Pray Always and Not Lose Heart
October 19, 2025, The Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Jeremiah 31:27-34 | Psalm 119:97-104 | 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5 | Luke 18:1-8
“When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”
I wonder if the question lingered in the air for the disciples and all those within earshot and sight line of Jesus. Did his gaze as his words send the searing question upon everyone? Jesus had told them previously that the kingdom of God was already among them (Lk 17:20-37), but the coming of the Son of Man, the Last Judgment, the eschaton, if you will, would come later, and no one knew or knows when. Was Jesus’s question meant to be a sort of time capsule for all of us listening ages later as we still wait for the coming of the Son of Man? In the meantime, Jesus offers a parable about the need to pray always and not to lose heart.
“In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for the people.” A man in a position of power who, even though he’s surrounded by religion, has neither reverence nor fear of God, nor does he respect or care for his neighbors, those whom he serves. At least he’s self-aware. Also, “In that city there was a widow who kept coming to (the judge) and saying, ‘Grant me justice against my opponent.’” Does she come to the courtroom? Follow him to his chamber? Find him on the road? She’s making him tired, and she is belaboring him, wearying him through her incessant bothering. The unjust judge grants her justice because he’s tired of her and doesn’t want to be bothered by her, not because it’s the right thing to do, not because she has been treated unfairly by an adversary, but because it suits him best. End of parable.
Jesus goes on to question: “And will 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.” Jesus isn’t being tricky with the metaphors here. The widow got her victory even through or despite the unjust judge because she was persistent and didn’t give up. How much more so for those who cry out to God, who persevere in prayer through all manner of injustice? Won’t God come through?
“And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” I don’t think we’re the first ones to be challenged by the question. It was challenging from the start.
As Jesus and the disciples get closer to Jerusalem, we know Jesus is closer to his crucifixion. Jesus’s followers know, too, if they believe what he is saying, because he’s already told them about it twice, per Luke’s gospel account, and will do it again. Jesus is preparing them for the days when he won’t be with them physically, when he knows they will be waiting for his ultimate return, when they will get close to despair, to giving up. I can imagine that some wanted to quit already when they got tired, when emergencies came up at home, when people looked at them weirdly because of who they followed and what they believed. Jesus knew their hearts. Jesus knew their fatigue. Jesus knew that it wasn’t ever going to be easy for us, this business of being a believer and following the will of God day in and day out.
Given the world we live in and the isolation, depression, anxiety, and addiction that are probably more rampant than any pandemic, the oppression that lives in the very infrastructure of our society, and the systemic injustice that corrodes our civility and our wellbeing, is Jesus saying that we just need to pray always and protest longer and louder? Do we believe in a transactional God like that?
No. Our God is a God of transformation and relationship, and I refer us back to Jeremiah. Our God is God from beginning to end, and we see how God has remained faithful to humanity throughout the ages, always in relationship, largely through our Holy Scripture. Through Jeremiah, we learn of God’s move to write God’s law on the people’s hearts so that there would be no question, no need to learn, because they would know that God was their God and that they were God’s people, forgiven for having broken their previous covenant. These people, our ancestors in faith, bore the imprint of God’s Word.
A month or so ago I pre-ordered a book from an author I’ve been following. Kaitlin Curtice is a relatively young woman and mother who has been working to connect to her Potawatomi heritage. When I pre-ordered her new book, Everything is a Story: Reclaiming the power of stories to heal and shape our lives, I had the option to get a signed copy from her local bookstore. When I opened the package last week and flipped to the signed title page, the bold signature contrasted with the uniform type set. The signature was drawn by the hand that was connected to the body that held the mind and spirit of the woman who has shared her life and words (which she calls her good medicine) with so many, hoping to bring about healing and restore kinship in humanity and Creation.
And I thought about our lives as signed books. We are volumes and cover the whole spectrum of the Dewey decimal system in our range of interests, skills, and gifts. We come in all age levels. Our lives are full of plot twists and represent every genre imaginable. But most of all, we are created in God’s image, and we even have God’s law inscribed upon our heart (Jer 31:33). We are bearers of the Word and keepers of the stories, not only of our own lives but of the lives of those who have come before us. We are the ones who tell the stories to those who will listen and to those who follow in our footsteps.
Will there be faith on earth?
We may get lost in our self-interest. We may forget where we come from and whom we come from when we get busy, tired, and distracted. We may hurt others by our inattention, ignorance, or avoidance. We might do all this and more, but we still have faith.
I know we have faith because we’re here despite prevailing trends or myriad other options for how to spend our precious time. I know we have faith because I talk with you when you rejoice and when you’re going through the mire. I know we have faith because we pray for one another, and it’s a sport trying to keep up with our prayer list and all our pastoral needs because we KNOW . . . we know we cannot do this life on our own. And we know we have a Great Creator who loves us and dreams for us health and wholeness, who did not create us to suffer alone. We reach out in our prayers to connect with the God who made us and loves us and judges us and saved us and forgives us and redeems us. And we do this day after day, week after week, year after year. The world is full of suffering.
There are those drawn to despair, who feel the world closing in with hopelessness and evil, whose hearts are hardened in malice or protection, who feel like God has abandoned them. This life is as hard now as it was 2000 years ago, in similar and different ways, and it is still the great responsibility of those who have the eyes and ears and hearts and minds attuned to faithfulness to persevere and share our stories of God’s goodness and mercy, to shine the Light of Christ, to let the power of the Holy Spirit flow through us that the fruits would take root and multiply and grow, further revealing God’s presence not only in our world but in our very being, not so that we revere one another as gods but that we can recognize the presence of Christ in one another.
Jesus is telling us not only to persevere in prayer and action but also in the fundamental belief that we bear God’s law on our heart. Believe that it’s there and that it’s most fulfilled when we are aligned with it, even and especially when we don’t understand how any good can come from the present moment or don’t even know if God is on our side.
It’s a risk. Living a life of true faith means going up against the powers that be for however long it takes. It means standing beside the suffering, facing pain and death without fear, even if our own heart is breaking. It means giving ourselves grace when we fall or fail to do what we knew we should have, just as it means having the courage to get up again and do better next time. Living a life of faith means turning to God first and praying without ceasing, leaning into the joy when it comes even when the darkness lurks near, and it is ultimately always about surrendering to God’s will above our own, even if it means we don’t get what we are praying so earnestly for.
Because we share our stories, we can share with one another honestly, even the stories that are as true as they are hard. Perhaps there have been times when we felt like we were praying for a miracle in the face of injustice; maybe we’re still praying for the same thing years later. Remember Jesus tells us that our parable is about our “need to pray always and not to lose heart.” Remaining in prayer with God is keeping the relationship open and the Word on our heart enkindled. Not losing heart is keeping the faith and hope alive that God’s will will be done in a way that best serves the kin_dom of heaven that is at hand. That is the faith I hope the Son of Man is seeking and that I hope he will find when the time comes. It’s the faith I hope we have in all our days.
~The Rev. Sara Milford