 13, says that in this world we are limited in our ability to understand the deep things. He says, as he talks about love and understanding God and knowing even who we are becoming, that it is like looking through smoked glass. Here is the truth of it: I don’t have a good answer for the mystery of unanswered prayer. I don’t. I wish I did but if I pretended to have an answer you would know I was pretending. And I am a terrible pretender! There are some things to say, though. Even though we can’t answer the mystery of prayers that appear to go unanswered, the Bible claims-and our hearts declare it is so-that there is a God. The Bible reminds us that God hears our prayers. When God speaks to Moses, God says he has heard the crying of his people as they suffer in slavery.

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God hears! In fact, in the 8th chapter of Romans Paul says the Spirit of the living God comes to us when we are so weak we can’t put our prayers into words. When we don’t even know what to say, Paul says, “the Spirit itself pleads our case with unexpressed groans”. (8:26b) God searches the heart, God knows our hearts better than we know ourselves, and God fills in the gaps in our prayers when we can’t come up with the right words! Not only is there a God but God hears us! Sometimes I miss what people are saying because I have a congenital hearing loss in one ear, but God hears…God hears. The birth of Jesus at Bethlehem, the miracles God did through Jesus when hungry people were fed and unclean people were touched and sinful people were forgiven, and the cross of Calvary is evidence not only of God’s presence with us but God’s love. So there is a God…and we believe God loves us. In those times when our prayers seem to fall lifeless to the ground, in those times when we pray our hearts out and yet see no change in the world around us or the people around us, when we ask and ask but no door seems to open, we cling to the promise in Romans 8:38 that nothing can separate us from the love of god in Christ Jesus-even prayers that seem to go unanswered. That’s one of the reasons the cross is in the front of the room, you know? Like the candlesticks that appear in so many scenes of Les Miserables, as reminders of the grace and forgiveness that set Jean Valjean free, the cross is in the front of the room to remind us that we are loved. And we need that reminder because more often than we might want to

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admit we begin to wonder. We begin to think God has forgotten us and walked away. We begin to wonder if God is enthusiastically indifferent about us and our fears and our needs. The third lesson the Bible has for us-as does science-is that time is elastic and relative, and God operates by a different timetable. Science says the closer we get to the speed of light the slower time goes. The Bible reminds us over and over again that we live in a microwave age where people get irritated when a song takes more than 25 seconds to download. God, on the other hand, carves valleys by wearing down rock with water and ice. Psalm 90 is a song in the Bible that says that in the eyes of God a thousand days are like a day or part of one night. The small New Testament letter of 2nd Peter says (3:8) that with God a thousand years are like a day and a day is like a thousand years. I can’t speak for you, but I am an impatient person. I fuss when the person in front of me at a red light doesn’t step on the gas within a second and a half of the light turning green. I fuss when the person in front of me on 37 is driving 2 miles per hour below the posted speed limit. When I was a student at IU and I would go down to the dining hall at Wilkie Quad, I would turn around and go back to my room without supper if the line was too long. I was so impatient that I would rather go hungry all night than stand in line for more than 10 minutes! Sometimes God moves quickly.

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Sometimes God moves slowly. It’s worth remembering that God sees time and history with a much broader view than we do. We are all about the here and now, and with God a thousand years are like a day and a day is like a thousand years. So maybe the answer we think is never coming is out there ahead of us… A fourth word is that sometimes the most loving thing God can do for us is not give us what we are praying for. We may be sure something is good and true, we may be sure that something needs to happen in the world around us or in our life, but when the answer is “no” only later do we realize how gracious God has been in not giving us what we asked for. I’m told there is an old Irish curse that goes, “May God grant you the desires of your heart”. There are times, you know, when the best thing God can do is not give us what we’re asking for! Many of us have examples of this in our lives. Early on in my life I was praying hard for something. And what I was praying for looked good…it appeared, on the surface, to be an unselfish thing. I was praying that God would open a door and let me work in a place, have a position, that I thought would be a perfect fit for me. I was sure of it! Weeks went by. I prayed. People who were going to make the decision told me I might get what I was asking for, but I didn’t. I didn’t get what I was asking for. And I was very, very

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disappointed. I tried not to show it. I tried to shrug it off. As time went on, though, I began to see what would have happened if my prayer had been answered in the way I wanted it to be answered. I think if God had given me what I was asking for it would have broken me. Overwhelmed me. One of the very good gifts I have received from God was that “no.” It looked good and right to me, I was sure that particular door should open up for me, but God knew I wasn’t ready…and God knew what that could have done to my heart and soul and marriage. Sometimes the prayer is answered, but it isn’t answered in the way we would like for it to be answered. A fifth word is that sometimes the point of prayer isn’t getting what we need or want, it isn’t about changing things around us, but what prayer changes is us. The answer God gives us is the way God deepens us, changes us, grows us, and matures us. And our relationship with God, as we pray and struggle through the “yes’s” God gives us and the “no’s” that come our way, becomes more real and honest and life changing. I think of the close friend of Jesus, Simon Peter. Simon Peter, when we first meet him, is a man who needs to be in charge. He is willing to walk with Jesus but he wants to tell Jesus what to do. We see that when Jesus talks about going to Jerusalem and dying. Peter takes Jesus off to the side

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and rebukes Jesus. Snaps at him. Tells him-Jesus- that he has it all wrong. Simon is quite confident that God didn’t send Jesus into the world to end up on a cross. And Simon is very confident of his faith and has no doubts about his own courage. When in Jerusalem, Jesus talks about being betrayed and Simon Peter insists that while everyone else may abandon Jesus, he will remain faithful. Everyone else may run away, Lord, but I’ll stay by your side, Simon Peter-the Rock-tells Jesus. Then, of course, there is that scene outside the high priest’s house where Jesus is being questioned. Peter is asked if he is with Jesus, if he knows Jesus, and he denies that he is a friend of Jesus. Peter says he doesn’t know Jesus and in fact, he ends up cursing Jesus! Right at the end of the Gospel of John, in chapter 21, Jesus-after the crucifixion -meets his friends up at the Sea of Galilee. The risen Christ, still bearing the wounds left by the nails, prepares breakfast for Peter and the other disciples. Then, Jesus pulls Simon aside and asks Peter if he loves him. Peter says, “Yes, Lord, you know I love you.” Three times Jesus asks the question and three times Peter gives the answer. Jesus then tells this proud fisherman, this man who has been sure that he knows better than God what ought to happen, that as he cares for the people of God he will be arrested, bound tight, and led where he won’t want to go. Instead of calling the shots, instead of getting what he wants, instead of steering events in the direction he thinks they ought to go, Peter is going to

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become a servant. He is going to end up as a prisoner going someplace he doesn’t want to go. And because he loves Jesus so much, and because he knows Jesus loves him so much, he will be obedient. Wherever the love of Jesus takes him, wherever the Way of Jesus takes him, he will go! “Follow me,” Jesus says to Simon. And Peter says, “Yes.” Simon Peter follows Jesus even if that means the answers to his prayers may not be what he wants them to be. Instead of demanding to be in charge, love leads Peter to become obedient…and trust Jesus no matter what happens. You see, over the course of their relationship, how Peter is changed-transformed. Sometimes the thing prayer changes is…us. Funny…you talk with Jesus long enough, you hang out with God long enough, and you start thinking like him…sounding like him…acting like him. We, the person God shapes us into being, is the answer. Why Keep Praying? So why keep praying if I can’t explain the mystery of unanswered prayer. Well, I keep praying because Jesus prayed. And if prayer brought peace and power and clarity and

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courage and grace into the life of Jesus, I figure a rascal really needs to pray. Why keep praying? Because Jesus tells us to pray. And, after all is said and done, Jesus knows best. I believe that. I believe, as Jesus says in the Gospel of John, Jesus is the way, the truth and the life.

I remember, on a dark night long ago, a friend coming over to our house to help us get the yard in shape. He began to work with him and he showed me what to do. I thought he was being too aggressive and radical. I thought he was cutting the shrubs and bushes back way too far. But he encouraged me, he told me that it might make no sense but it was the right thing to do, and so we kept trimming the shrubs back. And he was right. He knew what needed to be done. He had done this before, you see?

So Jesus loves us and Jesus tells us to pray. So I’ll trust him and do my best to be in

communion with God, carry on a lifelong conversation with God.

Why keep praying? Because I need it. Jesus needed what God has to give us in prayer.

That is why Jesus slipped out of the city early in the morning to a deserted place.

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I pray because I need prayer. I pray because I need God. I pray because my life, my mind, my heart and

my soul are always better, always blessed, always more alive when I pray.

People who know me have, during the summer,

come up to me at times and they’ll say, “When did you last go water skiing?”

I’ll say, “Oh, it’s been awhile. Why do you ask?” They say, “Oh, I’m not surprised. I see it in your

eyes. You need to go water skiing. Go away!” They’ll run into me a week or two later and

they’ll say, “Went water skiing, I see.” “How did you know?” I’ll ask. “Oh,” they say, ‘your eyes look different when

you’ve been on the water. Your eyes look different…” Sometimes people will come up and say, “Have

you been over to Columbus, Ohio lately? Have you seen Ella and Olivia?”

I’ll say, “Why do you ask?” They’ll say, “Oh, you just look like you need to

see the girls. Your eyes tell me you need to go see the girls.”

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A few weeks we’ll run into one another. My friends will say, “Been spending time with the girls, I see.”

“How did you know?” I’ll ask. “Oh,” they’ll say, “Your face…your eyes…look

different when you have been with Ella and Olivia. Glad you got away.”

I pray because I need to pray. I pray because I need God. I pray because my mind and heart and soul are

always blessed, always more alive, when I pray. When I stop praying I turn to cardboard.

I’m like a child at the beach who starts digging

in the sand. They go down four or seven or twelve inches, they keep digging down, and suddenly the hole begins to fill up with water.

Prayer is the hole in the sand God and I dig

together. And the water that comes in, filling up the hole, is grace…it’s love…it’s life.

I pray because I have to pray. Whatever answers come…