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Luke 18:1-8
1Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart. 2He said, "In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people. 3In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, 'Grant me justice against my opponent.' 4For a while he refused; but later he said to himself, 'Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, 5yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.'" 6And the Lord said, "Listen to what the unjust judge says. 7And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? 8I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them. And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?"
Ben was right. He was absolutely right. When we were looking at houses in preparation for our move to Pennsylvania there was not a great deal of inventory. And so when we finally stumbled across an 1890s house that was in our price range, I didn’t worry too much about the fact that nobody had lived in it for five years or more. I fell in love with the moldings and the fireplace and the original Victorian turn doorbell. It didn’t matter so much to me that the fireplace didn’t work. That there was all knob and tube wiring. That the kitchen floor was, well, there wasn’t a kitchen floor. And all I could see was what it would look like finished. Ben said I would have to be patient. That it would take time. But all I could see was what it would look like finished, and I was certain we could get that knocked out in a year – or two, at most. Ben tried to tell me that old houses don’t work that way, but I did not listen. And I was not terribly patient.
He was right. Oh, so right.
And so, five years later when we prepared to move to Chapel Hill, it was very much still a work in progress. The kitchen now had a floor, but no other improvements. Most of the wiring had been upgraded and much of the lath and plaster improved, but there were still holes in the walls, and the fireplace was not functional. It was far from finished.
I am not nearly patient enough to be a truly old-house person.
The people to whom this parable is directed are feeling impatient. After all, they have been waiting. They have been waiting and yearning and working - praying and acting and believing that the kingdom was ready to arrive. That the page would turn, the veil would be lifted, and the new world would surround them.
And, to be fair, they had been waiting for generations. They had been suffering and oppressed and crying out for justice for generations. To tell them that they are heard and that God has not left them, Jesus tells them the parable of the persistent widow.
And while it’s natural for us to place God in the parable wherever there is a person in charge, the unjust judge is not the God figure in this parable.
This fictitious judge makes it clear that he has left God and moved to a new zip code.
This judge does not fear God and does not respect people.
And those two things were, well, exactly what he was supposed to do as a judge.
In Luke’s time, judges acted on behalf of God.[1]
My colleague Meg Peery-McLaughlin writes:
Because it was understood that the judgment was God’s own judgment, you better believe that any sound judge would know the Torah like the back of his hand…. Judges, of all people, know that God’s justice is always bent toward widows and orphans. The Torah tells us time and time and time again things like: “The Lord your God, is a God of gods, who is not partial and takes no bribe, who executes justice for the orphan and widow, and who loves the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt (Deut 10:17-18).” The judge of this parable is wholly unsuited for his calling. This is like saying that there was a chef who did not know how to melt butter or there was a lifeguard who did not swim.
This is the judge the widow must go to in order to demand justice.
The widow needed the judge because widows had no power. Young. Middle-Aged. Older. Children at home. No children. Widows had no power. No ability to have property. Their very lives relied on people doing the right thing. And, when they didn’t, on judges who would act on their behalf. Did this widow want to be persistent with the judge? Probably not. But maybe she had no choice. Nowhere else to go. Nobody else to whom to turn.
And so, she persists. So much so, that the judge says that he gives in so she will not wear him out, it is more literally so that she will not keep beating him black and blue.[2]
If God is not the judge, what if God is like the persistent widow?
God will not, cannot, does not give up on us.
This is good news.
God will not go away.
So precious, powerful, and persistent is God’s love.
On your good days. And on your not-so-good days.
For you to know that you are loved
YOU are created in the image of God.
You are forgiven, freed, and called to serve.
No matter how many times we reject it or listen to the lie that we are not worth love,
God persists. And not just for you. God persists for us, too.
God persists in wanting us to follow the command of Jesus to love one another-
not just as we want to be loved, but as Jesus has loved us.
Like the mother in the runaway bunny who promises to become a mountain climber if her child becomes a rock high on a mountain and a gardener if her child becomes a crocus.[3]
God, who is like the persistent widow, will not let us go.
God, who is like a persistent widow will not let us sit still.
But it’s not just God that is called to be persistent.
Aren’t we called to that role, too?
To refuse to be silent?
To refuse to stand aside without crying out for those who are in need?
To embrace those others say are unworthy?
To follow through with prayer and faith for justice?
In a church in another state, they do minutes for missions just like most churches. Only a few years ago, one member stood up to talk about a ministry of the church in a way most people hadn’t heard before. The story came to me this way:[4]
“My name is Dr. John Hall and Thursday afternoon I got another email from obnoxious Mason Ormsby.” It took the congregation a minute to really realize he was in fact calling another church member ‘obnoxious’ in the broad daylight streaming through the church windows onto a congregation full of people. John went on: “Not enough doctors for our Church Saturday morning clinic at the Free Health Clinic, Mason said. But I was tired. I am tired. But Mason’s email said, “We’ll schedule some patients for you.” John Hall went on to tell the story of treating a man named Mr. Tanakas, who has lived in our city for seven years on a green card. Mr. Tanakas was complaining about a problem with his wrists. John fumbled through the man’s chart – no mention of wrists, but notes about negative tests run for AIDS, anemia, thyroid disease, hepatitis, and leukemia.
“You are thin,” John said.
“That’s it, that’s it” and he showed John his wrists.
“Do you have diarrhea?”
“No”
“Do you vomit?”
“No”
“Do you eat?”
“No”
Awkward, awkward pause.
“Would you eat if you had food?
“Yes”
“Do you have food?”
“No”
John figured out how to get Mr. Tanaka's emergency food stamps and set him up to get into the Food Pantry that Monday. And he charted the first case of starvation he had ever diagnosed. John’s “minute for missions” concluded with a word of thanks to Mason Ormsby, the glue of the Saturday clinic, who continues to send out email reminders every Thursday. He said thanks to obnoxious Mason and sat down.
Thank God for the obnoxious, persistent Mason.
Thank God for the persistent Dr. Hall, who wouldn’t let go of figuring out what was happening to Mr. Tanakas.
Aren’t we called to be persistent, too?
For the things, God has placed before us?
The people God places before us?
To speak and work for the truth that everyone should have enough to eat and a safe place to live.
To proclaim and behave in a way that welcomes and loves.
How do we do that without losing hope?
How do we do that without losing heart?
Barbara Lunblad points out that the directions are right there in the text. Prayer. Justice. Faith.[5]
· If we pray without working for justice our prayers are empty
· If we work for justice without prayer we will think it all depends on us
· If we pray and work for justice without faith, we will fall to despair when justice isn't done
· Prayer and justice and faith- what Jesus had joined together, let no one set asunder.
We are living in a new age. A new time. And what we did before does not establish what we will do next.
Except for what does stay the same.
The call to pray the prayers.
Have the conversations.
Keep the faith.
Be committed to the process and not just the goal.
To be disciples of Jesus that aren’t just looking to heaven but are following Jesus in the daily, the mundane, the extraordinary, and every moment in between.
Our persistent God, whose love will not let us go, has a vision for us still.
This persistent Body of Christ, the Church, we cannot let our voices, our love go.
And may we, together, work to create this good word of prayer, justice, and faith, too.
Persistently.
Consistently.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.
[1] Much of this sermon relies on the work prepared and shared by Meg Peery McLaughlin for the lectionary study group “The Well.” 2010 Meeting in Davidson, NC.
[2] Meg Peery McLaughlin: This is one of those verses where the Greek is delightful. “So that she may not wear me out” is translated from the Greek: ὑπωπιάζῃ με, which is literally “so she will not strike me under the eye.”
D. Mark Davis: ὑπωπιάζῃ: PASubj 3s, ὑπωπιάζω, 1) to beat black and blue, to smite so as to cause bruises and livid spots 1a) like a boxer one buffets his body, handle it roughly, discipline by hardships … 2a) to give one intolerable annoyance https://leftbehindandlovingit.blogspot.com/2013/10/impunity-and-persistence.html
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Runaway_Bunny
[4] Told by Meg Peery McLaughlin in her paper for The Well.
[5] https://www.pulpitfiction.com/notes/proper24c/#Luke=
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