Edgewood United Church

United Church of Christ

October 21, 2007                          Edgewood United Church UCC                    Rev. Karen E. Gale 

Changing God’s Mind
Luke 18:1-8

One day Mother Teresa went to visit Edward Bennett Williams, a legendary Washington criminal lawyer. He was a powerful man. He at one time owned the Washington Redskins and the Baltimore Orioles and he was the lawyer for Frank Sinatra and Richard Nixon, among others. Mother Teresa visited Edward Bennett Williams because she was raising money for an AIDS hospice. Williams was in charge of a small charitable foundation that she hoped would help. Before she arrived for the appointment, Williams said to his business partner, Paul Dietrich, “You know, Paul, AIDS is not my favorite disease. I don't really want to make a contribution, but I've got this Catholic saint coming to see me, and I don't know what to do.” Well, they agreed that they would be polite, hear her out, but then say no.

Well, Mother Teresa arrived. She was a little sparrow sitting on the other side of the big mahogany lawyer's desk. She made her appeal for the hospice, and Williams said, “We're touched by your appeal, but no.” Mother Teresa said simply, “Let us pray.” Williams looked at Dietrich; they bowed their heads and after the prayer, Mother Teresa made the same pitch, word for word, for the hospice. Again Williams politely said no. Mother Teresa said, “Let us pray.” Williams, exasperated, looked up at the ceiling, “All right, all right, get me my checkbook!” (allegedly from biography of Williams by Evan Thomas)

I don’t know if this story is true or not but it speaks to this morning’s gospel reading.

A woman--a widow we are told, thus someone at the very bottom of the social ladder—went to see a judge. She kept coming to him and saying, “grant me justice against my opponent.” For awhile the judge 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.”

The judge does not change mind because the woman is right, just like Bennett did not support Mother Teresa because he had a sudden conversion of heart, but because she was bothering him. In fact what it says in the Greek is that the judge wants to get rid of her because she is a pest, she can, the words say literally, give him a black eye by her persistent and loud complaining.

Then Jesus says, “God will grant justice to God’s chosen ones who cry day and night.”

So…the conclusion is….

…That if we pray enough—day and night--we can change God’s mind?

We certainly have biblical examples of this.
Moses prays for the misbehaving folks in the wilderness and changes God’s mind about destroying them after the Golden Calf incident

Jonah is all bent out of shape when the folks he tells to repent actually do so and God changes God’s mind about destroying Nineveh.

The problem with this is that when we pray desperately hard for something and it does not come about—healing for a sick child, the lifting of depression—we are left thinking if only we prayed more or harder or more constantly or with more faith we would have changed God’s mind and received what we asked for.

I don’t like this theology. I don’t believe this theology.

So why pray? Do I believe that God can be and is changed by my efforts, prayers etc?

I remember the exact moment when this question crashed into my neatly arranged theological ideas.

I was doing Clinical Pastoral Education, CPE, which is a required 3 month internship in a hospital or prison, where a student for the ministry learns by immersion how to do pastoral care. It is a difficult and challenging time as one learns intimately about suffering, death, unanswered questions, prayer and more.

One day my small CPE class was sitting in the chapel after conducting a service talking about God. I talked about how God was immutable, unchanging, unchanged and had everything planned out—what I believed at the time. And my CPE supervisor said he didn’t believe that at all. That instead he believed God does change. That God is changed by us and is a dynamic, growing, creating God. And that perhaps God even makes mistakes and changes course.

I was stunned, floored, angry, confused, and afraid. What just happened to my secure omnipotent God? 

Michael Rice, a pastor, writes, “I don't believe in that God is immutable, unchanging. I am changed by every person I encounter, sometimes the change is fairly insignificant, sometimes it is substantial, but I am changed. I am changed by every act of creation I am part of, hugely by my children, but also by every sermon I write.

“Having been created in the image of God I choose to believe that just as I am changed by my relationship with God, so too God is changed, even if in the most minute way, by that relationship.

“Besides, if the act of creation, and being in relationship with that creation, does not change God, has no impact on God,  why would God have bothered to create in the first place?” (midrash.org)

Particle theorists and quantum physicists tell us that mass is changed merely by being observed.  Would not the same be true for God?

Prayer is directed at God and I believe changes God. Not that we get what we want and all our wishes are fulfilled. But in prayer we establish and reestablish relationship with God. By doing so we are changed, the relationship is changed. And God is changed.

Frederick Buechner said persistence is a key, "not because you have to beat a path to God's door before [God will] open it, but because until you beat the path, maybe there's no way of getting to your door."

God cannot act until the way is clear, thereby God is changed, God’s options change. The ability for relationship changes.

But I think the parable speaks even more strongly when we consider the first half of it, when we don’t move too easily in trying to discern who God is in the parable: is God the judge and if so what kind of judge is God.

The parable Jesus tells, the actual story, not the interpretation, tells of a widow—a woman with no husband, no means of support, no standing in the society, no security, no legal standing, no rights. A widow, the one that God exhorts through the prophets to be taken care of. A widow wanted justice.

She lived in a city where the judge there neither feared God nor had respect for people. This judge is corrupt, perhaps. He certainly only looks to himself and his interest. He is not upholding the law as laid out in the Torah. He is not objectively serving those whose lives and cases he oversees. He is powerful—educated, appointed, in charge of legal dealings.

And this widow, this one without power, keeps coming to him and saying, “Grant me justice against my opponent. Grant me justice against my opponent. Grant me justice against my opponent!”

Note that she is not asking for him to favor her over her opponent. Not asking him to take her side. But to give her justice. Justice.

“Grant me justice over my opponent. Grant me justice against my opponent. Grant me justice against my opponent.”

She kept coming to him and coming to him.
The least of these demanding action, justice, from the powerful.

“Grant me justice against my opponent.” Are you getting sick of me saying it? Just think how the judge felt.

For awhile the judge refused.

“Grant me justice over my opponent. Grant me justice against my opponent. Grant me justice against my opponent.”

Then 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 so he does.  This widow, this nobody, receives justice from the judge. Because she is a pest, because she is persistent. She takes on the huge powerful authority and manages to get justice.

We live in a very complicated world. Sometimes it feels like the people in power even in this democratic nation are far above the cares of the people. Justice is hard to find. Judges are deaf to our cries. Injustice continues.

We may try to work on change for awhile. And get discouraged. We may try to write our leaders or speak to our representatives and feel we get nowhere. We may sign petitions on behalf of the uninsured or for cleaner environmental protections. And not find justice.
We may knock and knock and knock on the door. And have nothing to show for it.

And we are faced with a choice. Continue in the fight or give up.

I think this parable, when separated from the text about God, is a powerful statement of what the disenfranchised, the seemingly unpowerful, can do in the face of injustice. That agitation against the strong, that constant demands for justice can be heard, if only because we are a nuisance.

Jesus was always, always on the side of the weak, the poor, and the marginalized. He himself was marginalized for his calls for justice.

But change happens. And it happens with persistence and the constant voices of individuals demanding change.

Give us justice, give us justice, give us justice, give us justice.

Our leaders may decide to offer health care legislation not because they believe universal health care is a good idea; they may decide to support equal rights for gays and lesbians not because it something that they believe in; they may decide to divest from Sudan not because they care about the people there; but because enough people kept crying out over and over and over for justice that it became expedient to give in rather than be worn out by the cries.

John Brownsberger says,
“Perhaps we persist in prayer to help us to focus on God's will for justice and to be empowered by the Holy Spirit and God's mercy to not give up.  In our own strength we would give up quickly in being involved in the fight for justice.  But in prayer we are partners with God and God empowers us to continue God's work on earth.” (midrash.org)

I don’t know how many of you are Harry Potter readers. But in the first Harry Potter book, Harry lives with relatives who do not care for him. When he turns 11 a letter arrives inviting him to attend Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry. His uncle firmly states that Harry will not attend. The next day two letters arrive.  They are also discarded. Then 10 letters, then 100 letters until the room is filled with letters, Harry’s uncle is overwhelmed and Harry is allowed to go.

Persistence wins in the end. Harry’s uncle is not converted. He does not have a change of heart. But conversion is not necessary for change. 

We are called as people of God to persist in the call for justice. This week and next week we will participate in the letter writing campaign for Bread for the World, an international group that seeks to bring about food sustainability by changing unfair and unjust agriculture and food aid policy.

This is a justice issue. If we write one letter calling for justice, it is easily discarded. But if we write another and another, if there are tens and hundreds of letter calling for justice: Give us justice! They are not so easily discarded.

Justice. We are to be persistent in the call for justice. Not to give up in the face of adversity and resistance. But to call out over and over for justice. Justice. Give us Justice.

May our cries be loud and persistent in the call for change. And may God be beside us to strengthen us in this task.

Amen.