The Unjust Judge (Luke 18:1-8)
Rev. Bart Cochran
October 16, 2016
When my older brother and I were children,
my Aunt Jean worked for Woolworth’s department
store. Does anyone here know or remember
Woolworth? My Aunt Jean was the Assistant
Manager of Woolworth in Amarillo. Because my
Aunt Worked at Woolworth, our family would shop
there quite often. And somewhere along the way,
my brother and I got it into our heads that every time
we went to Woolworth we deserved something…that
something might be a toy or an album or at the very
least some candy. I don’t know how this policy
began, but I remember vividly begging my mother to
“buy me something.”
My mother, God bless her, she is probably
reading these words as I speak them here aloud to
you…but, my mother, was what I would describe as a
pushover. In the parking lot she would tell me and
my brother not to bother begging for anything
because we could not afford it. She would say that it
was useless to even try. But my brother and I knew
something that most adults don’t know…which is
that children have an endless capacity to nag.
My brother, Rod and I would make a bee-line
to the toy aisle and would immediately find the thing
we could not live without. We would carry it to our
mother and relentlessly torture her by pleading our
case. And here is the beauty part, even if my mother
DID put her foot down and not buy us the toy…she
would usually try to compromise with candy. AND if
mom wouldn’t give in, Aunt Jean usually would. I tell
you as a child it was a pretty sweet deal.
Jesus speaks today about, sort of, a form of
begging and pleading today, not for a toy or for candy
but for something of far greater value; justice.
There's not much question as to the meaning of this
parable of the widow and the unjust judge. There's
not much question because Luke tells us why the
parable is important before he tells it “Then Jesus
told them a parable about their need to pray always
and not to lose heart.” He lays it right out for us,
doesn’t he? Then Luke tell us how Jesus interprets
the parable after he has finished telling it. This is a
story about persistence in prayer and God's
compassion and responsiveness. It is...isn't it?
There is this judge, says Jesus. We know about
judges in Israel. We know their role was to maintain
a reasonable harmony in the community and to
adjudicate disputes fairly, impartially. It is worth
remembering that Jewish law, the Torah, vividly
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described a responsibility for such judges when it
came to protecting the rights of the poor - of widows
and orphans and sojourners in the land.
Then Jesus says: there is this widow. And
therein lies the plot. There is this widow. The choice
of character automatically raises the stakes for the
judge, because any God-fearing jurist would feel
obliged by the Torah to take especially good care of
her.
The problem is that this jurist is not Godfearing and not especially interested in justice at all.
And so he tries to ignore the widow's pleading. But
the widow is not going to take "no" for an answer.
She keeps coming back to him day after day,
resolutely pressing her case, until finally the judge
has a conversation with himself.
Luke describes other such internal
conversations elsewhere - the rich fool, the prodigal
son, the dishonest steward - all of them talk to
themselves. But this judge figures that if he doesn't
grant the widow's petition, she will wear him out and
may even give him a black eye - either figuratively or
literally. So, eventually, despite his callousness and
his lack of integrity, he gives the woman what she
wants.
The progress of this parable is known as an
argument from the lesser to the greater - if a wicked
judge will finally relent and hear the woman's case,
how much more will God. The point is that God is full
of compassion, willing and ready to hear the prayers
of the poor and oppressed. And the counsel is thus
to be persistent in prayer, knowing that God will
answer the prayers of God's children. It's an
unclouded parable and a neat conclusion. And it is
unbridled good news for those who pray day and
night for justice, for it promises that their prayers do
not go unanswered.
Of course, if that's the point - and it seems to
be - then we have a dilemma, if we are honest with
God and ourselves. The dilemma is that nearly two
thousand years later, the poor and oppressed are still
calling out for relief and, for the most part, don't
seem to be any closer to a world of justice and
compassion than they were when Jesus told this
parable. If one reads this parable as it has always
been read, as a directive to relentless prayer, there
will always seem to be some lack of evidence that
such prayer really makes a difference. Unless Jesus is
talking about deferred compensation - the kind of
"pie in the sky by and by" vindication that many
Christians resist - then, frankly, the claim for
persistence isn't very convincing...or at least not
always convincing.
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Don't get me wrong. I believe persistent
prayer is very important, even when such prayers are
not answered in the ways we think best. It is
important to be unrelenting in our prayers...not only
because of the changes our prayers may elicit in
God's mind, but for the changes such prayers can
work in our own hearts and minds.
Maybe there's more to this parable than we
have sometimes seen. What if Jesus offered this
parable not only as a call to prayerful persistence but
also as a reminder to the church of the importance of
securing justice for the poor and the oppressed in our
midst?
What if we stand this parable on its head and
hear it as a testimony to the persistence of God, who
wants us to grant justice to God's chosen ones who
cry out day and night? Might this parable speak to
the resolute, persistent, unrelenting, determined One
who keeps knocking on our door, challenging us to
respond, pressing us to accept God's claims, urging us
to work for the good of neighbors in need?
All through the Scriptures we can trace God's
unwavering claim on God's people - the covenant
with Abraham, the giving of Torah (that set forth a
way of faithfulness and integrity and righteousness),
and when God's children rebelled and fell into selfish
ways, the sending of prophets to press God's claims
and to call for justice and fairness...and later when
the people ignored the prophets, in the fullness of
time, God sent the Christ into the world to
demonstrate once and for all the character of God's
grace and love toward all of God's children, and
especially the poor and the outcast. "Behold," said
the Christ, "I stand at the door and knock." That
knock is the sound a conscience makes in the life of
the faithful.
So, I wonder: if this parable offers a mirror for
our lives, then maybe the face many of us will see
when we peer into that mirror is the face of the judge
who, as Jesus said, "neither feared God nor had
respect for people." Is that not who we are in this
story?
Oh, it's not very flattering to read the parable
that way, to be sure. Who wants to be thus
characterized? But, then, in the parable the judge
does eventually reach the tipping point, and even if
not for the best of motives and more from selfinterest, does grant the widow what she wants.
What she wants, of course, is justice and a fair shake.
It's what the outcasts of the world most often want,
and we know - from reading the Torah and the
prophets and from listening to Jesus - it is what God
wants for them as well.
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Maybe the good news in this story for the nonoutcasts - for the rest of us - is that God is like the
widow - unrelenting, persistent and assertive. God
hasn't given up on us, even when we have acted as
though we "neither fear God nor have respect for
people." So maybe there's hope, not only for the
widows and orphans and sojourners of this world,
but for us. Maybe there is hope that we will tend to
the shame we feel and allow it to break through our
resistance and press us to open doors to those who
knock persistently; maybe there is hope that we will
hear their pleas at last and use our voices and our
power to help shape relief and reconciliation and
fairness in this world. Maybe there is hope for us. I
believe there is. More importantly, I believe that God
believes there is.
"Behold," says the Christ, "I stand at the door
and knock." Maybe today we'll open the door.
Maybe. And what a good day that would be...for
everyone!
AMEN
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