Keep Coming Back

By Lenora Rand
for the May Recovery Worship Service

Luke 18:1-8 (New Living Translation)
1 One day Jesus told his disciples a story to show that they should always pray and never give up. 2 “There was a judge in a certain city,” he said, “who neither feared God nor cared about people. 3 A widow of that city came to him repeatedly, saying, ‘Give me justice in this dispute with my enemy.’ 4 The judge ignored her for a while, but finally he said to himself, ‘I don’t fear God or care about people, 5 but this woman is driving me crazy. I’m going to see that she gets justice, because she is wearing me out with her constant requests!’”
6 Then the Lord said, “Learn a lesson from this unjust judge. 7 Even he rendered a just decision in the end. So don’t you think God will surely give justice to his chosen people who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? 8 I tell you, he will grant justice to them quickly! But when the Son of Man[a] returns, how many will he find on the earth who have faith?



We have a screened in back porch that we added on to our house. It’s beautiful out there in the late spring and summer when the weather finally warms up. We love it out there, Gary and the girls and I. Our cats also love it. They are indoor cats so when we let them out on the back porch that’s as close as they get to being outdoor cats and it’s exciting for them, let me tell you. They strut around, keep a close watch on the birds and rabbits and squirrels and the random stray cats from the neighborhood who occasionally wander into our backyard. They get up on the table out there and pace on it and perch on it, they make it their vantage point from which to rule the kingdom. All they need is the Lion King soundtrack behind them. In essence being on the back porch for a couple of indoor cats is as right as it gets.

There’s a window in between the kitchen and that back porch and we don’t have a screen on it so we can just open it and the cats can hop out onto the porch easily. We do have to open the window for the cats however and that’s where we sometimes have an issue. We, their humans, are not always ready to drop whatever we’re doing to let them out. But when they want to go out they want to go out. And they have ways of making us do their bidding. They have a stool next to the window and they sit on that and tap on the window. Then they scratch on the window. Then they start meowing loudly, overly dramatically, endlessly.

We especially have problems when the weather changes and it’s suddenly cold…they are cats of little brain and so we let them go outside and then they want to come back in (tapping/scratching on the window) in mere moments. Then they forget that they hated it and want to go back out a couple minutes later. Which drives us all nuts. Or recently, we had some broken screens out there, we couldn’t let them out until we got them fixed…that was a very sad time in their pathetic little lives. And they let us know about it. The sitting on the stool scratching at the window and meowing was totally annoying. Why you may wonder didn’t we just remove the stool so they couldn’t do this? Well we tried that. But if you remove the stool what they do is just hang on the windowsill by their fingernails and meow, looking back over their shoulder at you to make sure you aren’t missing their horrible predicament.

Like the widow in our Scripture reading, being annoyingly persistent ultimately pays off.

But it’s not a pretty picture, really, is it?

I hate being an annoyance. I hate being intrusive and obnoxious and pesky. Which this widow, and my cats clearly, are. I also hate being that obviously needy. You know, what I mean? Neediness is embarrassing. We live in a society that’s all about self-reliance and pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps—whatever the heck that means…it sounds a little painful, actually. But being needy…even the word kind of makes us cringe. Someone says, “Oh, she’s so needy.” And that’s code for, “keep your distance, she’s very high maintenance.” Or “He’s so needy,” is code for stop dating him, he’s going to turn into a stalker. Who wants needy friends? Needy neighbors? Needy co-workers?

Being needy has a bad name. Being persistent in our expression of need just isn’t cool. And I sometimes feel like I’d rather die than embarrass myself like that.

And then I realize, I have almost died. I have almost killed myself with cigarettes. And with a raging food addiction. I have sucked back all my fear and shame and anger and stuffed all my sadness and hurt and real wants for years, rather than embarrass myself with my neediness.

Here’s another thing that really annoys me. In recovery groups they have all these expressions like “one step at a time” and “It works when you work it” and “Keep coming back.” “Keep coming back,” is something that’s said at the end of meetings and sometimes I really hate hearing that. I hate it because it’s a slogan and it feels so cult like and both silly and scary at the same time. I grew up going to a church that got a little too close to being a cult for comfort at times and so that kind of lingo sort of freaks me out.

But I also hate it and maybe hate it most because it reminds me that I need to keep coming back. That recovery is an ongoing process for all of us. That the life of faith, of becoming whole is an ongoing process. That I’m not done yet. And I really really hate that.

The widow in the parable Jesus tells is definitely someone who keeps coming back. Every day she hauls herself into court. She pleads her case. She cries out for attention, help, justice. People stare. Look down on this pushy widow. Want her to just shut up and give up and go away, but she doesn’t. And finally the judge gets worn down, worn out, and he gives in and helps her. Not because he thinks her cause is righteous. No, just to get rid of her. Just to make this obnoxious crazy lady go away.

And yet this obnoxious crazy lady behavior is exactly what Jesus is recommending to us. Promoting. Applauding, in fact. Hurray for the obnoxious crazy lady who keeps coming back! Who’s angry, who pounds on the door with her demands, who says what she wants loudly and clearly, who isn’t afraid to let her neediness show or her tears flow in public, who doesn’t give up until her pleas, her prayers are answered.

OK, so here’s another thing I hate. Not getting what I want right away. I know in this parable we’re dealing with an unjust judge. And God, who, the Bible says is so much better than this judge, will definitely hear us and answer our prayers. “So don’t you think God will surely give justice to his chosen people who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off?” it ask us in verse 7. Then in verse 8 it says, “I tell you, he will grant justice to them quickly!” But, wait a minute, which is it? Is it about us crying out day and night for as long as it takes? Or is it about a quick response? How is Jesus defining quickly, you’ve got to wonder.

When I was about 12 years old, a friend of our family was getting married and we were all going to the wedding. So my mom took my sister and I out to shop for dresses to wear to the event. My sister who’s a year older than me, found a cool dress that looked good on her right away. Everything she tried on seemed to fit her fine—it was just a matter of picking the dress she liked most. I, on the other hand, didn’t have the “anything you try on fits fine” kind of body. I was not skinny. Not horribly fat, but I was chubby, husky, as it was sometimes called back then, a husky girl, as if we had an outer husk, except that hidden inside this husk was actually an acceptable-sized person, versus an ear of corn. So we searched and searched for a dress, something that fit me and also didn’t look totally stupid or like an old lady dress. Something cool. Hours and what seemed like hundreds of dresses later we finally found one that had the cool factor and it also fit. Well, it almost fit. It was just a little snug. We asked for the larger size, but unfortunately the store didn’t have it. So we struck a deal, my mom and I. I would try to lose a little weight before the wedding, which was 2 or 3 weeks away. It wouldn’t take much. And we bought the dress.

Fast forward to the night before the wedding. I tried on the dress again, and guess what, I hadn’t really lost any weight. Or if I had, not enough. The dress was still too tight, way too tight, and I looked terrible stuffed inside it, like a sausage coming out of its casing. But what could I do? The wedding was tomorrow and I had no other dress to wear.

So I lay in bed that night and prayed. Cried out to God for help. Couldn’t God just take ten pounds off me during the night?. Couldn’t the God who parted the Red Sea, the God who could make frogs rain down from heaven, who could make the blind see and the lame walk, couldn’t that God give me what I needed, give me the thing that would make everything all right for me?

I woke up in the morning, with hope in my 12 year old heart. Then I put on the dress.

That may have been the first time I pleaded with God to fix my body, but it wasn’t the last. I prayed it every time I started a new diet. Started a new exercise program. And when I walked into an Overeater’s Anonymous meeting 20 years ago, I walked in with that prayer again. Fix my body, God. Help me lose weight and stop being insane about food. When, a few years after that, I walked into the office of a therapist who specializes in helping people with addictions, I was praying that prayer again. God fix my body. Fix my relationship with food.

I’m here to tell you tonight, that the prayer I prayed when I was twelve and have been praying ever since, the prayer I prayed, twenty years ago, when I found my way to a 12 step meeting, that specific prayer, has not really been answered, at least not in the way I hoped it would be. My relationship with food and with my body, is not all better. It’s not all fixed.

But I can say this: because I've kept coming back, because this addiction stuff keeps bringing me to my knees, because I’ve kept pleading with God for help on this issue, because I’ve kept showing up with that prayer for help, I've gotten so much in all kinds of other areas of my life. Every day I deal with my food addiction and learning to love my body. But along the way, I’ve gotten so much that I didn’t expect or imagine.

You’ve probably heard that famous quote: Eighty percent of success is showing up. One of the things I’m learning in recovery is also that 80% of healing is showing up. 80% of growth is showing up. And as the widow teaches us, continuing to show up. By showing up and crying out for help, I’ve gotten help for things I didn’t even realize I needed help with. Help in being a good parent. In how to be a healthy person in a marriage., how to be a healthy person in my job, in my church, with my friends, in the greater world.

Asking for what you want and believe you need is a tricky business. Because sometimes what we think we want and need isn’t really what we want and need most. I didn’t get what I asked for when I was 12 years old, I didn’t get the quick fix I was hoping for, but as someone once said, if I’d gotten what I prayed for I would have shortchanged myself.

I am beginning to think this is true of all our prayers, all the things we keep coming back to God asking for help with. God does answer our prayers, maybe just not always the prayers we’re praying out loud. Because on some level we don’t always know what we really need. We’re just scratching the surface most of the time. And the point is to keep showing up, like the widow in this parable did.

And maybe, just maybe, the act of continuing to show up, continuing to ask, day after day, continuing to nail our demands on God’s door, to be angry with God and obnoxious and pushy with God, to get in God’s face, and say I’m here, and I’m not going away until you answer me…maybe that is the quick answer Jesus was promising. Us showing up, coming back, pleading with God, yelling at God, maybe that is what God wants. And maybe that is what we need, most of all.

I don’t know whether showing up will get you the outcome YOU want. But I do believe that “God will surely give justice to his chosen people who cry out to him day and night.” I don’t know whether it will change the situation you’re hurting in, the way you expect it to, or change the addiction you’re struggling with, in the way you envision it, or change the relationship you’re trying to navigate, quite the way you want it to. But I do believe it will change you. And God will give justice. Justice, which means putting things right. Right in our world. Right in our own lives. To have justice is to have things working the way they should. The way things are meant to be. Not out of whack. Not all screwed up. When we ask for justice, will God keep putting us off? “No, I tell you, God will grant justice to them… quickly!”

So be obnoxious. Be annoying. Be persistent. Be needy. Hang on the windowsill by your fingernails if you have to. You want God to make things right, really right, more right than you could imagine? Bang on God’s door. And keep coming back.