Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart …. “And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them. And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” [Luke 18:1, 6-8].
For many years, I had what I think was an erroneous understanding of Jesus’ parables. That is to say that for the first half of my life, I thought of them essentially as scriptural stories in the manner of Aesop’s Fables. To me, the parables were short and sweet. They had a single point, and they tended to end with a clear moral that I could take to heart.
Then, years ago, I took a New Testament preaching course taught by the Reverend Dr. Richard Lischer. Since fully one-third of Jesus’ teaching was in parable form, our class spent considerable time studying them. Early in the class, Dr. Lischer said something that hit me hard. Paraphrasing here, he allowed, “If you’ve heard or read the parable and there isn’t something about it that offends you or at least sets you on edge, then you need to read the parable again.”
For example, within the parable of the workers in the vineyard [Matthew 20], the vineyard owner asks a straightforward question of those who have worked hard all day and who have not only seen the latecomers get their pay first, but have to watch as the late arrivers receive the same wages: “Do you begrudge my generosity?” [Matthew 20:15b]. The answer of anyone honest with himself or herself would be a resounding, “Yes, you bet I resent it.”
Or consider everyone’s favorite—the parable of the lost sheep [Luke 15:4 et seq.]. One strays from the flock and in His parable, Jesus offers the following question about the shepherd: “Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?”
Our answer is a resounding “No!”
No one would do that. No sane businessperson would abandon the ninety-nine for the one. And yet, in our hearts, of course, we long for a God who isn’t bound by the ledger books. We long for a God who will stop at nothing to find a lost soul like us.
And so we come to the New Testament reading appointed for this upcoming Sunday [Luke 18:1-8, the Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost, RCL, Year C]. The text, formerly known as the “parable of the importunate widow,” is now generally called the “parable of the unjust judge.”
Jesus introduces two characters: a judge “who neither feared God nor cared what people thought” [18:2], and a widow. Those of us who quickly look for a loving God-figure quickly determine that this judge isn’t a stand-in for God. Opposing him is a widow “who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary’” [18:3].
Jesus says that for quite a while, the judge refuses the widow’s entreaty. Yet she persists in her demand for justice. Finally, the judge gives in because she has continued to pester him. I don’t do Greek—but I have some excellent commentaries who do. Here, the judge’s actual statement, in Greek, is actually quite funny. He says that he’s giving in because he realizes that the widow is so persistent and passionate that he’s afraid that she may “hit him in the eye” [18:5]. Now that’s a sight one would like to see.
Then Jesus gives us the real “punch line” [forgive the bad pun].
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 [Luke 18:7-8a].
Were we to turn this parable into one of Aesop’s Fables, we might say, “Ahah! The clear lesson here is that if we’re persistent enough, then God will answer our prayers.” After all, Luke opens this section of his Gospel with the statement that Jesus told this parable to show them/us that they “should always pray and not give up” [18:1].
But there must be more to it than that. After all, the widow in the parable had not given up. She was persistent—dare we say even “importunate?” One gets the feeling that every morning she awoke, collected her things, including her boxer’s gloves, and then went to bang on the judge’s door.
Widows seem to have played an important role in the Gospel, particularly as told by Luke. There’s the widow of Zarephath, who tends to the prophet Elijah, when she has nothing much to eat herself [see Luke’s reference in 4:26]. There’s the widow, Anna, who awaits the coming of the Messiah and sees him as a baby [2:36]. We know of the “generous widow,” who dropped her last coins into the collection plate [21:1-4]. One wonders if both Luke and Jesus had a particularly soft spot when it came to widows.
Some have speculated that Joseph may have died relatively early in Jesus’ life, that Jesus saw the perils associated with being a widow. We know from many stories that when it came to the powerless, the stranger, the one who had no voice, Jesus was/is with them. Here, in Jesus’ parable, we have another widow who is lifted up as an example. She isn’t strong or powerful. She has no money with which to bribe the callous judge. She prays only for justice. According to Jesus, these are the sorts of prayers that God hears and acts upon—and does so quickly.
I know that many of us—particularly those of us who see ourselves in solidarity with the widow—may wince just a bit when we hear Jesus say that not only will God react to the persistent prayers of his chosen ones, but that He will do so quickly. After all, how many have endured their own personal “dark night of the soul,” in which we have sometimes felt bewildered and forgotten, as our prayers seem to go unanswered.
I think in that regard, Jesus is making a point that is easy for us to miss. He’s admonishing us to be persistent pray-ers, yes, but not because in doing so we’ll eventually wear God down. He wants us to persistently pray because, over time, tenacious prayer works its own miracles within us. Persistent prayer can shake up the world. Often, however, the one in that world who is truly shaken up is the “pray-er.” The parable teaches that God responds to prayers for justice, not to prayers that describe what we’d like done on our behalf.
To be sure, we may see ourselves in the widow. Do we see ourselves in the unjust judge? What if we’re the judge and God is the widow? What if the persistent One is our God who pleads and persists with us to grant justice to those around us who are in need?
Can we look in our hearts and assure ourselves and our God that we have never resembled that judge? Have we always been sympathetic, empathetic, and loving to those in need around us? Do we weigh the needs of the “widow” and then weigh our own and choose what’s best for her? Or do we choose what’s best for us? Do we say, “It isn’t my concern; someone else can respond.”
Scripture is replete with assurances that not only does Christ hear the cries of the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, and the afraid, He is among them [Matthew 25:35], He resides with—tabernacles with—those on the fringe, those who are forgotten, those who are disregarded, and those who are unwanted. If we are to avoid being labeled as the unjust judge, then we must hear their pleas and respond to them, not because we’ve been worn down, but because our Lord has told us to love them.
I know that some of my friends have grown weary of my harangues about the subject over these many years—I seek to be as persistent as the widow—but to the extent that the mainline Protestant church ignores the plight of the not-yet-born, treating them as persona non grata, this parable teaches that it ignores Christ Himself, because when they are in peril, and this year, more than one million will be, He has promised to be with them. Though they have no voice, they have His abiding love.
One final thought: In His parable here, Jesus refers to the widow—and others like her—as God’s “chosen ones” [18:7]. My commentaries teach me that Jesus’ word choice—“chosen one”—is used only one other time in Luke’s Gospel. It’s used by some religious leaders as they mock a young man who has been nailed to a cross.
They said, “He saved others; let him save himself if he is God’s Messiah, the Chosen One [Luke 23:35].
While the young man was on the cross, He prayed to God. As He felt the pain of sinful humanity fall upon Him, our Scripture teaches that He felt abandoned and foresaken [Mark 15:34]. We’re told that He forgave those who were killing him, and then gave up His spirit to the Heavenly Father.
That Heavenly Father—the all-knowing and just Judge—did not wait long to grant the young man justice. It took just three days for the Messiah to be raised from the dead. It took just three days for the world to be saved from itself.
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