Jesus encouraged his followers to practice persistence so that people’s needs get met.
Here’s a transcript:
I’m thinking about the eleventh chapter of Luke’s Gospel (Luke 11:1-13) and about one of the stories that Jesus told in that chapter.
Imagine somebody who had gone to bed, he said. All his family, all his children, were already snug and sleeping. A neighbor came to the door and began to knock. He said that a visitor, a relative, had come, and that he had nothing to put on the table before him. The man in the house protested that everybody was in bed and asleep and there was nothing he could do; wait until morning! But the man at the door kept knocking and calling.
Because of his persistence, said Jesus, the man in the house would get up and bring him the things that he needed.
Persistence.
Jesus told other stories about persistence: about a woman who persisted in her complaints to a judge who didn’t care. Persistence is one of the valuable traits of human beings. I grant you that persistence at young ages can be, well, let’s just say it: annoying and frustrating when that two and three-year old persists and persists and persists in that demand for candy. A demand that we can’t meet, at least not meet and be the loving and considerate parents that we want to be, because a diet based on candy won’t do the child or, for that matter, the rest of us any good.
In Jesus’ story the need was real. I mean, to us in the modern day it sounds a little thin. I mean, the man could easily have gone down the street to the 24 hour store — except there was no such thing in the first century. The man could have — well, what could he do?
Except to go to a neighbor and a friend and to get help. And it was a real need because hospitality was such an important part of daily life in the first century.
So what are the needs that we have in our time that require us to persist? It’s not likely to be that kind of hospital hospitality (although it might). It might be the needs that arise when a loved one is ill, and there are things that we need to do to take care of them, and some of the other needs of our household: we’re going to look to others for their assistance.
It might be the needs in the community, where there people that just don’t have the skills, or the health, or whatever it is that allows them to find shelter, and to find food, and to live as dignified a life as they can. They are the ones who need our assistance, who need us to trouble ourselves from our comfort and even our rest, in order to see that they can come to a dignified and productive life within our community.
And for far too many in the world, the need is peace. For some it is because they literally live beneath the shadows of war. For others it is because they live with the threat of violence, sometimes from loved ones, sometimes from threats of the outside.
They are knocking on our door. They are calling for our aid. Can we stir ourselves from our comfort and let them in?
That’s what I’m thinking. I’m curious to hear what you’re thinking. Leave me your thoughts in the comment section below. I’d love to hear from you.
