Prayer: Incredible, Invincible, Inevitable

Pentecost 21 (C)
Luke 18:1-8
Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart. He said, ‘In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people. In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, “Grant me justice against my opponent.” For a while he refused; but later he said to himself, “Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.” ’ And the Lord said, ‘Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not 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. And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?’

Sermon
Many of you may have watched the rescue of the miners in Chile live as it happened on Wednesday. If so, you were one of millions of people around the world watching. Some say close to a billion saw it live from China to Sri Lanka, from South Africa to Norway, from the Australia to Bolivia. An amazing story of 33 miners buried by a mountain of earth in the desert. 69 days. 2200 feet beneath the surface of the earth – trapped. Literally, the weight of the world was on their shoulders. Leaders from around the world issued public statements of support and encouragement. The president of France Sarkozy, said on the day of the rescue “We are all Chileans today.”

And in a sense he was right. Most people in the world have, at some point or time, felt the weight of the world bearing down upon them. Most people in the world have, at some point or time, felt the world caving in upon them. Yes, it is true that on that day we were all Chileans.

Of all the tools rescuers used to bring them out alive, perhaps nothing was quite as important as the super flexible fiber optic cable from Japan. With this cable, rescuers were able to drop those buried beneath a line. They were able to communicate. They were able to teleconference. They were able to share words.

Today in Luke chapter 18, Jesus has a word for you, actually three words. Today in Luke's story of the widow and the unjust judge, Jesus is dropping you a line. Because no one knows as well as Jesus what the weight of the world feels like. No one knows like Jesus how quickly things can change. How quickly you can go from being the toast of the town to being the scapegoat. How quickly you can go from people chanting your name to calling for your crucifixion. How quickly you can go from feeling close with God to feeling like God has abandoned you. Yes Jesus knows what you go through. And today there are three words for you to hear.

The first word he has for you is INCREDIBLE. As you bear the pressure of a world trying to cave-in on itself, know this: God’s love for you is incredible. I mean it is so extreme that it is hard to believe. Not like the judge in the story in Luke. No, in that story a widow has had someone in town take advantage of her and she needs help. Widows in Jesus day were among the most vulnerable and most at risk in the world. In fact, when the Bible mentions widows it often does it in the same breath as orphans. Widows often becames victims, as in today's story.

This widow goes to the local court house to try and get justice. She tries to get things put right by asking the judge for help. But the Bible makes it clear . . . the judge couldn’t care less. There wasn’t a scale sensitive enough to measure his indifference to her plight. Cold and callous he was. But in the end he gave in to her, not because he gave a hoot, but because she was like an irritating fly in his day.

Jesus says “Will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry out to him day and night?” If the cold and apathetic judge could make things right, how much more would your Father make things right? And he calls you his “chosen ones.” You belong to God. He chose you. Jesus says in John 15, “You did not choose me. I chose you.” Unlike the unfeeling judge, God feels for you. He has made you the special object of his affection. He obsesses about you. Counting the hairs on your head. You do not need to harangue God, or badger God, or pester God to give you attention or to make things right. God does this already out of his deep love for you.

As you deal with any feelings of being overwhelmed or buried alive, Jesus has this word for you God’s love is INCREDIBLE.

The second word Jesus has for you this morning is INVINCIBLE. The widow was at risk of being overwhelmed by a corrupt world, done-in by a crooked sort of person. Getting resistance and little help. She sounds very much like a number of people I know today. How many times have you tried to dig your way out of bad situation and find that the walls just keeping caving in further? Those Chilean miners do.

As long as it sounds, the reason the miners weren’t down there any longer than they were was because of a special drilling system made in Pennsylvania that uses four hammers to pound, chop, and dig away at the rock at a rate of 40 meters of rock a day. That’s 131 feet a day, or ten stories a day. That is amazingly fast. It ate through all kinds of rock and formations: sandstone, granite, shale, slate. You name it and the drill punched through it. There was nothing that could stand in its way.

You’ve got to know that as anytime something caves in on you, whether it is you marriage, you job, or you health, there is nothing that God will not punch through for you to make things right. God’s power is invincible. It cannot be resisted or denied. There is no dark place in your marriage that God will cannot and will not bust through to bring you blessing. There is no cavern in your family so deep that he will not penetrate to elevate you to goodness. There is no weight so heavy that he cannot remove.

You remember how God freed the people of Israel out of Egypt, lead them to the shore of the Red Sea. Then here come the Egyptians again. They changed their minds and want them back. The people are caught between a rock and a hard place. And how does God rescue them? With the blast of his nostrils! The Bible says that the wind of God parted the Red Sea in two as God exhaled as with a snort or a scoff in a show of mighty power.

There is nothing God cannot and will not punch through to see that you receive the life has in mind for you, not even death. That’s the story of Jesus, you know. God reached into the heart of death itself, punched a hole, to rescue you and me. If you ever doubt that anything or anyone can help you, Jesus has this word for you – INVINCIBLE.

The third word that Jesus has for you today is INNEVITABLE. Because of God’s incredible love for you and God’s invincibility, there is an inevitability to the whole thing. The end result is not in doubt. The final outcome is not in question. It’s not a matter of “if” but “when” the great celebration is going to happen. It’s practically a done deal. All that’s left is the countdown. That’s what people on the surface kept telling the miners to keep up their spirits. They would tell them “We’re on the way. We’re getting close. We just passed the 1000 meter mark. Another 500 feet of rock out of the way. The end is in sight. Hang in there. Everything is going according to plan.

As the world waited and watched, we all knew what the final outcome was going to be, we were just waiting for it to happen so that the celebration could start. As God's chosen ones, we all know what the final outcome is going to be with the concerns and worries and heaviness of our world. What we are wating for is for it to just heppen so that the real celebrating can begin.

These are the three words Jesus has for you whenever the world around you shifts and you find yourself needing a miraculous rescue. You have a Lord who specializes in rescues. That is why Jesus tells this story. He tells this story “SO THAT” you can pray and not lose heart. It is because you know that his love for you is incredible. It is because you know that his power is invincible. And you know that the outcome is inevitable.