A sermon by Associate Minister Elsa A. Peters, October 17, 2010
Luke 18:1-8
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These observations about the text in Luke 18:1-8 have informed Elsa’s preaching. This is not a manuscript of the sermon though you’re more than welcome to obtain a recording of her sermon by contacting the Church Office at 799-3361.
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After several teachings on the kingdom of God, Jesus turns his attention to prayer. The gospel author wants it to be clear what this parable is about – lest it be confused for another meaning. This parable about the widow and the judge is not just about how we pray. It’s about the determination to pray. It’s about continuing through prayer even when it seems nothing has changed.
It’s not clear what has changed when the gospel author begins Jesus’ teaching this particular parable. It seems that Jesus must still be on the way to Jerusalem, going through the region of Samaria and Galilee. Though Jesus briefly attempts to explain the kingdom of God to the Pharisees, his focus seems to switch back to the disciples in this story. The shift is abrupt from the previous chapter – as if Jesus is getting both anxious and nervous about his impending arrival into Jerusalem in a mere chapter and a half. Perhaps this hastening explains the gospel author’s shift in time and space with the slicing divider “then.”
Ironically, the gospel author doesn’t seem at all concerned about Jesus’ need to pray. Instead, it’s “their need to pray always and not to lose heart.” Of course, the assumption is that they already have lost heart. The preacher Fred Craddock observes that this is a community that “has been taught to pray ‘Thy kingdom come’ but has been experiencing persecution and hardship and as a result begins to ‘lose heart.’” I don’t think it’s that gradual. I think they’ve already lost heart. If not, this story will fall on deaf ears. Only if they’ve already lost heart and are trying to reorient themselves toward hope will this story of the widow and the judge make sense. (Of course, the same is true for us two thousand years later.) So, it seems the first question that we must ask as disciples is: what has made us lose heart? What have we given up on? What prayer do we have that never seems to have been answered?
I don’t think that this is just about prayer – at least not as we traditionally think about it on our knees or with folded hands. I think that this particular teaching on prayer has to do with justice. After all, it’s injustice that makes us truly lose heart. When we can’t understand the horrible things in the world, when we can’t grasp how neighbors can treat neighbors so poorly, when we can’t make sense of the suicide of 7 gay teens, we lose heart.
Jesus doesn’t want us to lose heart though. He introduces us to a judge – who “neither feared God nor had respect for people.” He lives in a city where things are never good. Injustice blooms in the city so that it seems like judge is just another victim of city life. He’s not ashamed of who he is. It’s just the way things are and there isn’t enough accountability in the city for him to feel badly about his would-be shamelessness.
In contrast, Jesus introduces us to a widow who sounds desperate. She comes to this shameless judge again and again in the middle of the city and asks, “Grant me justice against my opponent.” It doesn’t say who the opponent is. Nor does it say what this person has done to make such an adversary. None of that really matters. Instead, we must focus on what we do know. There’s a widow that wants help. Because she’s a widow she has few (if any) resources. She needs someone else to be her advocate. She needs someone else to be her voice. This is literally what the widow needs. She needs someone else to speak for her – as the “Hebrew word for widow connotes one who is silent, one who is unable to speak.” We know this to be true for anyone in our world that can’t muster the strength to speak for herself. There’s great power not only in being heard but in the sheer wonder of another person authenticating your truth by saying what you’re not able or not willing to say.
It is her persistence that is triumphant. Jesus encourages us to follow her example of never giving up – but continually coming out. In doing so, she advocates for herself. She literally wears out the judge. He becomes exhausted by her pleas. Eventually, pestered by her constant bothering, he gives her justice. We’re not supposed to be like him. We’re supposed to be like the widow by continually coming out. This particular phrase speaks not only for our lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer friends – but to those of us that don’t choose those labels for ourselves. We must all continue to come out. We must choose to speak – even when we think that no one is listening – because it is only in our persistent pleas that change can come. In the memories of Asher Brown, Seth Walsh, Billy Lucas, Tyler Clementi and Raymond Chase, we must continue to come out. We must tell the stories of that will grant justice so that no child of God will lose heart.