THE PERSISTENT GOD

I start today with a couple stories today from Great Britain. A few years ago sixty-two-year-old Miriam Hargrave of Yorkshire, England, finally passed her driving test. It was her fortieth attempt. After such persistence you would assume she started driving right away. But after spending so much money on driving lessons she couldn’t afford to buy a car. Maybe it’s just as well. How comfortable would you be knowing that the driver coming at you had failed the driving test forty times? Another Brit, the Rev. David Guest required 632 lessons over 17 years before he passed his driving test. “When I was told I passed I bent down on my knees and thanked God,” he said. The 33-year-old clergyman spent $11,000 on lessons, wore out eight instructors and crashed five cars before that momentous achievement. The secret to his turnaround was that he finally switched to a car with an automatic transmission. His problem was that he could not distinguish between the clutch and the brake while driving a car with a standard transmission. Well, the British people have been noted for their sense of perseverance, perhaps individually, but certainly as a nation. Such persistence was on display during the First and Second World Wars. In fact, some historians tell us that Germany defeated England militarily in 1940, but that Hitler didn’t know the extent of his victory, and England simply refused to admit defeat. And the British people must now draw on that sense of persistence in these days as they face whole drama around Brexit. God’s people, Christians, should be noted for a sense of persistence, as well. We should be people who persevere, who never up. Now the readings today from both 2nd Timothy and Luke 18 speak to us about the need to persist. For example, Paul says to Timothy, “But as for you, continue in what you have learned and firmly believed…I solemnly urge you, proclaim the message, be persistent whether the time is favorable or unfavorable…always be sober, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, carry out your ministry fully…” And then Luke 18, “Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not lose heart…” Yes, Christians are called to persist. But we don’t have to persist on our own. For our persistence comes from God. The persistent God gives us the quality of persistence. Let’s speak first about God’s persistence.
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God is the persistent one. Persistence is deep within his very character. Let’s consider the parable Jesus told in Luke 18. In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God or respected people. But a widow kept coming to him asking him to grant her justice against her opponent. For a while he refused but later said to himself, “Though I don’t fear God or respect people, I will grant her vindication so that she will not wear me out by her continual coming. The Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God grant vindication 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.” Often we think the lesson of the parable is this – if the unjust judge will finally vindicate the poor, persistent widow, how much more will God give his long-suffering people what they need and long for? Surely God will vindicate our faith and our prayers. That is Luke’s interpretation of Jesus’ parable. And it’s a good one. But maybe there’s yet another. You see, we often assume that we are the poor, persistent widow in the parable, and God is the judge, though of course, very much different than this unrighteous judge. But what if – and hold on for this – what if God is like the poor, persistent widow and we humans are like the unjust, arrogant slow-to-respond judge? Isn’t that what humans are like? God comes seeking the honour due his name. He comes seeking our faith and our love and our obedience. But we put God off. We do things in our time, not God’s. We are high and haughty. We sit in judgement on God and his ways. We think we know better. We don’t fear our Maker and in so doing we fail to love one another as God commands. Our disrespect for God leads to chaos and brokenness and injustice in God’s world. Yes, humans are very often like the unrighteous judge. And God is like the poor widow. God just keeps coming to us again and again, not in strength but in weakness. He came as a babe born in Bethlehem who grew to be a humble carpenter, the sinless one, crucified by our sins and for our sins. The Son of God died in utter weakness and humiliation but was raised by his Father to live forevermore. Of course, God could come to us in great power and command our love and our faith and our obedience. Instead God comes to us in his word, he comes in the preaching of Christ crucified and risen; he draws near by the power of the Spirit; he speaks to us in creation, he whispers to us in our conscience. God keeps coming to us again and again seeking our faith and obedience. God is constantly probing and seeking a way into our lives so until we finally say “Yes” to God. The tools God uses to wear down human resistance, at least for now, are suffering love and persistence. One day of course, it will be different. The Son of Man will come again to judge the living and the dead, and every eye will see him and every heart will be examined for true faith. Those who have said Yes to God and his Son will inherit eternal life, but those who have rejected God or ignored his constant pleading will be lost forever. The question for humans is not about God. He’s not the problem. He’s fine. He’s in control. His faithfulness can be counted on, even when it seems that answers are slow in coming. The question is about us. Will we get off our judgement seat and give God the honour, the trust, and the obedience he deserves?