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Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God our Father, from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Brothers and sisters, the text for this morning comes from the Gospel reading. Though it was written 2,000 years ago, it has great application still to this day. What pastor read from Paul’s letter to Timothy, the second letter.
Hear the word: For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching. But having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.
Why? Why is it that what we believe and what we teach is so marginalized by our society? Why is it that what we confess to be true is seen by our society as being completely unbeneficial to its welfare? In fact, if anything, it’s looked upon as being narrow-minded. Finally, why does God grant us justice here and now? So that we and everyone else may see his glorious truth for what it is. So that it is seen that this truth is our salvation and their salvation. That this truth is seen as our glory and their glory.
Though we do not know why justice does not come like that, even though the gospel lesson said it’s supposed to come speedily, we do believe and teach and we do confess that God will answer and he will bring us justice. We have to differentiate between earthly justice and the justice that God declares you innocent and righteous. Two different kinds of justice.
Jacob, when he was wrestling with God, what did God say to him? You have striven with God and with man and have prevailed. Was the rest of Jacob’s life then all of the things that he had to deal with? The injustices of his sons lying to him, his sons selling his other son into bondage, all of the hullabaloo of having to leave his home and move over to the land of Goshen. Was all that then not striving with God? Was all that injustice that had to be endured? Yes, it was. But it was endured as God’s justified sinner. God declared Jacob in the midst of his struggle as just and right. And that declaration was given to him speedily as it is given to you.
But the earthly justice, that’s the one we struggle with. Living out a justified sinner’s life in this world, that kind of justice seems to tarry. It seems to take its sweet time to be delivered. In declaring you righteous, as God did to Jacob, as God did to the widow in the Gospel reading through the proclamation that I will grant her what she asks, it is speedy and it is complete. And it shows, if anything, God is merciful. God is gracious. A compassionate. God is forgiving. And he does not tarry with those things. They are swiftly given out.
Pastor, proclaim to us that swift forgiveness. I forgive you all your sins in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It was not withheld as if it was a game. Just as it was declared to Jacob. Just as it was declared to this widow. But Jacob, as a justified sinner, still lived out his faith in an unjust world, with a lot of injustice coming upon him. As you remember reading about.
The first verse of this statement in the gospel reading is the whole purpose of this text. In essence, it’s saying: Remain faithful in prayer so that you don’t grow weary and lose heart. Why would you grow weary and lose heart? Because you don’t see justice swiftly given. Not justification before God, but earthly justice.
You see, the sweet siren of Satan is to get us to think that if God doesn’t answer worldly justice quickly, he doesn’t listen to your prayers, and so you might as well stop praying. That’s Satan’s sweet siren song. Because Satan’s song says justice delayed is justice denied, isn’t it? Satan is always tempting our flesh because our flesh wants to see right. We want to see our vindication. And we will live our life without having seen that justification, that justice done for us until we die.
By faith, we believe God has declared us righteous. That justice has been given. That’s God’s justice. But we want to take that that’s given speedily, rapidly, and mightily of his grace and his compassion and his mercy, and we want to see that transferred into the things of this world. Our reputation, how people view us, things that we have to suffer for because we do hold to this justice that God has delivered. God is merciful and compassionate for sure.
But it came, this justice came at the cost of Christ. The justice that you and I stand before a holy God as God’s justified sinner came at a great cost, and that cost was Christ. He who entrusted himself in spite of all the injustice done to him into the hands of a just God. And he did not see justice yet, did he? Christ lived his entire life in this world and did not ever see justice until when? His resurrection. Just like you and me, do we expect more, being a follower of the same Lord, that we should get justice here on this earth at every turn?
You were given justice in your baptism. You were given justice in that declaration from pastor’s lips. You are given justice as you eat and drink your forgiveness. That justice is immediate. It is now. It is merciful and full of goodness. But you and I will live our life as a justified sinner with a lot of injustices.
You know, it’s interesting, isn’t it? The apostles were always finding Jesus in prayer. The apostles were always finding Jesus in prayer, living out the perfect life with tons of injustices done to him. And the apostles on the other side, Jesus very rarely found them in prayer. Hmm, that’s kind of like too close to home, isn’t it? They were too tired in the garden when Jesus said, Pray with me, pray with me.
Why should God listen to your and my prayer? Why shouldn’t he just say, put a sock in it? I’m tired of listening to your babbling. Why doesn’t God? This is the gift that God has given you here in this place. Most of you learned the Lord’s Prayer in this place, the church. Your parents didn’t spend endless evenings before you went to bed teaching you Our Father who art in heaven. You heard it. It was drummed in your ears over and again.
That gift of prayer… It was given to you here in this place, oftentimes without you even being aware of it. When Luther put the meaning to this petition in this way, it sums up why God listens to our prayer. Listen, we pray that our Father in heaven would not look at our sins or deny our prayer because of our sins. We are neither worthy of things for which we pray, nor have we deserved them, but… We ask that he would give them all