
I love stories, and life has given me plenty to tell. It has long been my plan to put them down on paper. My path has taken me through 15 years of entrepreneurship, travelling, and finally, immigrating. I found myself again in a new place as an employed software engineer, and now, five years onwards, I am transitioning back to independence.

I was born in soviet Moscow and went to school in a new, unknown country that had yet to define itself. I belong to the single, non-indoctrinated generation of Russians around: we were taught that anything was possible and that our only limits were those we set for ourselves. This played some bad jokes on me: Once my childhood was over, the country decided to make another turn, this time back to authoritarianism, and together with its people, happily embraced the old and familiar soviet dogmas.

So, a year after graduating high school, I jumped on the website development bandwagon that has carried me for the last 20 years.

My experience was not purely virtual: my severe first \[ad]venture was an e-commerce website that sold shoes and accessories (my friend brought the idea, not a passion for shoes!). The next one was even more grounded: a chain of gadget repair stores. The third I would call 'Chinese adventures', as I was involved in trading activities for many small-scale entrepreneurs like me in China. These adventures, spanning from 2000 to 2014, were thrilling but ended abruptly as Russia took a turn I couldn't follow.

That time, my country decided to be, once again, the bad guy and no one asked me if I wanted to participate, so I quit.

The word 'quit' is nice and short! Applying it to reality was a grilling experience. It took me several attempts and struggles to acquire a new true home: Israel. Most of my current stories are related to this land and its people.

I'm practical, so I write about entrepreneurship, technology, business, and ideas in general. I have never been short of ideas, and I believe in the power of sharing them to make the ideas a part of reality, to let them sprout and witness the fruits.

To set the record straight, I am a Christian, so my viewpoint is not so common in Israel or the world of tech. This lens offers a distinctive angle to my experiences and reflections.


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Immigrant, Enterpreneur, Husband, Father and Son

Rodion Kuprin


*Delivered at Immanuel Church, Tel Aviv — November 8, 2025*

**Readings:** Luke 18:1–8a

---

## The Widow Who Cannot Hide

A widow in first-century Judea, standing outside the courthouse. No husband to speak for her. No wealth to hire representation. In both Jewish law and Roman practice, a widow was the definition of vulnerability.

The Torah itself recognised this — again and again, God commands: _care for the widow, defend the widow, do not exploit the widow_. Why? Because she had no protector. No social safety net. She was, in the most literal sense, _defenceless_.

And yet here she is, Scripture tells us, approaching an unjust judge — a man who "neither feared God nor respected people."

Here she's using the only thing she has: her voice. Her persistence. Her ability to keep showing up and being a nuisance. The judge himself says it — "because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming." She has discovered the one power available to the powerless: the power to refuse to go away.

Jesus presents this example stripped of all nuance and loopholes: the widow desperately needs justice, the judge is indifferent, and yet she receives help because she is persistent. And Jesus doesn't leave us to puzzle over the meaning. He explains: if an unjust judge can be moved by persistence, how much more will our Heavenly Father hear us when we cry out to Him?

---

## The Widow's Posture: Helplessness Turned into Faith

Now, let's look at what made this widow's demands effective. Not eloquence. Not moral standing.

She had one man who could grant her justice, one door to knock on. So she knocked.

Her helplessness gave her clarity. Her persistence wasn't born from confidence or willpower. It was born from the desperate mathematics of having nowhere else to go.

This is what Jesus wants us to see: she responded to her situation with clear-eyed realism. She was powerless, yes — but she knew where power resided. And from that conclusion flowed everything else — her persistence, her refusal to give up.

The widow's clarity was unique in a way — Jesus has given us an imaginary, simplified example, drawn in stark lines. But this parable worked immediately for His audience because it was _recognizably_ close to their lives.

Most of Jesus's first hearers survived on things they couldn't control. Rain for crops. Safe roads. Successful fishing trips. Health without modern medicine. Their daily lives weren't quite as desperate as the widow's, but they were on the same spectrum. They understood helplessness not as an abstract theological truth but as a lived experience.

---

## Our Modern Self-Sufficiency: The False Wealth

But step onto a morning train in Tel Aviv. Look around. Everyone has headphones in. Each person is absorbed in their own specialised world.

All of us have built something the widow never had: layers of protection. Our bank accounts. Health insurance. Professional networks. Retirement plans. Emergency funds. Education. We have learned how to make ourselves "un-desperate" and feel secure.

Our world isn't just more secure than theirs — it's vastly more complex. There are thousands of professions now where there were dozens then. Thousands of ways to invest resources and spend your time. We are rich in alternatives and the ability to solve our own problems — or at least to feel like we can.

And here is the spiritual danger: the more layers we build, the less we feel our need for God.

These layers are not evil. A bank account is not sinful. Health insurance is not a lack of faith. The danger comes when the layers become substitutes for God. When we live as if our security comes from our strategies rather than from the One who gives us breath.

No matter how much money we have in our accounts, how indispensable we are at our jobs, we remain creatures, not the Creator. Our days are still numbered. We need food, water, air, sleep — and we cannot add a single hour to our lives. The widow had nothing to hide behind and couldn't avoid this truth. We can avoid it for decades, building such elaborate systems of security that we live as functional atheists — saying we believe in God while our daily lives suggest otherwise.

---

## Faith as Dependence: The Heart of Prayer

Which brings us back to Jesus's parable and the question it forces us to ask: what is faith, really?

We often think of faith as certainty — believing that God exists, that Jesus is Lord, that Scripture is true. And these things matter. But Jesus's parable suggests that faith is something deeper than intellectual agreement with theological propositions.

Faith, in its essence, is recognition and sustained dependence on God.

Look at what the widow does. She has correctly identified where help comes from. She acts on that knowledge. Her dependence is visible in her feet, in her persistence, in her refusal to give up even when the judge keeps refusing her.

**This persistence toward an unjust judge — this is what Jesus says faith toward God should look like.** Not intellectual certainty, but sustained, persistent dependence.

Jesus tells this parable, "to show them that they should always pray and not give up." Prayer, then, is the fruit of faith. We pray because we have concluded that we need God. That we cannot save ourselves. That there is no other help for us.

Listen to Psalm 121, which has been prayed by God's people for millennia: "I lift up my eyes to the mountains — where does my help come from? My help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth."

From the One who doesn't sleep, the One who watches constantly.

This is what faith looks like in practice: knowing where help comes from and persistently turning there, even through delay.

True prayer isn't about convincing God of anything. God knows what we need before we ask. Prayer is about confessing our dependence. It's about coming back again and again to the One who is our help.

---

## Persistence and God's Timing

If God already knows what we need, and if God is good and loving, why must we be persistent? Why does Jesus tell us we "should always pray and not give up"?

Jesus answers this directly: "And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly."

God will bring justice soon, Jesus promises. But "soon" is measured in God's time, not ours. We are bound to time — we count minutes, we age, we wait. God is eternal. His "soon" is decisive and certain, but the timing is His.

So why persist in prayer if God's timing is His own?

Because persistence in prayer is about remaining in a relationship with God through the waiting. We are refusing to walk away when the answer doesn't come immediately. We are training our hearts to turn to God first, and not as a last resort.

The widow didn't have a backup plan. She didn't diversify her strategy. She kept coming back because there was nowhere else to go.

---

## Conclusion: Will He Find Faith on Earth?

Jesus ends this parable with a haunting question. It's not in today's reading — we stopped at verse 8a — but I cannot help but hear it echoing underneath everything we've said. Jesus asks: "When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?"

Think about that question. Not: Will he find churches? Will he find people who believe correct theology? Will he find moral people? But: Will he find faith?

What kind of faith is he looking for? I think he's looking for faith like a widow's conviction. Faith that has concluded its own helplessness. Faith that has nowhere else to go and so keeps knocking on God's door. Faith that persists through silence and delay because it has no backup plan.

And the question presses on us: In lives as distracted and "secure," is there still room for faith?

Or have we made a faith that fits comfortably within our layers — a faith that asks God to bless our plans rather than acknowledging we need Him to live at all?

So how do we, with all our complexity, recover the widow's clarity?

There is only one way: we must see ourselves as we truly are. Strip away the illusions. Whatever our place in society, whether we have many resources or few, we all breathe the same air. We are all mortal.

This is not comfortable. But it is true. And it is, strangely, liberating. Because when we stop pretending to be self-sufficient, when we stop exhausting ourselves building layers to feel safe, when we acknowledge our helplessness — that's when we can finally rest in the arms of the One who has always been holding us up.

You who have come today carrying burdens your layers cannot solve, you who are tired of pretending to be in control, you who are beginning to see your helplessness — there is One who hears, who doesn't sleep, who will bring about justice for you.

Keep knocking. Refuse to go away. Not because God is reluctant, but because that persistent knocking is what faith looks like when it has nowhere else to go.

---

Lord, strip us of our false confidence. Teach us to pray with desperation that trusts Your justice. Give us the clarity when we pray. Make us people who have concluded our helplessness, not as a sad fact but as the beginning of true faith.

Give us faith to keep knocking, not because we are strong, but because we have nowhere else to go. And when Your Son returns, may He find in us that faith — stubborn, persistent, utterly dependent — that refuses to let You go until You bless us.

In Jesus' name, Amen.


A sermon on the persistent widow, the layers we build against helplessness, and what faith looks like when there is no backup plan.

When We Have Nowhere Else to Go


*Delivered at Immanuel Church, Tel Aviv — August 16, 2025*

**Readings:** Luke 11:1–13 · Genesis 18:20–32 · Colossians 2:6–15

---

## Opening

Brothers and sisters, today's readings invite us to think about how we pray, how we trust, and how we forgive.

Jesus' disciples once asked, "Lord, teach us to pray," and what he gave them was a formula and a way of life: a prayer that touches our deepest needs and transforms our outlook on God and our neighbour.

The words of this prayer are familiar, yet in Luke's Gospel the prayer is shorter. It begins simply with **"Father."** In Matthew, however, we find the longer version beginning with _"Our Father."_ Early Christian writings like the _Didache_ also preserve this prayer, showing how central it was from the very beginning of the church's life. Whether Luke or Matthew, the spirit of the prayer assumes that it is communal. We never pray alone; whenever we call upon God as Father, we are standing alongside countless others who call Him by the same name. From the first pages of the Bible, beginning with the story of creation, we see that humanity is one family — descendants of Adam by flesh and, through faith, children of Abraham.

---

## Boldness in Prayer — Abraham and the Friend at Midnight

In Genesis we hear Abraham's bold intercession for Sodom. Notice how daring he is: he bargains down from fifty righteous to just ten. And he does so not for himself but for strangers. He already knows God, and therefore he dares to ask. Prayer, then, is not timid; it is a wrestling with God's justice and mercy. Abraham calls himself "dust and ashes," yet he still speaks — because God has chosen to listen.

Jesus echoes this boldness right after teaching the prayer. He tells the parable of a neighbour who knocks at midnight until he gets bread. Shameless persistence, Jesus says, is how we should approach the Father. _"Ask, and it will be given; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened."_ This parable becomes even more vivid when we read it alongside how Abraham welcomed the three visitors, going to great lengths to serve them. In both stories, the request is not for personal hunger but for hospitality — for the sake of others. Abraham prepared a feast for strangers; the neighbour in the parable begs for bread to welcome a guest.

We are called to pray with that same audacity: not shy, not selfish, but brave enough to ask for others as well as ourselves. And when we pray for one another, we are no longer just individuals bringing lists before God — we are becoming the church, the family of God, bound together in intercession.

---

## A Childhood Memory — Desire and Blindness

When I was a little boy in Russia in the early nineties, I longed for things we did not have. Advertisements on TV showed a different world: children eating Snickers bars, families enjoying Uncle Ben's pasta. I wanted those things desperately, without noticing the struggle of my parents, who were working hard simply to provide bread on the table.

Just like that, we can be so consumed by our own requests that we do not notice the needs of others. Abraham teaches us a different way: pray not only for yourself but for those you may never meet. Ask for your brother, and your brother will ask for you. In this, our prayers intertwine, and we become a family under God.

---

## The Practice of Interceding for Others

There is a saying I once heard from a Russian monk who practised hesychasm (a repeated prayer). Struggling with pride, he was advised to change his repeated prayer. Instead of always saying, _"Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner,"_ he began to pray: _"By the prayers of those who love me, have mercy on me."_ It is a strange and humbling shift. Instead of focusing only on his own voice, he learned to lean on the prayers of others.

This practice comes from a different theological framework than ours and is shared here as an illustration, not as something we adopt. But it carries a truth: we should not stop praying ourselves, yet sometimes we must trust others to pray for us. Jesus himself, in the garden of Gethsemane, asked his disciples to keep watch and pray with him. They failed, falling asleep, but their presence shows us something important: if possible, prayer is not meant to be carried alone. Even the Son of God wanted the prayers of his friends. And though those disciples failed that night, perhaps our brothers and sisters will not.

When our own words run dry, when we feel desperate or too weary to pray, we may rest in the assurance that others are carrying us. This is what "Our Father" truly means — we are sustained by the prayers of one another. And when we say _"Our Father"_ together, we may think of the great cloud of prayer that surrounds us: brothers and sisters in every part of the world, some of whom we will never meet.

One of the important missionary efforts of Immanuel Church is very simple: we keep our doors open and we talk to people who enter. Sometimes a visitor comes into Immanuel Church, saying he was here twenty years ago, or served as a volunteer, and that he still prays for us. We are blessed by hundreds, perhaps thousands, who are lifting us before God even now. Think about that when you say _"Our Father."_

---

## Daily Bread — Trust for Today

Having reflected on Abraham's intercession and on how others may carry us in prayer, we now turn to the most basic of petitions in the Lord's Prayer. After speaking boldly for strangers and trusting the prayers of our brothers and sisters, we are reminded that prayer is also simple: asking God for what sustains life today.

Bonhoeffer once warned that hoarding shows a lack of trust. The manna in the wilderness spoiled if people tried to save it overnight. In the same way, our worries about tomorrow rarely help. If we can act, we should act — finish the task, help a neighbour. But when we cannot, anxiety only traps us in a circle of helplessness, as we are trying to control what is not ours to control.

Daily bread prayer brings us back: it is God's world, God's time, and God's provision.

---

## Forgiveness — Receiving and Sharing Mercy

Next, Jesus teaches us to pray, _"Forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us."_ This is perhaps the hardest line. Forgiveness is not a simple feeling, but a hard choice and a process. It may begin in our hearts, but it should eventually manifest itself outwardly through actions.

Paul in Colossians reminds us that God _"forgave us all our sins, having cancelled the charge of our legal indebtedness; he nailed it to the cross."_ This is the source: we forgive because we have been forgiven. We forgive not because others deserve it, but because God's mercy has first reached us.

Forgiveness is a command, not an option. Jesus underlines this again and again: _"If you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you."_ (Matt. 6:14). To love is to forgive, and love in Scripture is always action, never mere sentiment. Two weeks ago, we reflected that love is not only a feeling but a force that transforms action. Forgiveness works the same way — it moves us from resentment to generosity.

And forgiveness can manifest itself through many actions. My personal touch is this: if you are struggling to forgive someone, ask yourself how you can help that person, how you can ease the burden for him or her. By doing so, you promote love, and forgiveness becomes one of the fruits of love, as Paul wrote.

---

## Core Message

**Because God is our Father, we may pray with bold trust for today's needs, and we are called to extend the forgiveness we have received.**

This is the identity we carry: children of God. It means to pray with boldness like Abraham, to depend daily on God's provision, and to forgive as those whose debts were nailed to the cross.

---

## Conclusion

So let us pray as Jesus taught — not rushing, not hoarding, not clinging to grudges, but living as children of a generous Father. As we go from here, let us carry these images with us: Abraham daring to plead for others, the neighbour knocking until bread was given, the manna reminding us of daily trust, and the cross where our debts were cancelled. When worry rises, recall the prayer for daily bread. When bitterness stirs, remember the forgiveness we have received. When fear holds you back, remember that God welcomes bold prayer, even from dust and ashes.

And remember too: it is **Our Father.** We do not walk this road alone. We carry one another in prayer, and others carry us. That is the mystery of the family of God.

Let us close by saying together the Lord's Prayer, as both our plea and our practice, as it is recorded in the Gospel of Luke:

> Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come.
> Give us each day our daily bread.
> Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us.
> And lead us not into temptation.


A sermon on the Lord's Prayer — bold intercession, daily bread, and the forgiveness we receive and share.