The Power of Persistence

This painting was created by Marc Chagall, who is sometimes referred to as the quintessential Jewish artist of the 20th century. He was not only a pioneer, but a synthesizer of Cubism, Symbolism, and Fauvism. His work largely influenced the rise of surrealism and expressionism. This work, "Jacob Wrestling with the Angel", is a powerful illustration of our emotional turmoil as we try to understand and wrestle with the divine, particularly in prayer.

Luke 18:1-8

Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart. ² He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people. ³ In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Grant me justice against my opponent.’ ⁴ For a while he refused; but later he said to himself, ‘Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, ⁵ yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.’” ⁶ 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? ⁸ 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:

This morning’s parable is often paired with another, very similar, parable. That parable is about the Insistent Friend and can be found in Luke 11:5-13. Today’s is about the Stubborn Widow and both center around one of the meaning and power inherent to prayer. Yet, these two parables are also different from one another. The one we just heard is not just a story of knocking on a door waiting to receive something we need from a friend. It’s not a story about asking your neighbor for a cup of sugar. No! There’s something far more pressing in today’s parable. It’s a parable about injustice, contrasts, and eschatological hope.[1]

This is a story about Torah.[2] The unjust judge that we hear about in this story embodies the misuse of the law that God gave Israel. He embodies the antithesis to God Himself and everything that God had taught the Israelites about fairness, justice, and the responsibilities a community has towards its weakest members. In 2 Chronicles God tells Israel, and us, what a judge should be:

“You judge not on behalf of human beings but on the Lord’s behalf… Now, let the fear of the Lord be upon you; take care what you do, for there is no perversion of justice with the Lord our God, or partiality, or taking of bribes.” (2 Chronicles 19:6-7)

Likewise, God embodies all that is opposite to what we hear about the judge in this story. As one commentary from the intertestamental period exhorts:

“Do not offer him a bribe, for he will not accept it… for the Lord is the judge, and with him there is no partiality. […] He will not ignore the supplication of the orphan, or the widow when she pours out her complaint. Do not the tears of the widow run down her cheek as she cries out against the one who causes them to fall?” (Sirach 35:14-19)[3]

In other words, God gets pissed off when the weakest among us are taken advantage of. In God’s Law we find that widows, orphans, and sojourners are placed under special protection – God goes out of His way to tell Israel that these people are to be treated well, precisely because they are weak. “In the patriarchal societies of the ancient world they were structurally the first victims of economic and social injustice and of legal maneuverings, and they were the objects of treachery and attempts at exploitation.”[4]

          In the parable that Jesus tells here, the widow is treated unjustly on two levels. First, she is victimized by a man who has exploited her economic insecurity. He is simply referred to in this parable as the “opponent.”[5] She tries, like most of us would, to get justice in the court system and goes before a judge. But, she becomes the victim of a second injustice – a judicial decision that has no regard for her rights. The parable tells us that the judge has repulsed her many times. As the parables tells us, the judge did not fear God. If he had, he would have given her justice on her first attempt.

          But this widow, who has been victimized, returns again and again to the judge – apparently becoming more objectionable every time she returns. So the judge finally relents and does justice for her, not because it is just, but because he wants to avoid trouble for himself.[6] The widow’s cries, then, become an example for us of how one might protest. “She resists injustice by drawing the judge’s attention to her rights, that is, to the Torah.”[7] She is obstinate and persistent precisely because she knows that God’s law is on her side. So on each occasion as she returns to court, seeking justice, she ups the ante by going one step further in violating social boundaries – she behaves loudly and aggressively in public, so much so that it seems to embarrass the judge and makes him eager to draw attention away from himself.[8] The judge’s internal conversation, that he has within his own mind, reflects this transgression of boundaries.

This is, in many ways, a story about the spotlight of attention. When injustices are laid bare before everyone’s eyes the unjust retreat and try to hide. They deflect attention away from themselves, before the public’s eye can see too deep, and incite the hand to crush those who seek inly to enrich themselves.

Many of us, here this morning, are wrestling with questions. We all have anxieties and fears, but some of us might have more than that sitting on our hearts. Some of us are wondering why we are still seeing children being crushed under the weight of bombs. Others might be wondering why we still see men and women alike thrown into the chains of sex trafficking and slavery.[9] Some of us might be wondering why some injustice happened to us; or, perhaps, why someone was so easily able to take advantage of our children or grandchildren without consequence. We all have a yearning for justice deep in our souls and those inclinations, those ideas about justice, that we have are often expressed in God’s Law – where he talks about these sorts of things.

This is why I put the Chagall painting on the back of today’s bulletin. It doesn’t correlate directly with today’s passage from scripture, but it does express the emotions that we might be wrapped up in when we try to make sense of our world. We are wrapped up in the deeply intense, reddish, emotions as we wrestle with our minds through prayer and doubt. Yet, we also encounter the tranquility and assurance of God that’s intrinsic to His nature. The sun, the represents God’s light, shines upon all things; and illuminates what God offers, even insofar as we can turn a reflection of God’s light – in terms of attention – upon the injustices of the world.

I want to conclude by having us reflect on the same questions that Jesus’ audience was reflecting on. Just prior to this parable, the Pharisees asked when the Kingdom of God will come. The disciples asked, “where” it will come.[10] Both audiences are longing for a rapid liberation from their pains – perhaps we are too. Yet, Jesus highlights the illusionary character of these questions. He tells them that now is the time for the Son of Man’s suffering, that the judgment of the world is not set for this time, but is instead something to follow this period, which is like the days of Noah before the Great Flood.[11] We often live short-sighted and violent lives (17:26-33) as though things will go on like this forever. But they will not go on like this forever. God will judge.

This parable is “an admonition to do what is necessary in this situation, in which so much violence is [our] experience.”[12] Our task is to pray and cry to God for justice, even if it means that we have to reflect His light and shine it upon the injustices of this world. Our time is a time of repentance because we are all disdaining God’s will for justice, which is expressed in His Law.[13] As the last verse of the parable suggests, fidelity to God has become rare.[14] The unjust judge is the image of everything that is diametrically opposite to God – including the structures of oppression from which the people to whom Jesus is speaking are suffering.[15]

This passage, along with Romans 8:15 and 26, suggests that the task of believers is to pray and cry out to God against injustice – to protest and place our trust in God. We are to cry out like women in labor, not giving up, but maintain the patient power of resistance that comes from hope in the nearness of God.[16] It’s a stubborn and persistent hope in the coming of God’s justice. May we emulate the widow and reflect the light of God, just as she did.

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[1] ‘Eschatology’ is any system of doctrines concerning last, or final, matters, as death, the Judgment, the future state, etc.

[2] ‘Torah’, or Pentateuch, is the central reference of the religious Judaic tradition. It is constituted by the first five books of the Bible.

[3] Sirach, also known as Ecclesiasticus, was written between 200 and 175 BCE by the scribe Shimon ben Yeshua ben Eliezer ben Sira of Jerusalem. It is considered canonical by Catholics, the Eastern Orthodox, and most of the Oriental Orthodox. It is also included in many Protestant Lectionary readings, even though it is not considered canonical, but simply an important and instructive intertestamental text.

[4] Luise Schottroff, The Parables of Jesus, trans. Linda M. Maloney (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2006), p. 191.

[5] Luke 18:3

[6] Luke 18:5

[7] Luise Schottroff, The Parables of Jesus, trans. Linda M. Maloney (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2006), p. 192.

[8] Luke 18:7 can be understood in this way.

[9] There are approximately 30 million people still in slavery. See: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/21/modern-slavery_n_4124496.html

[10] Luke 17:37

[11] Luke 17:25

[12] Luise Schottroff, The Parables of Jesus, trans. Linda M. Maloney (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2006), p. 193.

[13] Luke 18:9-14

[14] Luke 18:8

[15] Luise Schottroff, The Parables of Jesus, trans. Linda M. Maloney (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2006), p. 193.

[16] Ibid.