October 17, 2010
29th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Luke 18:1-8
PRAY AND DON’T LOSE HEART
Today’s Gospel lesson is one of the more obscure Parables of Jesus. It is a
little odd if you read it out of context. Well it is a little odd even in context, but the
context helps. Luke is the only Gospel that includes this parable. It comes
immediately on the heels of Luke’s version of what has come to be called “the end
times.” “End Times” is a misleading label because the teachings are much more
than that. They relate the ushering in and ultimate culmination of the new age in
the kingdom of God that begins with the life, death and resurrection of Christ.
Those teachings about what is to come are found in all four Gospels and they can
be heavy with dire warnings about suffering and troubled times before Christ
returns in his full glory.
So, when we get to today’s parable, it seems that Jesus was actually trying to
lighten things up a little. The woman in the story is a caricature like the Jewish
mother in stand-up comic routines today. The judge is also a caricature because no
one holding such a lofty political office could possibly be so open and forthright
about admitting his own corruption and narcissistic personality disorder.
As you listen imagine that Jesus and the disciples have been on the road to
Jerusalem for weeks now. Coming off of the hard conversations with the Pharisees
and then the apocalyptic teachings, they’re ready for a break. They have found a
nice place to stop to eat and spend the night. Fish is cooking on the grill, they have
warm bread and olive oil to dip it in. And of course wine to go with it. Sort of like
Bonefish. He looks around at their sad, worried faces and tells them a parable that
is a light-hearted vehicle for teachings about hope and a spiritual life grounded in
prayer.
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We don’t know the specific grievance the poor woman is seeking to remedy.
That detail isn’t important because everyone knew that while the Law required
them to provide for widows and orphans, there was no enforcement provision, so it
was a matter of individual morality. People were supposed to do the right thing
without being compelled to. So, of course the right thing didn’t happen very often.
Without a man to take care of them and speak for them in the courts of socalled justice, women had virtually no power. If her husband died and left her with
an inheritance but some man came along and claimed it was owed to him, or if she
claimed that a man owed her a debt, all the man has to do is dispute her claims and
he would get off scot free. She would be left with no recourse. Everybody knew it
was not right and everybody knew it happened all the time.
The woman in the parable is funny because she’s probably a familiar
character to all of them. A feisty woman who would not give up no matter what, to
the point that she just makes a nuisance of herself. She is probably as annoying to
everyone she knows. Every person she runs into in the market place has to listen
to her go on and on about it. People hide when they see her coming.
Even while they laughed good-naturedly, those listening would have been
sympathetic. They would have identified with her because she is not that different
from them. They may be better off than she is as men in that society, but they are
all among the poor and oppressed. None of them know anything about privileges
we often take for granted like freedom of speech and freedom of religion or
electing your own government leaders.
They would not have identified with the corrupt judge. This is one smarmy
guy. Jesus tells us up front that he is a judge who neither feared God nor had
respect for people. And the judge himself is like yea that’s right, “I have no fear of
God and no respect for anyone.” They would have all thought that was funny too.
As if some politician is going to say something like that about himself.
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So this widow starts stalking the judge, hounding him night and day. The
audience loves it. The underdog, one of their own, is getting the better of the smug
fat cat. He walks out of his house, there she is demanding justice. He gets to work
and is trying to listen to the people who have paid him off already but he can’t stay
focused on what they are saying because she keeps interrupting. Every day she is
there shouting for justice. She nags and badgers until finally he just gives up
because he realizes she is never going to.
But remember this is a parable. It is not describing a historical event. Nor is
it an allegory. The egomaniac judge is not a symbolic representation of God. God
is not sitting on the judgment chair up in the clouds somewhere doling out good
things and bad things based on who prays the most, the loudest or the longest.
This parable is actually not about God, or about how God works. It is about us, the
people of God and how we might respond to God’s saving grace in Jesus Christ.
In spite of the common phrase among some Christians that God always
answers our prayers, most of us know that it isn’t necessarily true. Some people
facing that inescapable reality say, well you might not get the answer you want, but
you’ll get an answer. Or, the answer might not come for a long time, but God
always answers prayer. I don’t know. I do know this: prayer is one of the great
mysteries that is embedded in the mystery of an almighty, omniscient,
omnipresent, eternal, creator God who chooses to be in relationship with his
human creatures.
I have a friend who had been a strictly nominal Christian all her life. She
went to church out of a sense of propriety—she was a respectable, conservative,
conventional person and nice, conservative people go to church. She did not have a
deep faith or love of God. Then one day when she was in her late twenties, she
was diagnosed with an aggressive form of lymphoma. She was still in a state of
shock and had not told many people one Sunday morning when the worship
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service included a service of healing. She did not intend to go forward, not wanting
to draw attention to herself and have to explain anything. But something compelled
her to go. She was anointed and prayed over and had hands laid on her. She said
she knew then she was going to be alright. She underwent about a year of cancer
treatment which included a complete bone marrow transplant and months in sterile
isolation. It is now almost 30 years later and she has been cancer free ever since.
She is one of those people who says: “Prayer works” and I don’t argue with her.
I have another friend who has been a devout Christian all his life. He was
one of those people who never hesitated to pray out loud to start a meeting, or just
to lift someone up in prayer. In a formal Bible study or a casual conversation, he
could talk about difficult theological and Biblical concepts in a gentle and easy to
understand way. I know this sounds like Bill Donalson, but it’s not. This man’s
sister with whom he had been very close all his life, became ill with terminal
cancer. He prayed, not without ceasing, but he prayed and prayed and he asked
everyone to pray as well. My friend was sad, but he found comfort in his faith and
the support of his faith community. But his sister’s husband, also a life-long
Christian, was inconsolable. He began consulting self-proclaimed evangelical faith
healers. He paid money to have someone tell him that if his faith was strong
enough and if he prayed hard enough, the cancer would go away. He told my
friend this. He even told his dying wife. It didn’t work. The brother-in-law’s
desperation only made the family’s grief more difficult than it already was.
A pastor I know tells a story about her six year old daughter coming to her
and saying “I don’t believe in God.” My friend was caught off guard but calmly
asked her why. The little girl said she had spoken to God and God had not spoken
back. Obviously, if God was real, God would answer when someone asks him a
question.
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Nowhere in the Bible will you find the phrase “prayer works.” Sometimes
the thing we pray for happens sometimes it doesn’t. We rarely if ever know why,
but you can be sure of this: God isn’t sitting up there like Zeus zapping this
individual to be cured and that individual to die, depending on who is getting the
loudest most persistent prayers offered up for them.
This parable is not about wearing God down. It is about, as Luke says in the
beginning and Jesus says in the end, praying always, not losing heart. When things
are rough, when times are troubled, there is comfort and hope for those whose lives
are centered around prayer. And, those are the people of faith who will be ready to
meet Jesus on the day he comes again. That is the way of a joy-filled life in the
kingdom of God on earth.
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