Sermon 17th October, 2010

Widow & Unjust Judge/Pharisee & Tax Collector

"The Sounds of Prayer"
- Gregorian Chant!

Sounds are very simple - and we can hear some of them, implicitly in these two stories (small part of what is meant by prayer).

1. [Knocking] - widow "kept coming to him"
- knock can be gentle or loud
- persistent; demands attention.

This Prayer a form of knocking - draws God's attention; draws our attention;
→ ACTION; cp. eg. widow/women in black; mothers of the Disappeared, Woy Woy Hospital Alliance.
Prayer of intercession
↘ not because God is reluctant; because humanity is slow to wake up to the need of another
- God is knocking with us, on behalf of all who suffer injustice
- the widow, the fatherless and the stranger;
KNOCK - draw attention on behalf of another, is to go out beyond ourselves
- "ekstasis" - means to stand outside ourselves; we get our English word 'ecstasy'.
- Seeking a connection beyond our own self-concern.

2. PHARISEE - way story set up
[STATIC - OUT OF TUNE RADIO]
Lost connection with himself, with God, with others whom he despises (complete antithesis of everything we understand by prayer.)
Case is not hopeless (at least he sees the tax collector) - in fact he has all the means of hearing God speak to him - he's just put himself (his ego) totally in the way, so that he's stoppered his ears and created static!
Actually suggests very good ways of connecting with God.
Regular worship in a sacred space - community - habit.
Upright living - choosing ways which leave space for God.
Fasting - remind of God's presence
- increase thankfulness for food and health.
Giving alms - exercise of compassionate care.
Outward actions do help - they turn on the radio -
but there can be no music, no word where there is no reception.
- where those concerned are not willing to receive there is no connection.

3. [BEATING] OF FIST AGAINST BREAST
Tax collector connects
- literally, physically; fist to breast
- emotionally and spiritually expressing in that action his sense of remorse; his desire to be different; the longing that his heart might be softer.
- That's why he goes away "justified"
- "set right"
- his prayer is far from perfect (as all our prayer is) - he's very much focussed still on himself - but his prayer is real, and honest and connected - and there's no substitute for that.


Widow, tax collector and even Pharisee all reveal something of the sounds of prayer - of which we can hear echoes in our own practice of prayer.

In some sense they are all echoes of the sound of God at prayer in us.
For God prays with us, in us, through us - prayer is never a one-way communication; it is always and encounter full of the promise of intimacy.
→ an encounter to which we are constantly, and perseveringly invited.
- just as we are encouraged never to give up so God never gives up on us.
(A) - Knock - tap on shoulder; tug at the sleeve - waking us up; alerting us to the Divine presence.
- in Creation; in compassion, in those we love.
(B) - Word of God - quite clear & direct if we tune ourselves to receive it and we do have a dial to go by. - community - Church.
Scriptures → Patterns of live and spiritual disciplines of fasting and almsgiving. In themselves they will not take us to
God - a bare observance can take us further away.
- but taken together with a willingness of heart, they can enable us to hear clearly, a whole divine symphony - or at any rate a word or two.

(C) - BEATING OF BREAST - prophets speak of need for a heart of flesh and not of stone;
God works on our hearts to soften them - to make them more compassionate.
- like potter with clay;
We can resist and make the task harder - but slow dripping wears away stone -
In each of us, if we are willing, God can wear away a hollow that can hold water
- The living water of the tears of God's compassion.
- a well where we and other can drink.
- and the sound of this prayer of God is us?
- the sound of living water, babbling and rushing - and bring healing to us and to the world God so long to restore.
In whose name.
Amen.