2 Timothy 3. 14—4. 5
Luke 18. 1 – 8
Fr Alex
There’s an ancient near-eastern folk story about a man whose house was continually broken into by robbers.
Each night before bed he would pray to God, “please, Lord, tell me who these robbers are, so I can bring them to justice.” But he received no reply. And morning after morning, he would wake up to find that bandits had broken in and stolen more of his possessions.
One morning, he woke up to find that the robbers had indeed visited him again in the night; but finding nothing of value left inside, they had stolen the door to his house.
Well, this was the last straw. He marched straight off to the local church, prised the door off its hinges, and carried it home.
That evening, when he prayed to God, he said: “Right, Lord, you know who stole my door, and when you tell me the name of the thief, you can have your door back.”
We aren’t told whether the man ever got his answer, but I’m not sure this is the kind of persistence in prayer that Jesus meant when he told his disciples this parable this morning!
But strangely enough, the parable does has something of the same threat of drastic action, when our prayers and petitions go unanswered.
The widow keeps coming to the judge and crying out for justice against her opponent, but her pleas are ignored. Eventually, the judge says to himself, “because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.”
Our translation however misses a remarkable thing about this statement, because the word that the judge uses for “wear me out,” in Greek, ‘hypopiazé’, literally means to “punch in the eye.”
In other words, “I better do what she says otherwise she’ll give me a black eye!”
In fact the whole parable has rather an exaggerated, caricature quality about it. The judge is in a position of great power, and is an extraordinarily bad person: by his own admission he has “no fear of God and no respect for anyone;” two of the most basic qualities for any decent human being, let alone one with power over the lives of others.
In contrast, his petitioner is a widow. And a widow in this context is not only someone whose husband has died, but biblical code for one of the most vulnerable in society. Someone without any security, susceptible to abuse and exploitation. We hear all through the Old Testament the exhortation to remember the “orphan and widow.”
So what does Jesus mean by this parable?
Perhaps we might be able to identify with the widow from time to time, or at least know of people who could: those who feel powerless to help themselves, who cry out for justice and relief.
And it’s certainly true that we should be persistent in prayer: that we shouldn’t give up on prayer, even when we feel like we’re getting nowhere.
But if we are to be like the persistent widow, then that leaves us with the uncomfortable image of God as being like the unjust judge – ignoring those cries until he gets fed up of hearing about it, and only rewarding those who pray hard enough.
And are we really being encouraged to resort to drastic action, to the point of violence, if we don’t get our own way? I don’t think so – so please don’t get any ideas about stealing stuff from this church!
Of course, the key to unlocking Jesus’ mysterious parables is not to see them as being about us, at all: but rather, to see what they reveal to us about what God is like. And the same is true of today’s parable, as well.
The key phrase is the last sentence of the passage: “And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”
God is not the one who sits on his throne of power up in heaven, like the bad judge, waiting for us to pray long enough to deserve his attention. God is like the persistent widow; he is the one who comes to us, again and again, crying out for justice.
He spoke to us through the law, and then through the prophets; though his people refused to listen to him.
And so in his persistence he took the most drastic action possible: he spoke to us through his Son. He made himself one of us, poor, vulnerable, outcast, like that widow. He took our sins and failings upon himself, all the violence and injustice of human experience, and died with it; all so that we might come to the life that he desires for us.
The truth is that we humans are so often like that bad judge; we are the ones who fail to listen to God, and fail to care for each other; the ones who crave power and status; who continue in our own selfish and sinful ways instead of seeking for justice.
But even still, God keeps coming back to us. He comes to us again in his Son this very day, in bread and wine; not to wear us out, but to fill us with his life; not to force us to change with threats of violence, but to invite us afresh into a new way of living: a way of justice, and joy.
We are called to be persistent in prayer and in following God’s ways, because God is persistent in his love and care for us. He does not lose heart with us.
So let us not lose heart with him. Let us be persistent in coming to him in prayer; but let us also make room in our hearts for him, who in his great love comes to us again and again, despite our unworthiness.
And when he comes, may he find us faithful, and ready to receive him with joy. Amen.