Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
This automated analysis scores the text on the likely presence of emotional, language, and social tones. There are no right or wrong scores; this is just an indication of tones readers or listeners may pick up from the text.
A score of 0.5 or higher indicates the tone is likely present.
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The Persistent Widow
Last week Hope spoke to us about the need to pray always and not to lose heart.
The parable that Jesus told - of the persistent widow.
How she kept on bothering the unjust judge, knocking on his door - persistently pestering until eventually he relents...
The New Revised Standard Version (The Parable of the Widow and the Unjust Judge)
Luke 18:5 yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.’
”
Jesus’ conclusion:
Luke 18:7 And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night?
Will he delay long in helping them?
The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version (Lk 18:7).
(1989).
Thomas Nelson Publishers.
Jesus is briefly comparing the unjust and corrupt Judge to God - and saying how God is nothing like that Judge.
When God’s chosen ones ask for justice - God grants justice.
When God hears the cry of his children - he comes running.
The New Revised Standard Version (The Parable of the Widow and the Unjust Judge)
Luke 18:8 I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them.
And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”
Persist, Pray and Protest - not in the direction of your own interest - but in the direction of God’s justice.
The widow protested in the direction of God’s justice - God’s Kingdom Will - and even the unjust judge relented.
How much more then - will God who is good - who holds the universe in the palm of his hand - how much more then will this Good God - give Good things to those who ask.
Who did the widow trust?
I could say she trusted in herself.
In her ability to keep on pestering until things were turned around in the right direction.
But then I realise that her protest action was not just protest - her protest was prayer - and sometimes prayer is protest.
Methodist Theologian Stanley Hauerwas writes about intercessory prayer in a book on worship - he says that
Prayer is ‘giving grief to management’.
—Stanley Hauerwas
In her protest - she might not have realised she was praying - but when she prayed in the direction of Justice.
She prayed in the direction of God’s heart.
And to her protest was added the mighty weight of God’s inevitable justice.
So maybe she was tenacious and the best kind of grumpy - taking all of her grief to the judge and saying you know what the big rich guy who paid you off to diddle me out of my house - is nothing compared to my tenacity.
And God looked down from heaven - smiled and tipped the judges heart in her favour.
The coming of God’s Kingdom is inevitable.
Who do you trust?
Luke 18:9 He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt:
The parable he told - about Two men who went to pray.
A Pharisee.
and a Tax Collector.
You all know that I’ve been having an interesting time with my glasses this year.
Its a new thing to me - having to wear glasses.
I was really struggling to read the fine print on my pills.
So now I have pille and brille.
But I was reading them I was getting so iritated.
Why have they made the writing smaller?
I was getting iritated with my computer monitor - and my computer.
Why is the writing blurry?
What is wrong with the screen?
Are the lights in this room bright enough?
Eventually I went to the optometrist who advised me that I was about 5 years behind schedule.
With new glasses my computer screen is suddenly much better - the writing is not so blurry.
I still can’t read the fine print on my pill boxes.
But there is a problem - I find myself staying up until all hours of the night reading books.
It is good to be able to see them.
I was so convinced that my eyes were fine that I moaned about everything except my eyes.
Luke 18:9 to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt:
Makes me think of what Jesus was saying.
Trusting myself that I am righteous and thinking that everything is wrong with everything other than me.
88.195 ἐξουθενέω: to despise someone or something on the basis that it is worthless or of no value—
When you say that you regard others with contempt - I think that you might have some sort of emotion toward them.
It sounds like I don’t like you.
That I hate you and judge you in some deep way.
But this word seems almost worse.
Its like you are regarded as invisible / as a nothing.
I think I’d rather be hated - than despised.
If you’re hated you’re getting a reaction.
Somebody cares enough to be angered or disgusted by you.
But despised -
Its like you don’t exist.
You don’t matter.
You’re unseen.
This is the attitude of the Pharisee - so wrapped up in himself that he can’t see that the problem is with his eyes.
Not the screen // not the phone.
In the Temple
The thing is - both of these people are in the temple.
The temple of which the Psalmist writes:
1 How lovely is your dwelling place,
O LORD of hosts!
2 My soul longs, indeed it faints
for the courts of the LORD;
my heart and my flesh sing for joy
to the living God.
This Holy place - regarded as a dwelling place for God.
This opprotunity to call out to God in protest and prayer.
This opportunity to align yourself with God’s will.
To make a new and better beginning.
But the Pharisee is so wrapped up in himself that he hardly seems to notice God.
He just tells God how great HE is.
The New International Version (1984) (The Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector)
‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector.
12 I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’
The tax collector on the other hand - is mindful of where he is.
The holiness of the momen t- the opportunity for a protest.
Like the widow beat on the door of the unjust judge the tax collector:
Luke 18:13 ...would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’
He comes to God with a problem - acknowledging - God; I am the problem.
I am a sinner.
I need your mercy.
So aware of God’s presence he doesn’t look up.
He doesn’t stand close to the holy places - but rather hides in the shadows.
And in the shadows he is more aware - more present than the Pharisee who is only aware of himself and what he thinks everyone thinks of him.
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