The following homily was shared at our Sunday Evening Communion Service 10/19/25.

Old Testament Reading (Exodus 17:8-13)

In those days, Amalek came and waged war against Israel. Moses, therefore, said to Joshua, "Pick out certain men, and tomorrow go out and engage Amalek in battle. I will be standing on top of the hill

with the staff of God in my hand. "So Joshua did as Moses told him: he engaged Amalek in battle after Moses had climbed to the top of the hill with Aaron and Hur. As long as Moses kept his hands raised up, Israel had the better of the fight, but when he let his hands rest, Amalek had the better of the fight. Moses' hands, however, grew tired; so they put a rock in place for him to sit on. Meanwhile Aaron and Hur supported his hands, one on one side and one on the other, so that his hands remained steady till sunset. And Joshua mowed down Amalek and his people with the edge of the sword.

Gospel Reading (Luke 18:1-8)

Jesus told his disciples a parable about the necessity for them to pray always without becoming weary. He said, "There was a judge in a certain town who neither feared God nor respected any human being. And a widow in that town used to come to him and say, 'Render a just decision for me against my adversary.' For a long time the judge was unwilling, but eventually he thought, 'While it is true that I neither fear God nor respect any human being, because this widow keeps bothering me I shall deliver a just decision for her lest she finally come and strike me.'" The Lord said, "Pay attention to what the dishonest judge says. Will not God then secure the rights of his chosen ones who call out to him day and night? Will he be slow to answer them? I tell you, he will see to it that justice is done for them speedily. But when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?"

Prayer is the act of communing with God, and it is arguably the most important activity any human being can engage in. Prayer comes in many different forms. Prayer can be asking God to work in our lives and the lives of people we care about; we call this intercessory prayer. Prayer can be your silent devotional time, where you read, meditate, and contemplate scripture; this is often referred to as lectio at the ACF. Even worship on Tuesday nights and our Sunday Eucharist are considered prayer, because we aim to enter into the presence of God and commune with Him. Based on this, it seems as though prayer permeates every part of our life with God.

However, when you ask most people about their prayer life, they will tell you that they will pray before meals, and they might ask God for help if they need it. Hardly anyone is concerned about how to improve their prayer life, and the ones that are concerned usually don’t make the commitment to actually do so. While prayer should be the most natural thing we do since God made us in His image for the purpose of being in relationship with Him, because of the sinfulness of our flesh, it has become one of the most difficult activities to engage in.

I’m not trying to be overly harsh about this. The reason I make this point is that I believe that the Bible is subtly but firmly offensive to us when it comes to prayer, because it has the audacity to assume that we don’t know how to pray, and we need to be taught how to do it properly. Learning how to pray requires humility, and in order for Jesus to give us a lesson about prayer, we need to assume that we don’t do it properly and that we are the ones who need to hear this.

I want to clarify something so that you know where I’m coming from: no one needs to be taught about prayer more than I do. Of all the times I’ve been what people call “on fire for God” or having a “spiritual high”, more than 50% of those times came from me being reminded and convicted about taking prayer seriously. So, I’m talking more to myself than anyone when I say that we don’t know how to pray as we ought.

With that being said, in this passage, Jesus warns us of the danger of weariness in prayer. Like prayer, this weariness can come in many forms and for many different reasons. Let’s examine a few. One form is giving up on praying for something you have already prayed for a lot. After praying for something for a long time, you can begin to lose hope that your prayer will ever be answered. Or perhaps, if you haven’t given up hope, but you are bored of praying for the same thing all time, you’ve moved on to praying for things that are more exciting or relevant. I witness this a lot in myself when it comes to praying for a revival on Tech’s campus, or for wanting to be married one day. Another form weariness can take is being too tired, or too anxious, or having too much to do. Guilty as charged. A third form it can take (which I’m not quite sure if this counts as weariness, but I think it's relevant) is being too afraid to pray for something you know you ought to pray for. A lot of the time this happens when we already know the answer, but we don’t like it, or know that whatever the answer is will force us to respond in a way that makes us uncomfortable. If anyone has heard of the Wesley Prayer before, it’s definitely one that makes you squirm a little when you pray it:

I am no longer my own, but yours.

Put me to what you will, place me with whom you will.

Put me to doing, put me to suffering.

Let me be put to work for you or set aside for you,

Praised for you or criticized for you.

Let me be full, let me be empty…

Whatever form our weariness might take, it all keeps us from being fully devoted to prayer.

The question then is, “How do we continue to be diligent in prayer in the face of our weariness?” This is what Jesus says in our reading: “Pay attention to what the dishonest judge says. Will not God then secure the rights of his chosen ones who call out to him day and night? Will he be slow to answer them? I tell you, he will see to it that justice is done for them speedily.” Essentially, Jesus is telling us that God will be faithful in answering your prayer. There are many other places in scripture that affirm this. Jesus is calling us to have faith that God hears our prayers and cares for us enough to answer us. This by extension is also calling on us to have faith in God’s love. It is out of God’s love that he hears our cries and meets all our needs. If you are struggling to believe in God’s love for you this evening, I want you to pay close attention when we come up here to receive Communion. It is at this table where God’s love is confirmed to us, because through the sacrament of Communion, we indeed receive the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. We do this in remembrance of the fact that Christ had his body broken and his blood spilled so that we would be forgiven of our sins, and that we receive life by remembering that Christ was risen from the grave. This is the Gospel. The very power of sin and death that once separated us from the love of God has now been defeated. And now, as the apostle Paul says, “I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love.” Be assured, God loves you, and will absolutely answer your prayers just as He promised.

When it comes to being diligent in prayer, especially in the face of weariness, it’s important to remember that we can’t do it alone. In our Old Testament reading, Moses was helped by his friends Aaron and Hur when he became weary. In the same way, we can encourage and be encouraged by our community to keep praying even when it’s hard.

Amen.

Diligence in Prayer: Austin Shanley

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