Pentecost 19 – 2025
Luke 18:1-14
Marian Free
In the name of God whose love is dispassionate and constant. Amen.
I have to confess that over the last ten (is it as long as that?) ten years, I have found myself not only wondering about the state of the world, but also about how to effectively pray for the world. No amount of prayer on my part has changed the current erosion of democracy in the United States, my daily prayer has not ended the war in Ukraine or prevented the devastating loss of life and destruction of infrastructure in Gaza, and my consistent prayer has not created the political will for our governments to act in ways that will save the environment. So yes, there are times in which not only do I despair about the direction in which the world is going, but in which I feel utterly powerless to make a difference and I feel acutely conscious of the ineffectiveness of my prayer in particular and prayer in general.
Today’s parable, taken in isolation from the text around it, does not provide a solution to my problem – in fact, it seems to place the blame at my feet, to suggest that if only I had prayed long enough, hard enough all would be well. Yet I feel as if I have already battered down the doors of heaven to no avail. No matter how many times I go back, no matter how just I feel my cause to be, it seems as though my prayers, my desperate pleas, continue to go unanswered. Greed and selfishness, and the need for power and control seem to go unchecked, the poor are getting poorer, and the rich are getting richer, homelessness is increasing as is the number of people unable to access timely healthcare, or enough food for their families (and I could go on) and despite the fact that more people than I are praying God has not yet intervened in any way that would make a substantial difference.
Yet the parable encourages persistence, the judge eventually responds to the widow’s request – annoyed by her persistence and fearful that she might resort to violence and cause him to lose face[1].
Before we fall into utter despair at the inadequacy of our prayer, we need to have a closer look at the parable. Firstly, and importantly, we must not make the mistake of interpreting the parable as an allegory. The judge (though he is the person with all the power in the parable) does not represent God – which is the exactly the point that Jesus is making. The judge may have no respect for people, but God will hear the cry of his people and God will grant justice.
God is not aloof, corrupt and obstructionist, ignoring the poor and indifferent to justice. God, unlike the judge, cannot be bullied or forced to do our will by persistence or violence. There would be no point in God if God was like the judge.
Why then does Jesus tell a parable about persistence? Here, as is often the case, context is important. Our lectionary has moved from the healing of the lepers to the parable on prayer thus omitting an important conversation with the disciples about the coming of the Son of Man. Jesus, in line with many apocalyptic prophets, paints a picture of a time of great tribulation which will precede the coming of the Son on Man – times perhaps not unlike those we are living through. He suggests that the time before his return will parallel the time before the great flood, that its coming will be as sudden and unexpected as the destruction of Sodom, that those on the housetop must not come down and those in the field must not turn back, that one will be taken and another left and so on.
The wider socio-cultural context is also important. Jesus’ disciples were, by and large poor peasants oppressed by a foreign power which had stripped them of their land, demanded the payment of taxes on the meagre living which they were able to make, and which brutally suppressed any opposition. It would not be at all surprising to discover that the disciples were anxious to know when everything would be put right, when justice would be restored to the land. How easy it would be to fall into despair when day-by-day their prayers for release seem to come to nothing.
It is into this space that Jesus’ tells this parable about persistence. Jesus is not saying that God will miraculously bring justice on earth through our constant nagging or through our belief that we know what justice is. Jesus is acknowledging that there will be times when it seems that God is absent, when we will feel that our prayers fall on deaf ears, and when it seems that there will never be an end to injustice, war, oppression, poverty or violence. Into that place of despair, Jesus urges us to persist, to maintain our relationship with God despite, not because of, what is happening in the world around us.
This, perhaps explains the final question of this morning’s passage: “When the Son of Man comes will he find faith on earth?” When Jesus returns, will he find those who have hoped against hope, those who have persisted when persistence seemed futile and those who have continued to believe despite God’s apparent powerlessness in the face of humanity’s propensity for evil.
We are to retain our confidence in God’s loving justice, in the face of humanity’s constant efforts to suppress it, we are to maintain our certainty of God’s love, despite its apparent absence in some places of the world and we are to keep the faith, knowing that God is with and for us, despite evidence to the contrary.
Prayer is not about getting what we want. Prayer is a means of holding open the door to God, listening to God’s word, allowing ourselves to be formed in God’s image and maintaining our relationship with God through all the trials and tribulations of our own lives and through all the things we cannot control in the world around us. Prayer reminds us that, despite all evidence to the contrary, God is with us, God loves us, and, in God’stime, not ours, God will bring justice on the earth.
[1] The Greek of Matthew 18:5 suggests that the judge is worried the widow might slap him in the face, or even to beat black and blue.
Swallowsrest 