Jesus seems to enjoy using examples of bad human behaviour to explain God’s good behaviour. The crafty steward who dealt dubiously with the debtors of his master, the inopportune man who disturbs his friend in the middle of the night, and in today’s gospel (Lk 18:1-8), an unjust judge, all these examples try to bring home the same message: If even bad people can do good things under certain circumstances, how much more will God, who alone is good, be good.
A friend once asked me, should I pray for this, or do you think God is too busy for these small matters? From today’s gospel, we learn that God in fact loves to be disturbed by our prayers. However this prayer should be made in faith. Not in faith that it will be granted, but in faith in God.
The question at the end of the gospel, “when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” This is what the prayer gives, an increase of faith, even when our prayers are not answered.
Prayer to God presumes faith. Only if we believe not only in God, but in the listening of God, we dare to pray. We don’t pray to inform God of our needs and miseries; we pray to exercise our understanding of a merciful God. The efficacy of our prayers does not lie in getting our way, but in getting into the ways of God. Prayer helps faith and faith informs our prayer of what we truly need to be more adequate instruments of God.
What sustained the consistency of the prayer of the widow was her dire need of self-respect; what sustained the arms of Moses in prayer were the hands of Aaron and Hur. Prayer needs to be sustained. By itself it may succumb to the temptation of despair or self-deprecation (perhaps God is too busy for me). Despair in prayer weakens our image of God.
A successful prayer is not the prayer that is answered according to our will, but the prayer which strengthens our faith.
