October 21, 2007
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco
Making the most of the time that we have is a daily challenge. When we squeeze every minute of the day, we end up tired and wasted. Sometimes when I come into work, I can see from my rear-view mirror a woman putting on her makeup. She must not have had enough time to do this at home.
When Chris Chin commutes in his Google bus equipped with wi-fi, he could start his work on his way to Mountain View. He’s making the most of his time.
There’s an intersection in San Francisco where there’s a Starbucks at every corner. You don’t need to cross a street to get your daily cup of java. We need to make the most of the time we have everyday.
I grew up with a set of World Books Encyclopedia. We looked things up. Now if we have a question, we simply research it online and the matter is resolved in a couple of minutes. I wanted to make apple crisps at our son and daughter-in-law’s house recently and asked if they had Betty Crocker’s cookbook. They looked at me with this puzzled face and instantly googled 3 recipes for me. It would have taken too long to find where the cookbook was.
The Parable
Jesus tells a parable about a widow and an unjust judge. The widow is being harassed and harried by an unknown adversary. Someone is taking advantage of her because she is a widow. Her last chance to get justice is by this judge.
But this judge is unjust. He doesn’t have any compassion for this widow. He doesn’t care for God nor has any respect for people, so we can suspect that his rulings were not always fair. This judge may even have taken bribes. He had no time for this widow. Besides, she probably had no money to bribe him. But the widow had all the time in the world to plea her case—she was making the most of her time.
The surprising trait of this widow’s character is that she was more determined than the judge—she is the model of a person who does not lose heart. The judge was in the seat of power. With his indifference to people and without any fear for God, he could sleep well at night despite not granting the widow justice.
Why, we must ask, did he give in? The answer the parable provides is that the widow will not stop asking. She “kept coming” to make her case. Her persistence and willingness to make the most of her time eventually led to her salvation.
Being Persistent
From this parable, Jesus is teaching us to take time to be persistent. The fact that the judge is described as unjust means that the widow needs to be persistent to be granted justice.
As we rededicate ourselves to the mission that we have at FCBC in Chinatown and San Francisco and to the ends of the earth, I can imagine that some of us may feel that there are some “unjust judges” in our way. There some things that are blocking us from what we want. Some of us might think that after 127 years of faithful ministry in Chinatown, it’s about time for us to take some time off, kick off our shoes, and take a back seat. Some of us might see our history to be an unjust judge blocking us from welcoming a new tomorrow.
Some of us might think that serving in Chinatown with all its many obstacles and limitations that we should just stay the course, keep the status quo, live within our means, and don’t venture too far out. We see our status quo as an unjust judge stopping us from seeing new possibilities.
Some of us might think that we should be content with what we have and enjoy the blessings and abundance that we have. We might be hearing from the judge telling us who are the widows, to be happy and content with what you have and be gone. We might see our current comforts as the unjust judge preventing us from seeing where God may be leading us in the future.
But we need to be like this widow. We need to take the necessary time to keep on coming with our faith in God that God will lead us to a ministry of justice and righteousness. We need to be like this widow and keep coming back to challenge the things that stop us from doing God’s will through our church for the world’s sake and never for our sakes. We need to be like this widow who comes back and back again to wear out, to wipe off any reason that would prevent us from participating in God’s glory and kingdom on earth.
Being persistent for Jesus Christ will require making the most of our time.
Time to Pray
This parable is also teaching us about the power of prayer. We need “to pray always and not to lose heart.” These words from Jesus are not hard to understand; they’re hard to live.
Jesus didn’t mean that we are to pray every moment that we have—even he took time to teach, eat, rest and go to a party in Cana. The point isn’t the quantity of time or that we are constantly in prayer. But it’s the quality of time—regularly. Whenever your heart and soul are affected by a friend’s story or what you may have read in the morning paper or read on the internet or by what you experienced at work or by even hearing a sermon message, we pray.
We pray each time an issue comes to mind. Prayer is like a reflex in the body. When we step on something sharp, we instantly put our weight on the other foot. It is natural and immediate. Prayer can eventually become like this… with practice.
We make the most of the time that we have and pray quick sentence prayers as a response to God, based on anything our eyes and ears perceive. We are told to pray always and not give up.
But all of us have experienced a time when we prayed and prayed never giving up and not losing heart and for some reason, we are left with our prayers unanswered. Every person has been in the position of praying without seeming to receive a prompt answer and each of us has also been in the position of wondering if God even hears our prayers.
It’s like praying for a baseball game. As our team endured another losing season, we prayed for victory as hard as we can—only to be utterly discouraged and announcing to the world that God didn’t answer prayer. We are reminded that sometimes God says, “Wait” and sometimes God even says “No,” especially if God wants to teach us a lesson. Even “No” is an answer to our prayer.
Our greatest misunderstanding of prayer comes when we assume God shares our perspective on our life—and that therefore God will answer our prayer according to our demands. This is a trap of arrogance that snares even the most spiritually mature, a trap that is sprung most often on those who are certain of their maturity.
God grants justice to those who pray without losing heart. After the widow kept coming back like a boxer who doesn’t know when to throw in the towel, she continues, round after round, standing up to the judge and swing a left and swinging a right, he finally concedes. This judge gives in and rules justly.
And God is like this, but even better, Jesus tells us. God with his love and compassion for his people is not long in granting justice, not as difficult to convince as this judge. But we should still pray night and day. Most people pray like the way they brushed their teeth—once in the morning and once at night, as part of their spiritual hygiene program. Prayer is not a regimented routine when if you prayed enough, God will answer you.
A noted preacher, Barbara Brown Taylor said, “Prayer is like our hearts are chasing after God’s hearts. It’s how we bother God and it’s how God bothers us back.”
2008 Theme on Prayer
When we are persistent in becoming God’s people and we pray regularly bothering God with our desire to know his heart for us and the world, God will in turn bother us back. God will invite us to make the most of our time to do his work through FCBC.
The 2008 annual church theme is on this same theme—Making the Most of Time. Our focus will be on prayer and missions. God is calling us to pray and pray persistently leading us to know his plan for us to do mission in this world so badly in need of hope, truth and love. And all of this will take time.
We want Jane Lam our Community Outreach worker to spend more time working with new neighbors who have come to America seeking for the meaning of life’s purpose. Jane will proclaim to them through Bible study, Friday Night School and the kind and caring pastoring that she does that God loves them. She will be making the most of her time to win these new neighbors for Jesus.
We want Pastor Lauren Ng our Assistant Pastor who is growing a whole new congregation at 9:30 to spend more time building relationships, supporting new mothers who with the fathers have overwhelmed our church nursery, teaching Bible studies and relating to the singles in our church. Pastor Lauren’s enthusiasm and faithfulness will attract new people to our church. She will be making the most of her time to make new disciples.
I too will be making the most of the time that you have granted me in my sabbatical so that I may become renewed in spirit, in faith, and in my dedication and service to God and with you at this church which I have come to love so much.
In 2008, we invite you to make the most of your time for God’s work at FCBC too. All of us will have an opportunity to participate in the church’s long-range strategic planning process to share our ideas and prayers as we discern God’s call for us in the next few years. We are called to pray without losing heart regardless of what obstacles that might be placed on our path. We are called to be persistent like the widow facing an unjust judge because in the end, it’s God’s justice and righteousness that will prevail.
God is not like the unjust judge. God doesn’t answer our prayers simply to get us out of his hair. But God does expect us to “cry to him day and night” about some things, especially those things that relate directly to the coming of his kingdom. Having mature faith is praying persistently and regularly for the most important thing—the coming of God’s kingdom through the doing of God’s will on earth just as God’s will is done in heaven.
Let us make the most of the time that God has given us for his kingdom work. Let us be persistent, never giving up, always praying to hear God’s will and plan for us so that God’s desires may be our desires, God’s heart may be in our hearts, and when we bother God, we pray that he will bother us back.
Let us pray.
Gracious God, challenge us to make the most of our time for your kingdom work on earth. Lead us to be persistent, never giving up; to pray regularly discerning your will; and to commit ourselves to the life-changing ministries of our church as a faithful witness of your grace and mercy. We pray in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.