(A sermon preached on Luke 18:1-18 at All Saints' Littleton NH on 10/17/2010)
“When our days become dreary with low-hovering clouds of despair, and when our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, let us remember that there is a creative force in this universe, working to pull down the gigantic mountains of evil, a power that is able to make a way out of no way and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows. Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
Martin Luther King, Jr.,
from his 1967 Address to the Southern Christian Leadership
Conference, entitled “Where Do We Go From Here?”
This morning’s Gospel parable of the persistent widow and the dishonest judge gets a great deal more use today that you may realize.
There seems to be a desired belief of many people concerning God, that, if we are persistent or faithful enough, God will intercede at our urging and do what we want God to do.
We see this prayer reality most often in situations of illness: prayers to God for someone’s recovery. In times of crisis, crying out to God for someone to be made well is not only voicing our heart’s desire, but expresses the realization of how little we are able to control: the hope that, somehow, God can do something when we are powerless to do it ourselves. Annie Dillard calls it “God sticking a finger in, if only now and then.” (For the Time Being, 1999, p. 169, quoted by John Buchanan)
This is understandable prayer in the midst of worry and concern for someone’s health. But consider the consequences if it spills into everyday living. John Buchanan writes:
“God is regularly given credit for finding a new job, selling a condo for a profit in a buyer’s market, a convenient parking place even. Super Bowl champions thank God who secured their victory (though we hear little from the loser’s locker room on the subject). The winner of the lottery, unemployed, down to his last eight dollars, offered up a prayer, “Help me, Lord...just let me win this,” and gave God credit for the $295 million jackpot. In (the Hebrew Scriptures book) 1st Chronicles, a (never before mentioned) man by the Jabez is remembered as the one who prayed: “Oh that you would bless me and enlarge my border, and that your hand might be with me, and that you would keep me from hurt or harm!” (1 Chr. 4:10) God complied, and on that basis some twenty-first century Christians are persuaded that God has unclaimed blessings for us, that God wants us to be selfish in our prayers, that it is appropriate to ask God to increase the value of your stock portfolio, and that God will open the storehouse of heaven if you pray persistently.” (Feasting on the Word, Year C, Vol. 4, Eds David Bartlett & Barbara Brown Taylor, 2010, p. 189)
There are plenty of ministers who preach this Prosperity Gospel: the idea that we are to badger God with requests for self so that God can give us all of the good things that God already wants to give us. However, it ignores the fact that so many faithful people throughout the world do not have their heartfelt prayers and requests fulfilled: even if it’s for basics like food, water, or shelter. It also couldn’t be farther from Jesus’ or the church’s teachings. Huston Smith writes, “When the consequences of belief are worldly goods, such as health, fixing on these turns religion into a service station for self-gratification and churches into health clubs. This is the opposite of religion’s role, which is to decenter the ego, not pander to its desires.” (Why Region Matters, 2001, p. 45, quoted again by Buchanan)
So what are we to make of Jesus’ parable? I think that we should start by remembering that the widow’s situation is different back then:
1) No husband = no rights
2) she could NOT testify in court
3) She was not supposed to talk with strangers, and had no right to even talk to the judge
The judge, legally, never has to hear her case, but the widow, with a constant cry for justice, finally gets to him. “I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out.” It’s important to note that we are told he “neither feared God nor had respect for people.” This tells us that he cared not at all for doing what is right. In other words, justice does not matter to this judge. On his own, he would have continued to ignore her. He still could have. He also could have also had her thrown in jail, or worse.
The impact of this reality is shown as we draw our attention to Jesus’ final question: “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” Peter Woods writes:
Why should the Son of Man not find faith on earth? Perhaps there is doubt in Jesus’ question because it is very difficult to keep praying in trust to a loving parent, when every circumstance of your life seems intractable and horrific. How do we keep trusting for “justice, liberation, wholeness, and cure” when there is no obvious way out?
It is here that the widow becomes our teacher. The widow had no rights. She in fact did not have access to the judge, but that did not blight her to bitterness, nor temper her trust. She kept right on calling, trusting despite all evidence to the contrary that there would be a breakthrough in her hopelessness.
It would seem that, for Jesus, faith doesn’t fix things as much as it gives
the capacity and courage to bear the unbearable.”
Jesus also seems to be saying that there will indeed be one day, when God’s kingdom is realized, where the cries for justice will all be answered. And yet, even today... in the most unlikely of circumstances...justice may still be found, and it matters that we stand up for it. In other words, your voice for justice matters today even if those in power seem uninterested, or even hostile.
God’s current role is to give us what we need in order to do this. John Buchanan suggests that the early church was not granted many of the things that it likely prayed for: safety from persecution, for one thing. However, it did receive what it most needed: a sense of God’s loving presence and attentiveness, and the strength and resilience and fortitude it needed to survive. We can count on God to come down on the side of justice. We can count on God to hear the ones who have no power, no influence, no voice. We can count on God to hear those who have nowhere else to turn. We can count on God not always to grant our requests, but to hear, with loving parental patience, the persistent prayers of our hearts. (FOW, p.193)
“When our days become dreary with low-hovering clouds of despair, and when our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, let us remember that there is a creative force in this universe, working to pull down the gigantic mountains of evil, a power that is able to make a way out of no way and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows. Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
Thanks be to God!
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