Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost.

October 19, 2025 Prayer of the Day
O Lord God, tireless guardian of your people, you are always ready to hear our cries. Teach us to rely day and night on your care. Inspire us to seek your enduring justice for all this suffering world, through Jesus Christ, our Saviour and Lord. Amen.

Gospel: Luke 18:1-8
1 Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart. 2 He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people. 3 In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Grant me justice against my accuser.’ 4 For a while he refused, but later he said to himself, ‘Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, 5 yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.’ ” 6 And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. 7 And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? 8 I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them. And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

Reflections: Exhortations to pray might feel too burdensome when the prayers just don’t come. Retired U.S. Bishop H. George Anderson recalls his experience of being widowed and sitting in the congregation, too sad and worn down to pray. He told editors of the Lutheran Magazine that he drew strength from the prayers of others and for a long while he found solace sitting among people praying when he could not.

For millennia monastic communities would pray into the night and in the early hours believing these prayers supported the world. Those praying trusted that their prayers sustained nursing mothers comforting fussy babies, calmed anxious souls for whom sleep would not come, comforted those who were dying and protected night workers seeing to public safety and the common good.

Sometimes just knowing others are praying does a weary soul good. Studies like one conducted decades ago by the journal of Spirituality and Health suggest that patients who knew someone was praying for them fared better during hospitalizations and surgeries.

So if you’re praying, remember others who simply can’t. If you feel you’ve lost heart and can’t pray, may you find comfort knowing others are praying in your stead and for your sake—the scripture says God’s Spirit prays for us when our words fail.

Long ago, I asked a devout person about the pattern she followed praying especially because she was homebound. Gwen prayed the Lord’s Prayer every morning again at noon and finally as she prepared to sleep. I can’t imagine gentle Gwendolyn being vexing in her consistent prayers like the woman in the parable… who if you read the literal translation…. was giving the unrighteous judge a black eye with all of her appeals for justice.

What would happen if faith communities prayed the Lord’s Prayer with Gwen’s consistency and the widow’s urgency? Might we be the ones changed somehow? What might happen to us as we discover the Lord’s Prayer is truly anti-empire?

How might our worldview shift when we pray with the widow’s insistence that God enables us to live under God’s governance, that God for provides daily bread and helps in our relationships and that God alone can truly deliver us from evil?

To lose heart is to lose hope; we pray the loss isn’t permanent! May prayer kindle hope…hope that is said to have two daughters; anger at injustice and inhumanity and courage to be just and humane. May communities that embody and share hope continue to be the answered prayer for the rest of us. Amen.