A Simple Parable
How nice to finally have an uncomplicated and straightforward parable. It’s about time after all these weeks of the Gospel of Luke. There is no older brother moping around outside wondering why there is party inside, no master making a surprise return in the middle of the night to find the servants unprepared, no dishonest manager cooking the books (Barbara Lundblad). Just a simple story about prayer, like a soft ball tossed at last to the preacher. “Jesus told his disciples a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart.” It’s a reminder we could all use from time to time, especially when we do lose heart.
This parable comes on the heels of a conversation between Jesus and the Pharisees about the kingdom of God. They wondered when it was coming exactly, since things didn’t look very much like the kingdom of God yet. It seemed to be taking a very long time to arrive. I think we know how they feel. Jesus revealed to them that the kingdom will be hard to recognize, with signs not easily noticed. It is also already here in our midst. I imagine that this hard to hear for those who looked around and still saw no evidence of the kingdom. Rome was still oppressing Israel, the rich and the poor were growing further apart, and people were still in all kinds of need. You’ll recall that Luke wrote this gospel long after Jesus was gone. When things still looked very much the same as they always had, it must have been hard for people to keep believing. It’s not hard to imagine that they were losing heart.
So Luke introduces today’s parable as an encouraging story about prayer and not losing heart. And really, that would be a lovely, uncomplicated theme. But I’m starting to think that Jesus had a certain dislike of simple messages, and certainly of our attempts to pin him down into easily digested platitudes. There is always more that we need to learn. Enter the widow and the unjust judge.
“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 opponent.’ That the judge neither feared God nor had respect for people is probably my favorite character introduction in the entire Bible. Not only does it cast him as a laughably rotten guy, it also alerts us to the fact that he does not live by Torah, the set of laws given to Israel in order to live holy and righteous lives. The heart of Torah is the commandment to love God and to love your neighbor as yourself, which the judge clearly did not follow. A certain widow kept coming to him for justice. There should have been three judges to hear her case, but again, the judge didn’t give a fig about rules or righteousness. So she was on her own without anyone to speak for her, in his solo court.
It’s clear that Luke loves to use widows in the telling of the Gospel. They speak truth to power in the story. Widows are like a moral barometer in the scriptures. They are the least of these, and they are the ones who clearly deserve justice due to their unquestionable vulnerability. In Exodus 22, the Lord says, “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.” “See also Deuteronomy 10, 14, 24, Isaiah 1, Jeremiah 7… you get the picture. The scriptures tell us, don’t mess with widows (Barbara Lundblad).” Enter such a widow, who came before the unjust judge, knowing that she didn’t have a chance since he clearly had no regard for Torah. Nevertheless, she persisted. “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.’” It’s not that he suddenly had a change of heart. She wore him down. Let’s pause here and recognize that we could hear this story and settle on a simple message that if we just keep pestering God, God will eventually answer our prayers. But remember that Jesus was never one to stop at a simple message.
“And the Lord said, ‘Listen to what the unjust judge says. 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.” Jesus has now said the word “justice” four times in a short parable. But wait, wasn’t this supposed to be a parable about prayer? And what about that last line, the moral of the story you find at the end, the line about faith? “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” So which is it? Is this parable about prayer, or justice, or faith?
Seems like all of the above, doesn’t it? Jesus has handed us prayer, justice, and faith together in one short parable. There is something here we need to know. Perhaps it is this: 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 into despair when justice isn’t done. As one preacher famously said of this passage: prayer, justice, and faith - what Jesus has joined together, let no one tear asunder (Barbara Lundblad, via Pulpitfiction).
Not only does Jesus want us to hold all three together, he wants us to learn how by modeling ourselves on that persistent widow. Our circumstances in life might be nothing like hers. Our vulnerabilities may not be quite as intense. Or maybe they are. Either way, she is a teacher for us all. She looked at world and saw all that was wrong with it, how far it was from the holiness and righteousness that God intends. In her own situation, she saw loss, corruption, and abuse of power, leaving her hopeless that anything could be different. Perhaps you know that feeling, too. Things can seem hopeless to me when watching the news or when I see people around me in so much need. Sometimes, it seems like the world rewards those who neither fear God nor have respect for people, and punishes those who are vulnerable. In a world so swept up in politics and division, we can sometimes lose sight of Torah, of justice and mercy, which, as the scriptures remind us over and over again, are obligations for God’s holy people.
The kingdom of God can indeed be hard to see in our midst. The signs are not easily recognized. Because of this, we could choose to despair when we don’t see the kingdom. But Jesus offers another option, which is continually to imagine how things could be, how they ought to be. This will take prayer. It will take justice. And it will most certainly take faith.
Given the options, I pray to be more like that faithful, persistent widow. She is the antidote to cynicism and despair. I think Jesus knew that we would need this antidote from time to time. So one day he told a simple parable about our need to pray always, and not to lose heart.