Sermon preached at The Church of the Holy Trinity, Rittenhouse Square, Philadelphia Sunday October 20th 2013 The

Reverend Alan Neale Take the knee soldier

About twenty years ago I watched a film with the family; after the film our youngest son (Ben) commented with all the wisdom of a young teenage, Well, thats ninety minutes of my life I wont get back. The film Cabin Boy. A few days back I watched a film, not inflicted on the family this time, called After Earth. After the film, with the accumulated wisdom of sixty years, I reflected, Well, thats ninety minutes of my ever-decreasing life span that I wont get back. Critics have panned the film mercilessly and not without merit and yet one phrase embedded itself in my mind; a phrase spoken by Will Smith (Commander in Chief) sometimes to his soldiers but crucially to his son, Take the knee soldier. Take the knee. This is surely, maybe unarguably, the point of todays Gospel story from St. Luke. Luke 18:1 Jesus told this disciples a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart. Take the knee pray always. Take the knee lose heart never. Take the knee we need to pray! The parable is not told to present God as some distant, uncaring and indifferent judge. The parable is not to present ourselves as whining, irksome and importunate petitioners. The parable is told to urge us to pray always and never lose heart. So, hows that working for you? The parable prompted me to wonder why is it that such persistence in prayer is often so lacking, so absent, so deficient in the life of the Christian, in the life of the Church? Maybe because we doubt the justice of our cause, the worth of our lives and the resources of our God. The widow doubted not the justice of her cause. A woman without resources, a woman without support, a woman without respect suffers the shameful indignity of injustice, abuse and mistreatment. She was convinced that there was rightness to her cause and she would not be budged from this certainty. Sometimes we do not pray, sometimes we withdraw from ongoing prayer because we doubt the rightness of our cause. We have lost the prophetic vigor that observes a wrong and names it as such. We have lost the pastoral passion that is inflamed in the face of suffering. We begin to doubt the rightness of our cause. The widow, secondly, did not doubt that she had worth, value, esteem and so she petitioned the judge incessantly. Though the society around her spoke explicitly or

implicitly, directly or indirectly, of her wretched status, of her low esteem she listened not to these voices but to the voice within and that voice caused her to persist. Sometimes we do not pray, sometimes we withdraw from ongoing prayer because we doubt our worth, our value in the cosmic scheme of things. We remember too well the opening verses of Psalm 8 (What is man that thou are mindful of him) but neglect the later verses (Yet thou hast made him a little lower than the angels). We find it difficult to reckon our importance and so assume that it is at best useless, at worst pathetic, to plead our cause before the divine throne. The widow, thirdly, never doubted that the one to whom she made almost nagging petition that this one was somehow incapable of action. With our modern minds, with our scientific outlook, with our world-weary and jaded cynicism we have often persuaded ourselves (with little effort on our part) that the eyes of the Lord are blinded, the ears of the Lord are deafened and the arm of the Lord is shortened. Brothers and sisters in Christ, this ought not to be and so we absorb deeply the truth of this parable pray always and never lose heart. But here, as I reflected upon this dominical clarion call, I found myself in a quandary theologically, pastorally and personally. I recognize that over recent years I have spoken increasingly of the need to surrender, to accept our powerlessness I have done this in teaching from pulpit and in class, I have done this in pastoral care through counsel and conversation. Is this parable from Luke the exception? I believe not. You see whenever we turn to prayer, even think about prayer, though it be with halting hesitation when we pray, when we take the knee, we acknowledge the need to surrender, we profess the essential nature of dependence upon God. To take the knee whether figuratively or actually, to take the knee is to declare to the powers that be (within and beyond ourselves) that we cannot, may not, should not go it alone. Thy will, not mine be done. The first three steps of all 12 Step Programs have been summarized thus, I cant God can I think Ill let him. When I, when you, stop praying; when church programs and meetings and policies are not bathed in prayer then we degenerate into pathetic bands of the sick who try to heal themselves. Even the acknowledgement that we pray too little, too rarely is itself a statement that we know we need to pray always and never lose heart. And God hears that whisper of the heart and longs to amplify its volume, God senses the warmth of the heart and longs to fan into a fire. Jacob, like the widow, took the knee and persisted, struggled with the Lord persuaded of the rightness of his cause, persuaded of his worth and persuaded that God would bless him. Though a sinful, fallen and broken man he found strength in his persistence. Christian, take the knee. Return to those prayers that have been uttered rarely, return to the brokenness of relationships and of body and of community and take the knee.

AMEN