Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost 
Mary Holmen

Luke 18:1-8

“Once upon a time,” says Jesus, “there was a judge and there was a widow.”

In fact, there are four characters in this story. Let’s talk about the widow first. We know from the scriptures that widows were incredibly vulnerable in the ancient world. They were counted among the most destitute, included with orphans, the poor, and resident aliens. Because of the precarious position of these groups, the scriptures make special provision for them, calling on the more powerful to make sure they do not fall victim to exploitation. Widows were dependent on others, having lost the voice of the men they married. Hopefully they had grown sons or other male relatives to take them in and support them. The widow in this story is on her own. She comes to the judge by herself. She has no one else to speak for her. In her powerless state, she takes the only option open to her – she approaches the judge directly. Her persistence is her only weapon, and she uses it effectively! She keeps coming to the judge. And what does she ask for? Justice. “Grant me justice against my opponent.” She is the plaintiff in a lawsuit, asking the judge to secure her rights as the one who has been wronged. She is not looking for her opponent to be punished. She just wants her rights settled.

The scriptures have other stories of widows taking matters into their own hands to secure their future, for example Naomi and Ruth. And there are stories in the gospels of other persistent women, like the Syrophoenician woman or the woman with the hemorrhage, who refuse to take “No” for an answer. Their attitude is one of “Only you can help me, and nothing is going to get between you and me until I get what I came for.” Jesus commends them for their faith and grants their requests.

Then, there is the judge. Twice we are told, this judge “neither fears God nor has respect for people”. Jesus, as the narrator, says it, and the judge says it about himself. I suppose his self-knowledge might be a small redeeming factor. Like so many of the powerful, he is arrogant, or lazy, or indifferent. Indifference can cause just as much damage as outright hostility. He certainly doesn’t give in to the widow’s pleas out of any sense of compassion or fairness. He just wants to be free of the widow’s constant demands. In fact, he says she is “wearing him out”. He does the right thing, but for the wrong reason.

Commentators point out that the English translation misses something. When the judge says, “She keeps bothering me,” what he is really saying is that she is “continually boxing with me”. Her struggle for justice is like a boxing match and she is making him look bad. She is a troublemaker. She is giving the judge a black eye, and he is at risk of public humiliation. There is even an element of humour in the situation. Imagine a lowly, powerless widow boxing a judge! It’s like a political cartoon lampooning the system that is stacked in favour of the powerful and against widows, orphans, and foreigners. But the purpose is to make us take a second look, recognize and name the injustice even as we laugh, and work to change it. The parable makes us ask, what would the world look like if people feared God and respected others? I think it would be a very different place.

The third character in the story is God. On one level, this story is an example of the “if A, then how much more B; if this, then how much more that” passages that we find in scripture. Earlier in Luke’s gospel, Jesus says, “If you, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Luke 11:13). Paul does it too in his letter to the Romans when he compares Adam and Christ. Here, Jesus says, if the unjust judge finally grants the widow’s petition, “will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry out to him day and night?” Let’s be clear: Jesus is not saying that God is like the unjust judge! The comparison is one of contrast, not similarity. The unjust judge finally gives in because he can’t stand the widow’s persistent cry for justice. In contrast, God will not delay, but will “quickly” grant justice. If the helpless widow’s persistent prayer accomplishes so much with a corrupt judge, how much more will the persistent prayer of Christian disciples accomplish!

In this way, the parable illustrates its introduction about the need “to pray always and never give up”. Which leads us to the question – what is prayer? Is it nagging God until God capitulates and gives us what we’re asking for? Is it a laundry list of our wishes and personal preferences? Is prayer an attempt to manipulate God or get God to change God’s mind? That’s very strange way of imaging our relationship with God. Worse still is the idea that, if I pray hard enough, or pray the right way, God will do something for me. And if I don’t get the answer I’m looking for, it must mean there’s something wrong with me, wrong with my prayer, wrong with my faith. I’ve listened to too many people over the years struggling with this kind of self-judgment or the perceived judgment of others, and it causes spiritual harm and distress. In fact, when it comes from other people, I would go so far as to call it spiritual abuse.

The parable closes with a question about faith. The fourth character in this story is the Son of Man. To put the parable in context within Luke’s gospel, in the previous chapter Jesus has been talking about the coming of the Son of Man and the revealing of God’s kingdom. Our children in the Atrium know this by its technical term, the Parousia. Now Jesus asks, when this happens, will there still be disciples of the strong faith that inspires persistent prayer? The question suggests that such faith will not be found unless disciples have learned the need to pray always without losing heart. Jesus is commending persistent prayer as a hallmark of Christian life – not only persistent prayer, but faith-inspired prayer.

Because prayer and faith are linked. Jesus asks, “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” The definition of faith in this parable seems to be “not losing heart, not giving up”. The widow is a model of the faith that is characterized by tenacity. What does tenacious faith look like and why is it necessary? Faith is more than confessing, “You are the Son of God and I believe in you.” It’s more than correct beliefs or correct words. Faith is recognizing what God has done in the past and claiming the same thing in the present, not only for ourselves but for others. And it’s necessary because there is injustice in the world. Faith is about resisting injustice with the same tenacity and resolve as the widow.

I’ve suggested that the idea of God being anything like the unjust judge is problematic. The idea of prayer as a nagging, pestering activity that we must do without ceasing in order to get God to change God’s mind is problematic. If we read this passage carefully, we will note that the parable ends with the judge yielding to the widow’s petition. The rest of the verses along with the introduction are commentary on the parable – Jesus’s (or Luke’s) explanation of the parable. If we read the parable this way, we get a very different picture of God. Instead of comparing God with the judge, we can see that God is like the widow in the quest for justice, never giving up, persisting against the structures of injustice until finally justice comes.

This is much more like the God described by Jeremiah in our first reading. Here, we see a God who will never give up on the people, even though they break covenant, a God who watches over the restoration of Israel, a God who, instead of raining down punishment on evildoers, quietly plants the divine law within human hearts. Such a picture of God is like the God Jesus speaks of elsewhere, who is compared not to powerful people like judges, but to poor people, working people like shepherds, or a humble woman sweeping out her home. What would happen in our world if we could recognize the seekers of justice as God’s representatives just as much as the providers of justice are God’s representatives?

What, then, does justice look like in this time and place? Well, I think it looks like climate justice. It looks like food security. It looks like addressing income inequality. Justice looks like responding to the Calls to Action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and the Calls for Justice of the inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. The gospel calls us to be persistent in seeking justice for the voiceless ones of our world and for the earth itself. We are called to join God in persistently demanding that the powerful systems of this world act justly.

Finally, the parable acknowledges that sometimes, injustice seems insurmountable. Justice seems delayed, perhaps indefinitely. We pray and pray, and nothing seems to change. It is tempting to throw up our hands, to feel we can’t do anything, to believe that the problems are simply too big, and so to give up. We need to hear again Paul’s words to Timothy: “Proclaim the message; be persistent whether the time is favourable or unfavourable; convince, rebuke and encourage” – how? “With the utmost patience”! This is what faith is about – the steadfast, persistent, determined, even seemingly irrational commitment to the ultimate realization of God’s will for justice and peace. If no one is faithful to that vision, it will never be realized, not even occasionally.

Can we be sure that justice and peace will be realized? Yes, we can. The reading from Jeremiah contains a word of hope and a promise of renewal. The time for uprooting and destruction is over. God will build and plant. God will renew the land and the people. God will quietly plant a renewed relationship in the hearts of people. There is still work to do. The children may no longer be punished for the sins of their ancestors, but the consequences of those actions are still alive in the present, and it is up to those living in the present to redress the wrongs.

Faith is remembering what God has done in the past and claiming that in the present. God is faithful. God keeps God’s word. God’s mission is the redemption of all humanity and of the cosmos itself. Until and when the Son of Man comes, will we be faithful? Amen.