Brief synopsis of the readings: We begin with Exodus. After leaving Egypt, Moses and the Israelites came upon Amalek, near Mt. Sinai, who waged war against Israel. As the forces fought each other Moses stood on top of a hill; as long as Moses kept his hands raised up Israel was winning. But when his hands grew tired and he let them rest, the Israelites began to lose. When Moses was given a rock to rest on, and when Aaron and Hur supported his hands, “Joshua mowed down Amalek and his people with the edge of his sword. In the Gospel Luke recounts the story of a widow who approached an unjust judge (“who neither feared God nor respected any human being”) asking for justice against another. The judge cared nothing for this woman but eventually decided in her favor “lest she finally come and strike me.” Jesus then told his disciples that since justice was given by an unjust judge to this woman, how much more will God “then secure the rights of his chosen ones.” He ends this Gospel with these words: “But when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?

Perhaps I’ve noticed something that nobody else has noticed, or perhaps I’m just seeing that doesn’t exist, but I’m thinking that unnamed women occupy an important place in the Gospels. We can look at the 21st Chapter of Luke and the 12th Chapter of Mark to learn of the “widow’s mite.” They describe a poor woman who gives a small offering while others give greater amounts. Jesus tells his disciples that her generosity pleases God greatly because she gives out of her need.

Many of us admire women, and I’m far from the only man who has “married up.” But this woman in Luke’s Gospel gains our admiration not for her intellect but for her determination. She was virtually powerless in the face of the judge. I’ve spoken about this before but women of Jesus’ time exercised power almost exclusively through the men in their lives. Wives, sisters and daughters of powerful men held power. Wives, sisters, and daughters of poor men held little power.

But women who were not wives, or sisters, or daughters of anyone (because they had died) exercised almost no power. The idea that this powerless widow claimed the power to approach a judge again and again demanding justice should make us proud.

She should make us proud because she demanded justice above the probable advice of everyone around her. I’m fairly certain they advised her to keep quiet and cut her losses. We assume she had a case but we don’t know that. All we know from this reading is that she believed she had a case. We can only hope she was right.

So what do you when your desire for justice is denied? Clearly this woman doesn’t feel that her voice has been heard. She could have given up, she could have walked away, and she had good reasons for despair. But instead she kept presenting her case, regardless of cost.

I think this calls us to a larger question: What do we do when our well reasoned prayer isn’t answered? What happens when “Plan A” doesn’t work?

In this we harken back to the first reading from Exodus. Here we find the Israelites, lead my Moses, under attack from the Amalekites. Moses took his place on top of a hill and raised his arms and he expected he would win the battle quickly. He didn’t. As the battle went on Moses grew weary and couldn’t continue to stand with his arms raised. OK, what is Plan B when Plan A doesn’t work? I give credit to Moses and his people who figured out that they needed to give Moses a rock to sit on and they needed to hold up his arms. They recognized that only by banding together would they win.

And only by banding together can we find justice for this widow. She could have easily decided that God had abandoned her. She could have decided that God favored the judge. She could have decided she did not deserve justice. She could have decided that she asked for “yes” and God decided “no.”

But she didn’t, and the Gospel begins with a fascinating statement: “Jesus told his disciples a parable about the need to pray continually and never lose heart.” I believe these words may carry more weight and importance today than it did when Jesus taught them.

We are a people who expect a return on our investments. We expect to get paid for our work, we expect praise for our generosity, and we expect our prayers to be answered. We think ourselves good people with reasonable requests: why wouldn’t our prayers be answered?

And furthermore we expect our prayers to be answered on our timeline. I haven’t been able to trace the source, but I have vivid memories of some saint from long ago praying: “God give me patience and give it to me now.”

I theorized that this statement carries more weight today than it did in Jesus’ time. Back then his disciples (and, let’s face it, everyone) understood that they lived in a world much beyond their control. They had virtually no ability to treat diseases, consuming enough food to live was much more difficult, and they were completely at the mercy of the current climate.

But today we’ve made incredible strides in all of these areas. That’s wonderful in that our lives have become much richer (to say nothing of longer) but it has also led us down the path of hubris, of believing that we can answer our own prayers. Of believing that we have mastered our universe to the point where prayer has taken a smaller place in our lives.

But prayer continues to demand a central part of our lives because, for all we’ve accomplished, we’re still not in charge of what happens to us. It’s too easy to see prayer as “just another tool” in our quest for what we want or need. If we see prayer that way, it will never work, it will never be the tool we need.

When Jesus tells us to pray continually and not lose heart I think it tells us not to score our prayers but to pray regardless of what happens. As I said earlier this nameless widow kept pressing her case regardless of her place, but also regardless of the results. When she didn’t get the justice she demanded right away she kept at it. Perhaps she did it out of desperation, but I like to think she kept at it simply because it was the right thing to do.

And the same for us. We all have things we want or need that we don’t have. And we have been praying for them. But if God hasn’t given us what we want or need it’s not because we’re not good enough and it’s not because we haven’t prayed long enough or well enough. Prayer is an end, not a means. We should pray continually because it deepens our relationship with God.

And God has promised, again and again, that our needs will be provided. So perhaps Moses teaches us that the death of “plan A” doesn’t mean God has abandon us and the widow teaches us that we should pray without condition and without expectation.