October 14, 2022

Dear Road Church Friends,

     This weekly letter is meant to offer a preview of the scripture and theme of our upcoming Sunday worship service. It also provides the Gospel reading along with a poem and prayer on the scripture theme to prepare your heart and mind for the scripture lesson. This week’s sermon is about the parable of the persistent widow in Luke 18:1-8.

 Jesus’ parables are simple stories with a spiritual lesson hidden inside. This one is about a mean old judge and a poor little widow who are caught up in a protracted contest of conflicted wills. He is powerful, she is powerless. The challenge before the us is to figure out the message hidden between the lines, and which character we are meant to identify with. In this case Luke has made that decision for us when he says, Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart. According to Luke persistence in prayer is the lesson, the widow is our example, and the cold hearted judge is the villainous obstacle that prayer warriors must overcome. But there is more to this story than meets the eye. We would not know that this story is about prayer unless Luke had said so. In the story itself, prayer plays no role in the widow’s actions. What else might this parable have to say to us? Join us Sunday morning when we gather for prayer, musical praise and a to hear a word of encouragement.

SCRIPTURE:  Luke 18:1-8    SEMON:  The Widow Who Showed up

Jesus told his disciples a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart.

He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people. In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Grant me justice against my opponent.’ For a while he 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.’ And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not 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. And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

PRAYER

Father, Father, send the Spirit of your Son into our hearts. Father God, be in our head and understanding. Be in our eyes and our seeing. Be in our mouth and our speaking. Be in our mind and our thinking. Be in my life and in all of my doing. And at the end be in my departing. AMEN

WHAT IS PRAYER? by James Montgomery

Prayer is the soul’s sincere desire, uttered or unexpressed;

The motion of a hidden fire, that trembles in the breast.

Prayer is the burden of a sigh, the falling of a tear;

The upward glancing of an eye, when none but God is near.

Prayer is the simplest form of speech, that infant’s lips can try;

Prayer, the sublimest strains that reach the Majesty on High.

Prayer is the contrite sinner’s voice, returning from his ways;

While angels in their songs rejoice, and cry, “Behold! he prays!”

Prayer is the Christian’s vital breath, the Christian’s native air;

His watchword at the gate of death, He enters heaven with prayer.

The saints in prayer appear as one in word and deed and mind;

Where with the Father and the Son sweet fellowship they find.

Blessings to all,

Pastor Norm

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