WHAT IN HEAVEN’S NAME IS JESUS TALKING ABOUT? CURIOUS TALES OF THE KINGDOM Parable of the Judge and the Widow, Luke 18:1-8 A sermon preached at First Presbyterian Church by Carter Lester on March 4, 2012

If you like your faith cut and dry, black and white…if you like it best when each

Bible passage has one point that you can readily understand and put into practice… then you might want to stay away from Jesus’ parables. Because sometimes they can be hard to understand. Or, at other times, you think you have “it,” the main point of the parable – you can pin it down like some beautiful butterfly preserved in a display case.

Except then you realize that this parable is alive, and like a living butterfly, has fluttered off to alight on another flower, another “main point.” Watch out for Jesus’ parables – they can keep moving on you…

“In a certain city there was a judge,” is how Jesus begins this seemingly simple parable in Luke 18. Judges then were like our police and our judges rolled up into one.

They were the ones you went to not only to resolve disputes, but also to seek protection from wrongdoers and those abusing their power over you. In Chronicles 19, these words of admonition are given to the judges: “Consider what you are doing, for you judge not on behalf of human beings but on the Lord’s behalf….take care what you do, for there is no perversion of justice with the Lord our God or partiality…” (2 Chron. 19:6-

7).

But this judge is not following those guidelines – or any other ethical guidelines.

He has no fear of the Lord, Jesus tells us, and he has no regard for other people, especially the poor and powerless. You can just imagine this judge thinking, “Why should I help anyone who cannot help me?” 2

“In that city there was a widow…” Now Jesus introduces the second main character. Talk about poor and powerless, she has nothing in that society. She has no money. She has no power. She has no standing or status. All that she has is her voice

– and her persistence. And she uses both of them, Jesus tells the disciples. Over and over she comes to the judge to plead her case.

There apparently is something fierce in her pleas. Because when the judge complains that she is “wearing him out,” the words he uses are words that would be used to describe the results of a boxing match or fight in first century Palestine. This widow has pummeled the judge with her persistent requests for justice! And she prevails! But not because the judge has a change of heart. He just wants to get rid of a pest and enjoy some peace and quiet

Now, this is a parable – and not an allegory – which means Jesus is not telling a story where each character stands precisely for some real-world figure. Otherwise, we might well wonder if Jesus is saying that God is like the unjust judge. What Jesus is doing instead is arguing from the lesser to the greater: if such a horrible judge will grant the request of the widow, how much more will a loving God answer the requests of his beloved children?

What is this parable about? Luke tells us in verse 1: it is about the need of disciples “to pray always and not to lose heart.” Why tell this parable? Because Jesus knew that his disciples were going to learn that following him did not mean that all of their prayers would be granted.

2000 years later this parable is still timely. Because we have all had times when justice seems delayed, when our prayers seem to be met with silence – if not 3 indifference – on the part of God. Jesus wants us to keep on praying any way – just like that widow.

Sometimes we pray and do not get results because we are praying for the wrong things. As any parent, teacher, or coach well knows, sometimes the most loving thing is not to grant what a child wants. Love instead gives what that child needs, and who knows better than God what we need. A few years ago, the country singer Garth

Brooks had a hit song in which he recalled his prayers as a youth to melt the heart of a high school sweetheart. Later it was apparent to him that his request was a terrible choice. The song had a great refrain in it: “Just because he doesn’t answer doesn’t mean he don’t care. Some of God’s greatest gifts are unanswered prayers.”

Sometimes we pray and do not get the results we want because other prayers are being answered. I think of a widow I know who prayed mightily that God would help her husband, who was struggling with various illnesses and ailments, get better.

Despite her prayers, he died. But looking back, she came to this realization about her prayers and God’s response. “I was praying for my husband to be healed. My husband was praying that he might go home to be with God. God answered the prayer – my husband’s prayer, not mine.”

Sometimes we pray and do not get the results we want because prayer can be more about changing us than changing God. As the novelist and Presbyterian pastor,

Frederick Buechner, puts it, persistence is important “not because you have to beat a path to God’s door before [God will] open it, but because until you beat the path, maybe there’s no way of getting to your door.”1 Sometimes, when we pray, we are “being hammered through long days and nights of prayer into a vessel that will be able to hold the answer when it comes.”2 Is that ever true for you? 4

And sometimes there really is no good answer why we have not seen the results we have prayed for, why justice is so long delayed. What we are left with is the realization that even Jesus will pray in the Garden of Gethsemane, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me,” only to receive the answer the next day in the form of the cross. Ultimately, we come up against the mystery of God’s ways, and our need to trust that God really does love us.

Do you know any loving parent who would turn away from a son or daughter in need? Can we not trust that the One who knit us together in our mother’s womb will never abandon us but deliver us and love us to the end? With that in mind, Jesus tells us: “So pray always and do not lose heart”…

This was where I was going to end this sermon Thursday night, with the focus on the widow and our faith in a God who is far more just, merciful and loving than this judge. I even had a great story to illustrate the point – which I think is still an important point to take away from this parable. But I will save that story for another sermon.

Because a funny thing happened to me on Friday morning. The judge caught my eye again.3 And it made me wonder if there is something else that Jesus is saying to us. Is it possible that sometimes we are not the widow in this parable? Is it possible that at least sometimes we need to see ourselves as…the judge?

And if that is the case, is there some plea for justice that we are in danger of ignoring? Is there someone around us who is like that widow – who is poor or powerless or the victim of injustice, whose knuckles are bloody from knocking on our door? Is there someone that we need to open the door to and do what we can, with

God’s help, to deliver justice? 5

You see, prayer and action, faith and love, are always to go hand-in-hand for disciples. We not only pray for God’s will to be done “on earth as it is in heaven,” we pray also that we might do God’s will, not just later in heaven, but here and now on earth. Doesn’t Jesus not only forgive the sins of those brought before him but also help the lame to walk and the blind to see? Doesn’t Jesus say to his disciples that when we give food to the hungry and clothing to the naked, when we care for the sick and visit those in prison, we are doing it to him? (Matthew 25: 31-46).

Perhaps sometimes we need to hear the word of hope and justice to the widow.

But perhaps sometimes we need to hear the word of justice and action given to the judge. As one commentator on this text puts it, “To those who have it in their power to relieve the distress of the widow… – but do not [do so] – the call to pray day and night is a command to let the priorities of God’s compassion [and justice] reorder the priorities of their lives.”4

Do you recall the movie, “Hotel Rwanda?” It tells the story of what happened in

1994 in one place in Rwanda because of the actions of one man. 1994 was the year when madness descended upon Rwanda. In one hundred days, one tribe of

Rwandans, the Hutus, killed 800,000 people of another tribe of Rwandans, the Tutsis.

800,000 killed in 100 days. And most on both sides were Christians!

The film tells the true story of Paul Rusesabagina, a hotel manager in the

Rwandan capital of Kigali. He is a Hutu but he had no interest in participating in the violence. He is, in fact, married to a Tutsi. As the horror built, Paul, trapped at the hotel with his staff and family, initially protested that there was nothing he could do. But his reluctance to help was challenged by the steady beating of justice – on his door. In 6 the end, he found the courage and the means to shelter 1200 people in that hotel, 1200 people who otherwise would likely have been killed on the streets of Kilgali.

It is a wonderful story of one man answering the pleas of the poor and powerless begging for justice –as in the parable Jesus tells here. But it is also a haunting movie because of the violence that rages unchecked outside of the hotel doors. For me, there is a particularly haunting scene. It occurs about midway through the story, as Western reporters begin to capture scenes of the genocide on tape. Paul is heartened a bit, because he assumes the broadcast of such images will prompt immediate action on the part of Western powers. But one of the reporters is far more skeptical: “More likely,” he responds to Paul, “people will see the footage, say ‘Isn’t that horrible?’ and then go right on with their dinners.’” Sadly, the reporter proves to be right.

So maybe it is time for us to look in the mirror and not see the widow but see the judge. And ask: Who is knocking on our door – not just on our TV screens but here in our communities? Whose pleas for justice are we ignoring? What is keeping us from acting right now to do what we can to see that justice is done?

And when we open the door, maybe we will find that it is not the widow who is there. Instead, perhaps, we will be surprised to see Jesus there. Because he is even more persistent than the widow. He will not give up on us – even when we act as if we do not fear God or respect others.

“Behold, I stand at the door and knock,” Jesus says. (Rev. 3:20). Maybe today, we will open that door. 1 Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1973), 71 2 Fred B. Craddock, Luke (Louisville: John Knox Press, 1990), 209-10. 3 With the help of a sermon by Dr. Robert Dunham, “Whose Persistence?” found at http://day1.org/1064- whose_persistence.print. 4 R. Alan Culpepper, The New Interpreter’s Bible, vol. IX (Nashville: Abingdon, 1995), 339.