Persist

This is my seventh sermon preached at Faith Lutheran in Bagley.

Gospel: Luke 18:1-8

Art by Karen Hallion
https://thewookieegunner.com/2018/06/16/star-wars-rebels-ahsoka-tano-enamel-pin-karen-hallion-illustration/

Grace and Peace to you from God our Loving Creator and our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ, Amen.

Persistence. It's this strength within us that keeps us coming back for more. That sense of... "keep on keepin' on!" But why do we persist? Is it our stubbornness? Our deep calling within us that if we persist, something better will turn up?

When I drive somewhere new, most times I use my phone's navigation to help me figure out where to go. Google knows everything. But, when I choose not to use my phone, because I like to live dangerously... I try using my intuition. And when that doesn't work, I keep driving. And driving. And I know that all roads lead home, eventually. But it's that sense of persistence that keeps driving me. That sense that the thing I want will hopefully, eventually, appear. I do this every time I visit the photographer. I know she's just right out of town. I know where her shop is. And yet, I stubbornly ignore my phone, and every single time, I drive and drive and I get about 5 miles out and then I realize... I already drove past it... So I turn around and persist knowing that eventually, I'll get there. I persist in this practice because I know eventually I'll remember the location of the photographer.

We push on in life, when we all face adversity. When the wind is in our face and we press on knowing that the goal will be in sight... That God will be with us on our journey, and with our persistence.

In our Gospel for today, Jesus throws around a parable about a woman who sought justice, for whatever reason, from a judge who neither respected God nor people. He didn't give her a decision for the longest time, but she kept on bugging him about it. As she persisted in her quest for justice, the unjust judge finally decided to rule in her favor. She received the justice that she desired. Through her persistence, justice was found. Her fight was for justice. In Greek, justice and righteousness come from the same root of dikaios. To fight for justice is to fight for righteousness. To be right with God.

For those that persist in fighting for justice and resistance against oppression, persistence is only one element that keeps them going. People from around the world cling to what they hold dear and fight for their very own survival in the name of justice. In some cases, there are heroes of a generation that come to the aid of people looking for someone to lead them to justice. This woman in our Gospel was likely not a hero for anyone but herself, but throughout history, people like Joan of Arc and Harriet Tubman and Greta Thunberg have risen up and taken the mantle of leadership to pursue a quest for a common cause.

Suppose there was a leader who was the ire of others, and a naysayer of all forms of justice. A leader who had children but was only aware of one of them. He did terrible things to other children and wouldn’t believe that he was wrong in any course of action he had. Merely a pawn in a larger scheme, controlled by an outside source, and persistent in his quest to make a name for himself in the world he inhabited. A news source devoted to spreading the message of his actions and the actions of his followers, while ignoring the pain happening around them. And yet, with a rapidly growing contingent of people fighting for justice and resistance against his rule. That’s right… I’m talking about D……. arth Vader.

In the world of Star Wars, the realm in which I inhabit most of my freetime in absorbing books, movies, shows, and video games… Such a reality that I just described, exists. Hard to fathom, I know. This is my seventh sermon with you folks, and I figured it was about time that I shared with you another one my interests. Specifically, Star Wars.

When I first started mentioning Star Wars in sermons, Star Wars was a six-movie epic with a TV show, and whispers of a third trilogy. Now, nearing the end of 2019, Star Wars spans eleven movies, three animated and one live-action TV shows, and plenty of books, toys, and video games to spread around, with talks of many more shows and movies to come in the future. For someone who even has a Star Wars tattoo, this is everything.

Both in-universe and out, Star Wars is a story about good and evil, but also about persistence. In the basic outline of the original 1977 movie Star Wars, it’s a movie about a farm kid that learns he’s part of a larger story, and he gets thrown into this larger story to rescue a princess with the help of a pirate, only to destroy the castle that held the princess and defeat the bad guy that held her. That’s Star Wars in a sentence.

But for a more detailed story and the point of what I was trying to get at with the reason for putting it into this sermon… This farm kid Luke lives at home helping his aunt and uncle carve out a piece of honest living, until a couple droids land in his lap and throw him into the larger story of the fight of the Galactic Empire vs the Rebellion. Luke has a mentor in a Jedi named Ben Kenobi, and together with Ben they hire Han Solo and his pal Chewbacca to take them to fit into the fight against the Empire, but end up rescuing Princess Leia and destroying the Death Star in the process. The next couple movies follow Luke and his compatriots in persisting the fight against the Empire in different parts of the galaxy. In the larger story, it’s good vs evil. In the grand scheme of the 11 movies and TV shows, they are classic stories of good vs evil with the protagonists persisting in the face of overwhelming odds, with the help of a divine presence and a little luck.

When we’re faced with overwhelming odds ourselves, it’s stories like today’s Gospel, knowing that God hears our persistent prayers and knows that justice is achievable. It’s stories like the Star Wars universe, or the Star Trek universe, where the underdog protagonists are faced with overwhelming odds and yet, with persistence and tenacity and a little bit of luck, they pull justice out of the hands of the opposition. It’s stories like these that help us to hold on, to keep going, to keep on keeping on. To quote yet another movie franchise, JRR Tolkein’s The Two Towers - Samwise says to his friend Frodo at the end of the movie,

“It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going, because they were holding on to something.” 

Frodo asks his friend what they’re holding onto - Samwise replies,

“That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo, and it’s worth fighting for.”

Looking around, some days it may seem that life cannot return to what it was.
When farmers are looking at losing crops and money because of a wet couple months, it's hard to see past that. After a loss of a job, a friend, a family member, it’s hard to see how life can continue afterward. When I was stopped in my process of becoming a pastor and told I had to restart if I wanted to go on, it was hard to imagine what life would be like after that moment. All that I had worked at for years seemed to be up in smoke.

But my family and I moved up here and I found a new normal. I found pastors and congregations like yours that welcomed me and my family with open arms. It’s taken me nearly two years to get to this point, but I know that through persistence both ways, God has shown me what ministry looks like outside of a congregational call. I’m only beginning to see what that looks like in a practical sense, but with God’s help and guidance, I can see the fruits of labor in the congregations that I have been blessed to accompany the last couple years. I can see their impacts on me, your impacts on me. God is doing beautiful work in Northwestern Minnesota and I love seeing it right in front of me.

Through persistence and prayer, hopefully farmers will be able to harvest their crops.  This congregation will continue to keep on keeping on. You will keep on keeping on. In the words of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s famous paraphrase, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” In the parable that Jesus threw around, justice has the final word.

Christ lived for justice of the people. Christ died for the justice of all people. Christ rose again for the redemption of all people. Through God’s persistent Love, Grace and Mercy we are justified and saved from ourselves, so that we may go out into the world and seek justice for our neighbors.

There’s plenty of justice in this world, Faith Lutheran, and it’s worth fighting for.

Amen.