Lectionary Reflection
“Wrestling Toward Mercy: A Gospel for the Persistent”
Opening Prayer
Faithful One,
We come to You as people who wrestle—
with doubt, with delay, with injustice, with ourselves.
Teach us to pray and not lose heart.
Give us a word to hold onto,
a path to walk in,
and a name that tells us we have seen You face to face.
Amen.
Prayer Before Scripture
God of the written Word and the Word made flesh,
Let these readings not just instruct but awaken us.
Make Your truth sweet to our spirit,
Your justice fierce in our longing,
and Your mercy near enough to touch.
Amen.
Reflection: “Wrestling Toward Mercy: A Gospel for the Persistent”
“Pray always and do not lose heart.”
That’s how Jesus begins the parable in Luke 18—a story about a persistent person, a corrupt judge, and a long-overdue justice. The widow is unnamed, but she refuses to be unseen. She knocks, pleads, pesters—until the judge relents. And Jesus asks: If even an unjust judge will act, how much more will God listen to those who cry out day and night?
But the real tension is in the question that follows:
“When the Human One comes, will there be faith on earth?”
Will we still be praying? Will we still be wrestling?
Genesis 32 gives us the image of Jacob wrestling through the night. He’s at the edge of reunion with his estranged sibling, afraid and alone. And in the darkness, someone wrestles with him until dawn. Jacob demands a blessing. He walks away limping—with a new name, Israel, meaning “one who wrestles with God.”
This is not a tidy spirituality. This is faith with grit.
Faith that won’t let go until blessing comes.
And in the wrestling, God isn’t offended—God names it holy.
Psalm 121 reminds us that in all our struggling, God is not absent.
“I lift up my eyes to the hills—from where will my help come? My help comes from the Lord.”
Not from within. Not from the powerful. But from the One who keeps watch when we sleep,
who guards our going out and coming in.
God is not wearied by our persistence—God honors it.
In Jeremiah 31, we hear one of the most hopeful promises in all of Scripture.
After exile, after failure, after judgment—God says:
“I will make a new covenant… I will put my law within them, and write it on their hearts.”
This is not a new set of rules. It’s a transformed relationship.
God is not done with people who’ve messed up.
God doesn’t scrap the covenant—God deepens it.
It moves from tablets of stone to the chambers of the soul.
This is God’s persistence: not in punishing, but in pursuing.
Psalm 119 responds with awe at this internal Word:
“How sweet are Your words to my taste… through Your precepts I gain understanding.”
This isn’t obedience born of fear, but of delight.
A way of living written in the marrow.
2 Timothy 3 and 4 bring it home for those who teach and lead.
Paul speaks to someone trying to be faithful in a time of distraction and deception.
The challenge?
Continue in what you’ve learned.
Be persistent, whether the moment is favorable or not.
Proclaim the message, with patience and encouragement.
The Scripture, Paul says, is not just a book of rules—it is a living word,
capable of forming, correcting, healing, and equipping.
But the world may not always listen.
Still—“be sober, endure suffering, do the work of a messenger.”
Not because it’s easy, but because someone has to keep the truth alive.
What Unites These Readings?
Each text invites us to be people who persist in the long path of transformation:
The widow who prays until justice comes.
Jacob who wrestles until dawn.
Jeremiah’s people, learning to carry the covenant in their hearts.
Timothy, proclaiming a message in and out of season.
And through it all, God persists too—
Writing mercy on hearts,
Meeting people in the dark,
Listening long after the world stops paying attention.
This is not a gospel for the already-perfect.
It is a gospel for those who refuse to give up,
even when limping, even when unsure,
even when the answers are slow in coming.
Because in God’s economy,
even wrestling is a form of faith.
Benediction
Go now, as people who have wrestled and still believe.
Let your prayers be persistent,
your teaching steady,
your love enduring.
May God write mercy on your heart,
Christ walk with you through the night,
and the Spirit renew your strength for the road ahead.
Do not lose heart.
Amen.