7/24/22 “The Nghia Principle” by Nancy E. Petty
Luke 11:1-13
I call it The Nghia Principle but it’s actually a story of persistence. When Nghia Gurganus, now one of our Pullen youth, was about 3 or 4 years old he would come to me every single Wednesday night for over a year with one question. He would look me in the eyes and ask, “Pastor Nancy, when can I come to your house and spend the night?” At first, I wasn’t sure what to say so I would simply respond, “One of these days we will do that.” I guess in my mind I thought that his request would eventually fade into other interests. But it didn’t. And with each Wednesday night he became more focused on finding me to ask the same question, “When can I come to your house to spend the night?” His persistence begin to weigh on me. And my response, “One day we will do that.” became less and less adequate. You may think I am overstating this but I am telling you the truth, and his parents can validate this story. For over a year, weekly, Nghia would come to me with his question. Finally, I told Karla that I was going to have to find a time for Nghia to spend the night with us. She was game to try.
I spoke with Nghia’s parents and learned that Nghia had actually never spent the night away from home. But they were game to try, too. The agreed upon day came. It think it was his mother who brought him to the house. Nghia didn’t hesitate nor did he seem concerned when his mother bid him goodbye. Once Kathleen was out the door, I turned to Nghia and asked, “What would you like to do?” It was kind of late in the afternoon and he responded that he was hungry. I asked him what he would like to eat. Again, with clarity and confidence he responded, “Pancakes.” I made a few other suggestions, but once again he was persistent saying each time he wanted pancakes. Pancakes it will be. We set up a pancake making station in the kitchen and Nghia, Karla, and I began making pancake batter. He was a great helper and yet again, persistent in having his hands in the pancake batter. After making and eating the pancakes, he wanted to cook some more. Karla and I rummaged through the refrigerator and pantry to see what else we could cook with Nghia. After we had exhausted all food and cooking options, I asked Nghia if he would like to watch some cartoons while I cleaned the kitchen. That seemed to excite him. He was enthralled watching one of the cartoons we found on the cartoon channels. I would later learn that he really hadn’t yet been introduced to watching cartoons on TV. There’s a first time for everything.
As bedtime neared, Karla looked at me and said, “You are never going to get him to sleep.” I, too, was doubtful. After brushing teeth and putting on his pajamas I told Nghia that I would read him two books and then it would be time to go to sleep. We read the two books, I turned on some quite sleep time music, said goodnight, and turned off the light. Not a peep came from the bedroom until 6:00 a.m. the next morning when Nghia sat straight up in bed and said, “I hear the train.” Over the years, I have reflected on Nghia’s persistence and the impact it has had on me. Having raised two children, I do know how persistent kids can be. But Nghia’s persistence at such a young age seemed, at least to me, quite extraordinary.
The gospels record two parables that are often called “parables of persistence” both recorded in Luke’s gospel. One is the parable of the persistent widow, and the other from our gospel reading this morning, the parable of the persistent neighbor. In both of these parables, the writer of Luke’s gospel was concerned with being persistent in prayer. Maybe you remember the parable of the persistent widow. It tells the story of a widow who kept going to a judge asking the judge to grant her justice against her opponent. Time and again the judge refused. Finally, though, because the widow was persistent (or in the judges’ words, “because the widow kept bothering him”) he granted her justice. That parable begins: “Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart.”
In the parable of the persistent neighbor, our lesson for today, it also begins by focusing on prayer—specifically the prayer that Jesus teaches his disciples to pray. After the prayer, Jesus tells them a parable about a persistent neighbor who wakes his neighbor up very late at night asking for bread for his guests. The lesson teaches that it is the persistence of the neighbor knocking on his neighbor’s door that ultimately gets the neighbor up to share his bread. In both of these parables, although they focus on prayer, there is a lesson about persistence.
Before I get to that lesson about persistence and what it might hold for us today, I want to address the most complicated part of our text. Jesus concludes his parable of the persistent neighbor with these words.
“So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.”
This is a difficult word because for most of us, our experience contradicts Jesus’ words. “So often we have asked and not received; we have searched and not found. In spite of our most fervent prayers for health and safety, we have lost loved ones to cancer and senseless accidents. In spite of the [persistent] prayers of people around the world, daily we hear of tragedies of violence, hunger, disease, and natural disaster.” (Elisabeth Johnson, Commentary on Luke, Working Preacher)
Preachers have often given simple answers in addressing these words of Jesus. Answers like: God always answers but sometimes says no. Everything happens for a reason and we just don’t understand the reason—as if everything that happens is God’s will. I find it hard to believe that war is God’s will. Or that child abuse and hunger and domestic violence and cancer is God’s will. At least for me, these pat answers are unacceptable.
So what do we do with these words of Jesus? Honestly, I don’t have an answer. And, I will not reduce Jesus’ words to some simplistic response that makes no sense nor resonates with who I believe God to be. I will simply point to Jesus’ words as a bridge to what I do want to say this morning. The asking, the searching, and the knocking is a call to not lose heart, to not give up, but rather to persist in our relationship with God. It is The Nghia Principle—to be persistent in showing up to ask for what is in our hearts, to keep searching when the road dead ends, and to keep knocking when our knuckles are bruised and hurting. Maybe the spiritual/faithful journey is not all about receiving or finding or having a door opened. What resonates with me is that my journey of faith is what I have learned from this community: the question is more important than the answer. The journey holds more than the destination. The asking, the searching, the knocking is the work we are called to do.
Sometimes I wonder if we have become a people, a nation, a world where we have lost the will to be persistent in pursuing justice, and to responding to the needs of our neighbors, and to challenging the evils of war and violence and injustice. In the face of so much injustice right now in our world, it is easy to lose heart. We give up. We stop fighting that moral narrative that we say we believe in. We grow weary and tired and disheartened. Instead of seeing our failures as opportunities to be persistent in trying again and again, we walk away discouraged and deflated.
Consider these stories of persistence:
Before Henry Ford founded the extremely successful Ford Motor Company he was previously bankrupted and left penniless 5 times from failed ventures. He persisted.
Abolitionist and suffragist Susan B. Anthony was arrested in 1872 for casting her vote for president. She refused to pay the $100 fine, and became instrumental in the fight for women's suffrage. She died in 1906, 14 years before the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote, was ratified in 1920. Yet, she persisted.
Before becoming Colonel Sanders, determined Harland Davis Sanders submitted his now world famous fried chicken recipe to 1,009 restaurants before finding a buyer. He persisted.
Edie Windsor, whose lawsuit against the federal government paved the way for marriage equality was warned not to do it. Nevertheless, she persisted.
Albert Einstein although the name now is almost exclusively associated with genius, young Albert was not viewed as much of a prospective scholar. His parents and teachers began to think he was mentally handicapped and socially awkward due to that fact he did not begin to speak until the age of 4 or read until he was 7. Einstein was eventually expelled from school and denied entry to Zurich Polytechnic School. He persisted.
Harriet Tubman, former slave and spy who led hundreds of slaves to freedom. She was warned of the dangers. Nevertheless, she persisted.
Thomas Edison was considered unteachable as a youth. The inventor changed the world with his invention of the electric lightbulb. Before this great accomplishment, Edison discovered over 1,000 ways he could not build a light bulb. He persisted.
Native American activist Winona LaDuke actively protested against the Sandpiper pipeline in 2016 as well as the Dakota Access pipeline. She was Ralph Nader's running mate in his 1996 and 2000 presidential elections, and continues to be an environmental justice activist through her organization, Honor the Earth. She persists.
Van Gogh’s Starry Night ranks among the most recognized paintings. Throughout the artists life he only sold one painting to a close friend. That didn’t stop him from painting over 800 other pieces while starving and often destitute. Today Van Gogh’s “unappreciated” work sells for hundreds of millions dollars. He persisted.
Malala Yousafzai was shot in the head by the Taliban in 2012 in her home country of Pakistan for being outspoken about girls' rights to education. She survived the shooting and went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014 at the age of 17 -- the youngest Nobel Peace Prize winner in history. Today, she still persists for the rights of women.
Today, my friends, we are living through a time in history when we must persist. It is not a time to lose heart when it comes to working for equality and justice for all. It is not a time to give up on basic human rights and human dignity for all people. It is not a time to accept that war will always be a part of the world’s narrative. It is not time to believe that economic injustice is a given. It is not a time to give up on the role the church can play in our society. It is not a time to give in when we experience failure in addressing these issues. As people who believe in the common good; who hold the vision of a kin-dom to come of justice-love; who live by the commandment to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and spirit, and to love our neighbor as ourselves; our banner must be #theypersisted. It is our calling to keep asking, searching, and knocking. And so, as we persist may we draw strength from the prayer Jesus taught us to pray:
Our God, who art in heaven,
Hallowed by thy name.
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done
On earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day, our daily bread,
And forgive us our trespasses,
As we forgive those who trespass against us.
Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory for ever and ever.
