18:1 Then Jesus told them a parable about the need to pray always
and not to lose heart. 2 He said, “In a certain city there was
a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people. 3 In that
city there was a widow who kept coming to him saying, ‘Grant me
justice against my opponent.’ 4 For a while he refused; but later
he said to himself, ‘Though I have no fear of God and no respect
for anyone, 5 yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant
her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.’”
6 And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. 7
And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day
and night? Will he delay long in helping them? 8 I tell you, he will
quickly grant justice to them. And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will
he find faith on earth?”

Another Ambiguous Parable

Like the story of the dishonest manager (Luke 16:1-13), this story
has a disconcerting tone to it. We wonder what Jesus is doing comparing
God to an unjust judge, even if that comparison is for the purposes
of contrast. Even when Luke goes out of his way to explain to us the
purpose of this story, persistence in prayer, it is still possible for
us to miss the import of this message. I have seen and heard numerous
people cite this passage as justification for any number of abuses of
prayer. Even if I do not get what I want, what I seek, I will continue
to pray until God gives it to me. My persistence will pay off.

I often wonder what people are thinking when they say such a thing.
Certainly one of the points of this lesson is that God, in contrast
to the unjust judge, hears the prayers of the people and is inclined
to dispense justice without the tribulation the Widow endures just to
get a hearing. Does God need multiple reminders? Are we to assume that
God is not interested in justice unless we bring it to his attention?
If, on the other hand, God hears us better than the unjust judge, why
are we not getting a response? Why must we be persistent? These are
disturbing questions, but they reveal an even more disturbing attitude,
which is that prayer is all about me and what I want. A deeper look
at this story, as well as some of the other things that Jesus has to
say about prayer reveal something different.

The Purpose of Prayer

There is a difference between what most people pray about today and
what Jesus likely means by prayer in Luke’s Gospel. Today most
people think that prayer is, at best, part of a dialog or conversation
that we have with God. At worst, people think that prayer is us telling
God what to do for us or give us to make our lives better. In Luke’s
Gospel, references to prayer have to do with the coming reign of God.
It is this messianic, and in some sense apocalyptic understanding of
prayer (apocalyptic meaning dealing with the end of one age and the
start of another) that is lost in most understanding of this and other
texts.

The Lord’s prayer is asking God to help us live the future reign
of God in the present. In it we ask God to help us participate now on
earth in the things of that future reign that are coming through the
life, death and resurrection of Jesus. When Jesus says elsewhere that
he will grant prayers spoken in his name he is not delivering to his
followers, ancient and modern, a formula by which we might have his
power harnessed for our purposes. Instead he is stating that when we
pray in his name, we pray in his way of being in the world, loving forgiving
and serving. When he says, “Ask and it will be given to you,”
he is not stating, as some evangelicals claim, that we have but to ask
and God stands ready to give us what we want, but rather that when it
is God’s future that is the focus of our hopes and prayers then
we are surely praying for something that will come to pass. And in this
text for today, when he is asking if there will be faith on earth when
the Son of Man comes, he is not suggesting that with enough faith, our
persistent prayers will be answered affirmatively, but rather that if
our faith were place with the coming reign of the Son of Man, as it
happens in Jesus, then our faith will be placed in the right promise
and the sure future.

Messianic Hope, Messianic Prayer

According to some scholars, the messianic hopes of the people of Jesus
day were fixed on the new age that would be ushered in as the messiah
would come. This age, predicted by Isaiah and other prophets, came with
specific expectations. Many traditions about what the messianic age
would be like and how it would come had developed over the centuries.
One tradition taught that if all of God’s chosen people would
keep the Torah perfectly for just one day, the messiah would come. Another
tradition taught the people to pray fervently and faithfully each night
that the messiah might come that day.

I believe that these types of traditions form the background for this
particular saying of Jesus in Luke’s Gospel. Here Jesus appears
to buy in to the concept of persistent prayer for the coming reign of
God. But of course the messianic expectations of the people will both
be fulfilled and shattered by who Jesus is and what Jesus does. The
people faithfully pray for a messiah. But will they have the faith to
see the messiah in action, and the messianic age begin in a messiah
that defeats not the political powers opposed to the Israelite monarchy,
but rather the power of Sin and death that oppress all humanity? This
is the question, both for those original hearers of Jesus and for us
today.

For the messianic reign has indeed begun in Jesus, though it is not
yet fulfilled. The victory over death has occurred in the death and
resurrection of our Lord, but is not yet fully realized in the world.
Thus we too continue to hope for the final coming of the messianic age
that is already present, but not fully apparent among us.

For in Jesus, God has indeed answered the prayers of humanity, who
persistently cry for justice and an end of oppression. Yet so many of
us lack the vision and the faith to see them. We still live as if the
world has not changed. We still return violence for violence and hate
for hate. We fail to see the signs of God’s new age and so we
fail to live as if it were true.

Fortunately, God’s action does not depend, as the people of old
once thought, on our ability either to keep the Torah, or to pray. God
has already acted in Jesus, and continues to act decisively in our world,
despite our lack of faith. Faith, or the lack of faith, neither hasten
nor postpone the action of God to bring justice to our world and our
lives, after all. What our prayer does, what faith in God’s way
of being in the world does, is connect us to the hope and fulfillment
of God’s promises in such a way that we are able to affirm humanity
at the same time as we say no to injustice in our lives and in our world.

One way in which this might be made concrete in our world today is
to look at the current “War on Terror” that is being waged
by our government. Both candidates for U.S. president have followed
a line of thinking that says, “we must bring those who commit
acts of terror and the nations that sponsor them to justice.”
This is good and right, but only to a point. What most people, both
candidates included, fail to address seriously are the issues of poverty,
injustice, and oppression that make certain peoples vulnerable to the
desperation that leads to terrorism. A serious prayer for and call for
justice would also examine the roots of the problem and address them.
Could we not fight terrorism by also attacking at its roots? Could we
be persistent in prayer AND action by seeking to bring to justice those
governments, including sometimes our own, who have aided those around
the world who exploit and take advantage of the poor for personal financial
gain, by seeking to redress those wrongs by bringing food, medicine,
education and other life giving gifts to those most affected rather
than the death giving military response that seems to be favored at
this point? Can we be faithful to a Lord who chose to die rather than
raise an army? Can we follow one who called on us to love our enemies
and pray for those who persecute us? If not, then Jesus question as
he comes to us each and every day of our lives, whether he will find
faith among us, is certainly appropriate and the answer may not be as
pleasant as we like.

The Gospel connection

The fortunate thing here, again, is that God’s coming reign does
not depend on us at all. God is at work for justice even when we are
not. God loves and cares for all humanity even when we dehumanize and
discard one another. God’s way of bringing justice is to join
our suffering and redeem it, even when we suffer and visit suffering
on one another. That is what we learn from Jesus way of being in the
world.

And it is precisely this one who calls us and inspires us to follow
this new way; just as God called people to resist oppression and form
free societies here and elsewhere in the world; just as God called people
to resist oppression with non-violence that lead to change in South
Africa and India abroad, and in our cities and towns during the civil
rights movement in our own nation over the last century. Those who lead
these movements were people who understood that violent response to
injustice only breeds more violence and injustice. God’s way is
to follow another path to freedom as oppression’s root cause,
death, is made impotent by the resurrection of Jesus. The only question
left is will we have the faith to participate in that freedom now? Or
will we fail to see it, and only hope and wonder why God is not answering
our prayer the way that we want? In this case our persistent prayer
is not about getting justice the way we want it so much as to connect
us to God’s way of being in the world and to make us a part of
his coming reign, which indeed is coming swiftly.

Rev. Dr. Luke Bouman
Tree of Life Lutheran Church,
Conroe, Texas
lbouman@treeoflifelutheran.org