Scripture Luke 18:1-8
Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart. He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people. In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Grant me justice against my accuser.’ For a while he refused, but later he said to himself, ‘Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.’” And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. 7 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?”
Sermon
Our parable this morning is a little unusual in that the gospel narrator gives us the key to deciphering Jesus’ code. “Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart.” And then he describes a corrupt official, who doesn’t respect either God or people, who is not inclined to give justice to a widow who keeps coming back and asking for it.
There is so much packed into this tiny story. It is dense with themes drawn from the whole of the Bible. Let’s treat those themes in the order we encounter them.
1. Prayer. Prayer is mentioned all through the Bible. In fact, with 254 individual uses of the word, prayer is mentioned, on average, 3 to 4 times in each book of the Bible, which is a lot. And that prayer doesn’t always look like sitting or kneeling in a sanctuary, eyes closed, hands folded, silent words on people’s lips. Sometimes it looks like a heartbroken psalm—“How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?” (Psalm 13:1). Sometimes prayer looks like a horrifying petition for heartless killing: “Happy shall they be who take [the] little ones [of Babylon] and dash them against the rock!” (Psalm 137:9).
In fact, as one friend has written, “In scripture, humans argue with God ALL THE TIME, and convince [God] to change both [the divine] mind and [God’s] actions regularly. We ignore that ancient conversational possibility at our peril.”
Prayer is certainly about our petitions, our asking God for what we desperately need or want. But prayer is far more than that, far more complex and nuanced. One of the most moving prayers in scripture is David conceding to God that he has not always understood what God wants of him, but that he trusts in God’s promises to him (1 Samuel 7:18-29). And this prayer is followed by a list of David’s victories in battle—an account of an acquisition of land and treasure that resulted in what might be considered the golden era of David’s reign.
Luke advises us that prayer is at the heart of this parable. But what does that look like?
2. The Widow. Any time a widow is mentioned in scripture, we must take a moment to remember the context. Throughout scripture, we read all about God’s strong desire that we care for certain classes of people, because they are understood to be the most vulnerable people in a society. There are four mainstays in this category: the poor, the widow, the orphan, and the immigrant (usually translated, “alien.”) Here is the first clear mention of this, the voice of God explaining the law Moses has brought down from Mount Sinai:
“You shall not wrong or oppress a resident alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt. You shall not abuse any widow or orphan. If you do abuse them, when they cry out to me, I will surely heed their cry; my wrath will burn, and I will kill you with the sword, and your wives shall become widows and your children orphans.”
~Exodus 22:21-24
Widows were vulnerable because, without a husband or adult son to care for them, there was no social safety net—no Social Security, or Medicaid, or Medicare, to put it in modern American terms. They had almost no options in terms of employment, and if they were past child-bearing age, the likelihood of remarriage was very small. They were on their own in a world that was ready to let them beg for their bread.
Even before we know what the widow’s cause is before the judge, we know that it is likely a matter of justice, because God’s instructions on aliens, widows, and orphans were clear: They were not to be wronged. They were not to be oppressed. They were to be cared for. If a widow is introduced into a story, we are immediately on the lookout to see whether she is receiving the justice to which she is entitled.
3. The Judge. When we meet the judge, we are told immediately that he is corrupt; that he does not care about God, and that he does not care about people. Which makes us wonder: How did this person get to be a judge, anyway? And then answer would seem to be, Why, corruption. Of course.
The widow has apparently gone before the judge many times. What is the case? What is her complaint? She speaks of an accuser. What could someone be accusing her of? Is she being accused of stealing? Is she being accused of indecency? Is her accuser someone who is trying to make the case that she no longer belongs in the home she occupied when her husband was living? This last possibility is both ancient and contemporary.
In June I saw a documentary called “Widow Champion,” about exactly this issue. In Kenya, within a population of 53 million people, 8 million are widows. When their husbands die, it is not unusual for them to be evicted from the homes they shared with their husbands, usually by his family. This occurs even if the husband left a will bequeathing the house to his widow. The death of her husband is an excuse for a land grab, and some of the women are even accused of causing their husband’s death, in order to make them true outcasts.
We don’t know the widow’s claim. We don’t know what her accuser is accusing her of. But we do know that she is vulnerable, and the judge doesn’t really care.
In the end, the judge gives in to her because he’s just tired of hearing from her, she is wearing him out. Although, there is a translation issue. Another possible translation of the phrase “wear me out” is “beat me black and blue.” The judge may be afraid this lady is going to give him a shiner. Which, for a corrupt judge, makes sense. He’s willing to put up with her until he thinks she might actually do him harm.
4. Justice. In the end, the parable coalesces around the concept of justice. “Give me justice against my accuser,” the widow cries. And at the end of the parable, Jesus asks his audience, “when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” I believe Jesus is talking about this kind of faith: The kind of faith that understands that justice is at the center of all God asks us to be and do.
Will we be—can we be—the kind of people whose prayers and action cry out for justice? When we see injustice in our world, what is our response? When we see injustice in our nation, what actions do we take? When we see injustice in the workplace, or in our circles of friends or acquaintances, even in our families, how do we react?
It can be uncomfortable to be the person pointing out injustice. It can cost us. Relationships with those we care about can be strained or even broken. If it is something happening in the workplace or community, our losses can even be economic—losing our jobs, our reputations, and potentially, our security.
But speaking out against injustice is at the heart of the prophetic proclamations of scripture. One of the most powerful calls for justice can be found in the book of the prophet Amos.
Therefore, because you trample on the poor
and take from them levies of grain,
you have built houses of hewn stone,
but you shall not live in them;
you have planted pleasant vineyards,
but you shall not drink their wine.
For I know how many are your transgressions
and how great are your sins—
you who afflict the righteous, who take a bribe
and push aside the needy in the gate.
Therefore the prudent will keep silent in such a time,
for it is an evil time.
Seek good and not evil,
that you may live,
and so the Lord, the God of hosts, will be with you,
just as you have said.
…Take away from me the noise of your songs;
I will not listen to the melody of your harps.
But let justice roll down like water
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. ~Amos 5:11-14; 23-24
The God for whom Amos speaks sees the people trampling on the poor, afflicting the righteous, taking bribes, and pushing aside the needy. Beautiful worship—the songs, the music of the harps—means nothing to God unless they are accompanied by justice.
Jesus calls for justice throughout his ministry; this parable is but one such occasion. Jesus begins his ministry by preaching to the people of his hometown from the prophet Isaiah, where he reads,
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to set free those who are oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” ~Luke 4:18-19
The kingdom of God Jesus preaches is that time and place where justice will roll down like water, and righteousness will be like an ever-flowing stream.
We are called to be this widow, whose faithfulness trusts both in God and in the power of her own persistence. She is a parabolic example of the old saying, “Pray as though everything depends on God, act as though everything depends on you.” If we are called to be the widow, we are called to a ministry of both prayer and action on behalf of all God’s vulnerable children. And, returning to Luke’s introduction, we are encouraged not to lose heart. Don’t lose heart, even when the world seems bleak and war-torn, even when the obstacles to justice seem outsized and overwhelming. We are encouraged not to lose heart, because our justice is at the very heart of all God’s plans for the world he created. When we do justice, our hearts are aligned with God’s own heart.
Another prophet summed up what might be a good closing blessing for us, as we wind down our consideration of this parable. The prophet Micah, when considering the long and the short of what God desires from us, wrote:
[God] has told you, beloveds, what is good,
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice and to love kindness
and to walk humbly with your God? ~Micah 6:8
Thanks be to God. Amen.