Message of Abbot Paul - Sunday 16th October 2022
Abbot Paul • October 16, 2022
Although we have already offered prayers in thanksgiving for the harvest and sung our harvest hymns, a parishioner and her daughter kindly brought examples of home grown produce in fruit and vegetables, including chicken and duck eggs, to the abbey this morning and created a beautiful display at the memorial altar. If you come to Belmont in the next few days, I hope you will stop and admire the harvest altar and say a prayer of thanksgiving for this year’s harvest and another for our farmers, who are going through a difficult and uncertain time, perhaps even more so than other sectors.
Our Gospel today comes from Luke, (Lk 18: 1-8), and touches on the subject of perseverance in prayer, or as Jesus puts it, “the need to pray continually and never lose heart.” To emphasise his point, he tells his disciples the Parable of the Unjust Judge and the Widow. “There was a judge in a certain town who had neither fear of God nor respect for man. In the same town there was a widow who kept on coming to him and saying, ‘I want justice from you against my enemy!’ For a long time, he refused, but at last he said to himself, ‘Maybe I have neither fear of God nor respect for man, but since she keeps pestering me, I must give this widow her just rights, or she will persist in coming and worry me to death.’” The message is very clear. Although the judge is an unjust man who has no care for the rights of the poor, nevertheless the widow’s persistence wears him down until he gives in.
Obviously, God is not unjust, nor is he impatient. He is nothing like the unjust judge. However, this is the parable Jesus has chosen to explain the need of perseverance in prayer. He explains to his disciples, “You notice what the unjust judge has to say? Now will not God see justice done to his chosen who cry to him day and night even when he delays to help them? I promise you, he will see justice done to them, and done speedily. But when the Son of Man comes, will he find any faith on earth?” Jesus admits that at times God delays in granting our requests, but that doesn’t mean to say that he’s not listening to us. God listens and “sees justice done speedily.” God being God knows what is best for us, so often he will answer our prayers in the way we least expect. God will always give us what is best for us, but at times that might mean waiting for the appropriate moment. However, Jesus does leave us with a question, and it’s about faith. When he returns at his Second Coming, will he find faith on earth? Will we remain faithful? That’s a question only each one of us can answer.
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