Jesus told his disciples a parable about the necessity for them to pray always without becoming weary. He said, “There was a judge in a certain town who neither feared God nor respected any human being. And a widow in that town used to come to him and say, ‘Render a just decision for me against my adversary.’ For a long time the judge was unwilling, but eventually he thought, ‘While it is true that I neither fear God nor respect any human being, because this widow keeps bothering me I shall deliver a just decision for her lest she finally come and strike me.’” The Lord said, “Pay attention to what the dishonest judge says. Will not God then secure the rights of his chosen ones who call out to him day and night? Will he be slow to answer them? I tell you, he will see to it that justice is done for them speedily. But when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” (Luke 18.1-8)
On this Twenty-Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time, the lectionary affords us another of Rabbi Jesus’ parables that is found only in the Gospel of Luke. Why this evangelist presents so much material that is not found in the other gospels is an open question. Whatever the reason, we are the beneficiaries because our knowledge of Jesus’ teachings would suffer were it not for the many stories or phrases unique to Luke.
Today, we hear Jesus tell the parable of the persistent widow. It is followed immediately by the parable of the Pharisee and the publican, also a story unique to Luke. Interestingly, these two parables have the distinction of being the only stories in Luke’s gospel that begin with an explanation for Jesus’ telling them. As for the others, the meaning of the parable is left for us to decide.
So this particular story begins with Jesus telling his disciples the story of the persistent widow, a story meant to impress upon them “the necessity for them to pray always without becoming weary,” as the gospel states the case. Because Luke provides us the rationale for the story, we may want to take a moment to remember why a story about “praying always” would hold significance for Luke’s readers, people living fifty-to-sixty years after Jesus’ time.
By that point in time, the early communities of Christian believers were founded and established, so much so that the name “Christians” was affixed to these groups who had chosen to follow “the Way” of Jesus of Nazareth. They may have been small in number, but their name was becoming more well-known, principally because their way of life was so different from that of other religions at the time.
Of course, anytime someone or some group stands apart from the rest of the crowd there is denunciation and persecution on the part of those who want the status quo and the way of the world to remain unchanged and unchallenged. Already several decades before Luke’s writing, the Roman emperor Nero made the Christians of Rome the scapegoats for his own devious designs.
More commonplace, Roman officials far and wide expected people to participate in the rituals associated with the pagan gods to whom the Romans paid allegiance and from whom they sought benefits. Failure to do so rubbed the Roman officials the wrong way because it was inviting ill fortune upon the people, ignoring the gods seen as an affront to these deities whose egos seemed easily offended.
However, Christians–at least those who stood strong–refused to participate in these rituals, their reasoning simple enough to understand. They no longer believed in the pagan deities and offering incense to them would be turning their backs on their own beliefs in the way of Jesus of Nazareth. This lack of conformity to the laws of the land put them in the eye of the storm, often resulting in ugly and fierce recriminations upon the Christians.
So, it made sense for Luke to offer a story told by Jesus that urged upon believers “the necessity for them to pray always without becoming weary.” With lives and livelihood on the chopping block because of their beliefs, Christians knew weariness and worries aplenty. A minority at the time, different in beliefs and in practices, they were hounded and haunted by the majority in power.
If that were not cause enough for wear and tear on the spirit, the fact that the promised return of Jesus to reclaim the world had not been as soon as Christian believers had expected added to their anxieties and uncertainties, leading many to question their beliefs and just as many to abandon ship. Several generations had already passed, each generation thinking the time for the second coming was imminent, the passing years and the obvious delay causing a spiritual crisis.
Given the lived experience of Christians at the time of Luke’s writing, we see why Luke should want to end this story of the persistent widow with Jesus asking the question, “But when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” This concluding verse may, in fact, be the real purpose for the parable, although Luke presents it as a call to pray always without becoming weary.
Or, at least, the two work in tandem because the word “weary” may be better translated as “giving up,” a phrase that syncs perfectly with Jesus’ asking if he will find faith upon the earth when he returns. The answer is obvious. If most people have given up, then he will not find many who have kept the faith. We would be right to infer that this was not hypothetical at the time. Luke knew firsthand the hard reality that many believers had given up, losing faith and moving on, turning their back on the ways of Jesus.
Although we live centuries after the fact, it should not be all that difficult for us to find relevance in the story for these times in which we live. Giving up and losing spirit are not particular to the early Christian communities, seen as problems peculiar to their times, but instead they seem a regular occurrence in every age, the ways of the world never changing, causing those who follow the way of Jesus to find themselves at odds with a world hellbent on ignoring the will of the Most High God who created the heavens and the earth.
Those who are faithful to the ways of Jesus in our times may not find themselves being fed to the lions in the coliseum, but they become food for the powerful who are wont to criticize, ostracize, and antagonize those who would challenge the ways of the wicked by the contrast of their own lives, lives centered on Christ Jesus and his call for community, not divisiveness, for acceptance, not bigotry, for love, not enmity. The powerful do not like to be reminded their feet are made of clay.
As we look closer at the parable that Jesus tells, it is not coincidental that he uses the example of a widow, for ages a symbol of poverty and powerlessness among the people of Israel. Without a means of support, a widow was destitute and deprived of standing within the community, at the mercy of those around her. Generally ignored by others, widows were held up by the ancient prophets as especially loved by God, along with orphans and foreigners, all of whom had no one fighting on their behalf.
It made sense, then, that Jesus should invoke the image of a widow in this story, a person up against terrible odds, exemplified by the ruthless and heartless judge who is described as fearing neither God nor man, shameless in every way. And yet this same widow becomes the hero of the story because of her persistence, refusing to stand down or to step away, demanding that justice be served on her behalf.
We want to note the references to time that are built into the story, reinforcing the notion that the widow never tires in her fight. We are told that “for a long time the judge was unwilling” and that the “widow kept bothering him.” Even the words “eventually” and “finally” communicate the persistence of the widow, the judge coming face to face with the feisty widow without fail.
As is so often the case in Luke’s gospel, the story utilizes the lesser to greater motif. If a lesser figure such as this dishonest judge is finally moved by the widow, so much more will the Great God be moved by the cries of the poor and the persecuted. Or as Jesus says, “Will not God then secure the rights of his chosen ones who call out to him day and night? Will he be slow to answer them? I tell you, he will see to it that justice is done for them speedily.”
The story is neither a brain teaser nor difficult to decipher. Everything important is found on the surface without any underlying meaning. It is straightforward and its intent is obvious. For Christian believers in any age, it offers encouragement and comfort, recognizing that they regularly suffer injustices and daily they find themselves in the fight against evil in the world, resulting in their crying out to God “day and night.”
Finding themselves face to face with a world as shameless as that judge, even the strongest Christian believer feels dispirited and disappointed, each disappointment adding to a sense of despair. The easiest option, then as now, is to simply give up, convincing oneself that the battles fought and the blood shed change little to nothing, telling oneself to move out of the front lines and stay hidden in the shadows, in this way at least saving one’s own skin.
Like the community to which Luke addressed his gospel, the faithful disciple today feels the oppression and the loss of hope. And whatever courage one might have felt in the early hours of the day, it is lost by nightfall. It is easy to tell oneself that only the fanatic or the lunatic would get up the next day and repeat the same losing battle. Just call it quits, raise the white flag of defeat, and give up the ghost.
But it was not the way of Jesus and it cannot be the way of those who have promised to walk the walk with him, however great the cost and however long the day. Like the steadfast and persistent widow, the follower of Jesus is called to faithful service to the ideas and ideals of the Galilean Teacher who himself refused to back down or back away, but stayed true to his calling even as he climbed towards Calvary where a cross awaited him. He never gave up.
So, for the rest of us who now walk in his stead, several points stand out from the story that we find in Luke’s gospel. First, the story assures us that God hears the cries that come from our hearts as we grow weary from the work that is ours as followers of his Son here on earth. He knows the odds that we are up against. Second, the story urges us to believe that God will see justice done, although it will be in his time, not immediately as we may want. Third, the widow who is held up as a model reminds us that God esteems a fighting spirit that refuses to give up, always at the ready to see that good is done, even when the power of evil seems insurmountable.
Finally, like Jesus who tells the story, the widow reminds us that some things are worth fighting for and even worth dying for. At the end of the day, if we have not worn ourselves out and do not find ourselves weak and weary, then we have not fought hard enough or long enough. Only those who have given up the fight find themselves well-rested and with plenty of leisure time on their hands.
–Jeremy Myers
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