FIRST WEEK OF LENT, THURSDAY

Homily at St Anne’s House Chapel 

“Ask, search, knock – and don’t give up.”

Readings:

Esther 4:17 – “I have no helper but you, Lord.”

Matthew 7: 7-12 – “The one who asks always receives.”

These readings remind me of a passage in Luke (18:1ff) where Jesus tells the story of a judge bothered by a widow who persists and almost nags until the judge gives her the justice she’s looking for. Luke says: “Jesus told a parable so that his disciples would pray always and not lose heart.” – or “Pray and don’t give up, pray and keep on praying.”

Today’s two readings are in the same vein. Jesus gives us: Ask, search, knock; if you know how to be good to your children, how much more will your Father hear your prayers. So pray, and don’t give up.

Rewind to Esther and she finds herself in a horrific dilemma for which much prayer, urgent prayer, is needed. In fact she asks her ladies in waiting and all the Jewish people to fast and pray for her to have the courage to do what’s being asked of her.

She’s been asked to appeal to her husband, King Ahasueras, for his Prime Minister, Haman’s, edict ordering extermination of the Jews to be rescinded. She isn’t even allowed into the King’s presence unless summoned, hasn’t been called for by him in thirty days, and now she’s asked to draw attention to the fact that she is herself a Jew and as liable to this new law as anyone else.

So Esther is, as it were, another proto-saviour. Like Joseph in Egypt, she's a forerunner of the ultimate Saviour, and this is her Gethsemane. She too begs for the cup to pass from her but, in a wonderful phrase, her uncle Mordecai writes to her: “Who knows whether you have come into the kingdom for such a time as this.” (4:14b) Esther, calling for fasting and prayer to strengthen her for the task, replies: “I will go to the King, though it is against the law, and if I perish, I perish.” (4:16b).

"Not my will, but thine be done". Esther prays to her God straight from the heart, remembering his covenant, maybe as much reminding herself of his promises and his faithfulness. And as she prays, you can almost feel her resolve strengthening and the courage she's praying for coming to her as she remembers who she is before God, his child and one of his chosen, and who God is for her, the faithful one for ever to be trusted. 

We’re given these readings in Lent to stir us up to urgency in prayer. We need to be real and honest and tell it to God just like it is. Maybe this is a time to pray like it is the lifeline it really is or can be; perhaps a time for some sacrifice, some fasting maybe, a time to make a desert space in which we can hear God.

Ask, search, knock, says Jesus – and don’t give up.