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"Pray Always"

Updated: 7 hours ago

When Jesus saw that his followers were in danger of losing heart, Luke remembers him telling a parable about praying always and not losing heart.


[1] “The persistent Widow” by James B. Janknegt, 2017
[1] “The persistent Widow” by James B. Janknegt, 2017

Luke 18:1-8

October 19, 2025

Dr. Todd R. Wright


It seemed like a simple question. The Pharisees asked when the Kingdom of God was coming, and Jesus gave a dark answer.


He talked about upcoming days of suffering –

like in the time of Noah –

people were eating and drinking, marrying and making a future – and then the rains came;

or in the time of Lot –

people were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building

and then God rained down fire.


That’s how the kingdom will come – with a world turned upside down.


We don’t like to imagine the upheaval – especially those who are comfortable with how things are and have a stake in keeping them that way. But for those who wish for something different, who yearn for the impossible, a world turned upside down is an answer to their prayers.

Perhaps you recall the song “Yorktown” from the musical Hamilton. They sing of history …


“After a week of fighting, a young man in a red coat stands on a parapet

We lower our guns as he frantically waves a white handkerchief

And just like that, it's over, we tend to our wounded, we count our dead

Black and white soldiers wonder alike if this really means freedom

Not yet …

We escort their men out of Yorktown

They stagger home single file

Tens of thousands of people flood the streets

There are screams and church bells ringing

And as our fallen foes retreat

I hear the drinking song they're singing

The world turned upside down

The world turned upside down

The world turned upside down …”[2]

But how do you get there?


When Jesus saw that his followers were in danger of losing heart, Luke remembers him telling a parable about praying always and not losing heart.


It is an odd parable, for it asserts an unfamiliar definition of prayer.


Grace Imathiu, who grew up in Kenya, reports that in her native language the word used for prayer means begging, so she grew up hearing “Let us pray” as “Let us beg God.”[3]


Is that how you feel when you pray – that you are begging God?


Like how you used to beg your parents for a gumball at the exit to the grocery store … when they had paid more than they wanted for food; when you were all footsore and ready to be home; when everyone was a little grumpy? As if God had limited resources, energy, or patience.


Imathiu wonders, based on this parable, if prayer could be something different.


It stars a widow and in the Old Testament there are rules about widows. They are grouped with orphans and resident aliens as the powerless. The rules say people are to care for them ... as if they can do nothing for themselves.


But there are also stories about widows like Ruth who was brave and took the initiative; or the widow of Zarephath who was compassionate and generous in her care for Elijah.


Maybe they are the sort of people Jesus is thinking about when he tells this parable.


Walter Brueggemann says prayer is the practice of prophetic imagination: “Power structures seek absolute control over society; [they] monopolize imagination, suppressing any thought or language that challenges its authority.”[4]


That’s what the widow is up against. Everything at work in her situation presses her to go home, to pull up the covers, and give up. Maybe you know what that is like.


But she dares to imagine something different – a world in which she gets justice, a world in which God hears her prayers, a world where persistence has the power to create a new reality!


In short, a world turned upside down!

So what would it be like to model our prayers on the audacity of the persistent widow?


To pray for peace in a world where even a temporary cease fire is cause for celebration?


To pray for justice when all the cards seem stacked against it?


To pray always and not lose heart when suffering threatens to break our hearts?  


It would mean daring to imagine a world turned upside down.


It would mean believing in a God who cares about peace and justice and an end to suffering.


It would mean getting out of bed and going to the judge

(or anyone else who has the power to make a difference), day after day after day.


It might even mean being part of a community that trusts and teaches

the power of prayer to sustain the powerless and reform brokenness,

a community where no one has to be brave alone.

Prayer is not begging. It is creating a whole new world – in us and in our communities. And it is able to do so because it draws on a kingdom that has taken root in our souls, planted there by a God who imagined a whole new world and set about creating it – one word, one person, one place at a time. So let us pray always and not lose heart! Amen


[1] “The persistent Widow” by James B. Janknegt, 2017
[4] Ibid

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