Talking about the dwarf planet / Kuiper Belt Object formerly known as the ninth planet in the solar system. Yes it’s relevant. Don’t look at me like that!
Luke 18:1-8; 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5; Psalm 119:97-104; Jeremiah 31:27-34
In the 1800s, when astronomers had only identified the existence of 7 planets, Urbain Le Verrier did a whole lot of magic-math and deduced that there was likely an 8th planet, due to some weirdness he found in the orbit of Uranus. This led to the discovery of Neptune in the 1840s, mostly because someone started looking where Le Verrier’s math told them to look. Once they found Neptune, the math still said there needed to be another planet to account for the weirdness in Uranus’ orbit.
To try and find this mysterious “Planet X” (which they should have called planet IX to avoid unneeded confusion later), Percival Lowell set his observatory to the task of locating this missing planet. On March 19, 1915, he did indeed find “Planet X”, but unfortunately he didn’t see it on his photographs. After Lowell’s death 1916, the search for “Planet X” stalled. Lowell’s wife Constance had initiated what became a 10-year legal battle to gain control over the portion of Lowell’s estate that he left to the observatory. Finally in 1929, the observatory’s director gave a young man named Clyde Tombaugh the job of finding “Planet X”. After a year of searching, on February 18, 1930 Tombaugh saw the mysterious “Planet X”, and a month later it was named “Pluto”.
Now the irony in all of this is that the math still said that Pluto couldn’t be big enough to affect the orbits of Uranus and Neptune they way they thought it should, so they kept looking for “Planet X” until 1989, when after the Voyager flyby of Neptune they realized the math they had been using since the mid-1800s was wrong and there really wasn’t a “Planet X” after all. Then to top it all off, 2006 led to the reclassification of Pluto as a “dwarf planet”.
The whole point of this story, is that for something like 70 years, astronomers kept looking for a ninth planet in our solar system, not being discouraged by a lack of success, but persistently searched the night sky hoping to catch a glimpse of the faraway object. Even when the search was assuredly looking hopeless, they kept going until Pluto was finally found.
In our gospel today, Jesus tells his disciples to pray with that same kind of persistence. He tells the story of an unjust judge and a persistent widow. This judge had no respect for anyone but himself, and especially not this poor widow. But this widow would come before him every day insisting that the judge give her justice against someone who had wronged her. The judge, not caring about the poor widow, consistently refused her request, until one day he says to himself, “I don’t really care about anyone, but to get this darn widow out of my hair, I’ll grant her request.” And so he did, and the widow got justice.
So then Jesus says, “If a judge who doesn’t care about anyone will grant the request of someone persistent, how much more likely is a God who loves you deeply grant your request. God will see that those who cry out to him will get justice.” I mean that’s even what Luke says this whole parable is about: “Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up.”
God tends to answer when his people cry out to him. Read Exodus and Judges if you want to find out about that. The prophets are all about the various ways God will answer the cry of his people, most of which culminate in the sending of Jesus to die for our sins. God listens when we pray. It’s a promise repeated over and over again in Scripture. But it’s also not just pray once and you’re good. No, it’s pray constantly, and keep praying. I don’t mean that we should always have our heads bowed and eyes close and hands folded. It wouldn’t be very effective to go through the day like that, especially if we have to drive anywhere. But prayer is as simple as having a conversation with God.
So how do we do that? What does it look like to always pray? It starts with acknowledging that God is always with us. From there, carrying on that conversation with God is a lot less of a big step. I know when I’m with good friends, it’s not hard to talk to them, and it’s the same with God. But the key is to pray always, and not give up just because we don’t get what we want right away.