{"id":25507,"date":"2025-10-15T08:00:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T06:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/?p=25507"},"modified":"2025-10-14T20:27:58","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T18:27:58","slug":"luke-181-8-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/luke-181-8-4\/","title":{"rendered":"Luke 18:1-8"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost <\/strong> | 19.10.2025 | Luke 18, 1-18 | Ryan D. Mills |<\/h3>\n

1<\/sup>Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart. 2<\/sup>He said, \u201cIn a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people. 3<\/sup>In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, \u2018Grant me justice against my opponent.\u2019 4<\/sup>For a while he refused; but later he said to himself, \u2018Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, 5<\/sup>yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.\u2019\u2006\u201d 6<\/sup>And the Lord said, \u201cListen to what the unjust judge says. 7<\/sup>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<\/sup>I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them. And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?\u201d (Luke 18:1-8, NRSV).<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son +, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.<\/em><\/p>\n

Several years ago my wife and I watched the movie \u201cLittle Pink House,\u201d which is the story of a court case some of you might remember, centered on Susette Kelo from New London, Connecticut. Susette\u2019s little pink house and her neighbors\u2019 houses were slated to be taken and demolished by eminent domain to make room for a pharmaceutical plant along the river in New London.\u00a0 And the movie is the story of her toughness, her determination, her organizing and standing up for her neighborhood and neighbors, of her doing whatever it would take to save her little pink house and the others in her neighborhood from destruction. Of course, those of you who remember the case or have seen the movie know that her cries for justice, her demand for her rights, eventually led all the way the U.S. Supreme Court, where unfortunately she lost. Her house sadly was taken away and most of her neighbors\u2019 homes were demolished, all for seemingly nothing: today the place where her house and neighborhood once stood is empty, a neighborhood of empty lots that are home to no one.<\/p>\n

And Susette reminds me today of the widow in today\u2019s parable that Jesus tells us.\u00a0 A tough, determined, persistent widow has a court case to argue, and won\u2019t give up demanding that the judge give her justice, \u201cGrant me justice against my opponent,\u201d she cries. She won\u2019t be silent, she won\u2019t sit down, she won\u2019t give up until she gets what is right. But the judge in the case, Jesus tells us, is unjust: he neither fears God nor respects people.\u00a0 The judge reminds us of so much of the world today: he has no fear of God or any care to do what is right; he has no respect for other people, no compassion, and no sense of how to treat others as he would be treated. The judge is what today we would a narcissist, he only cares about himself; or a sociopath, other people don\u2019t matter at all to him. He shows us the worst of what the power of sin does to us, that without God and his amazing grace in our lives we collapse into ourselves, taking everybody down with us.<\/p>\n

But to this unjust judge, our persistent widow comes day and night, 24\/7, again and again, refusing to be dismissed, demanding to be heard, saying, \u201cgrant me justice,\u201d or in another translation, \u201cjustify me!\u201d<\/p>\n

And finally this unjust judge just can\u2019t take it anymore and says to himself, \u201cSelf, even though I don\u2019t fear God or respect anyone, because this woman keeps bothering me I\u2019ll give her justice, so she won\u2019t wear me out!\u201d<\/p>\n

And if an unjust judge who doesn\u2019t care about anything or anybody will give what is right to a powerless widow, well then, says the Lord, how much more will your heavenly Father who loves you give you justice and answer you who call to him day and night.<\/p>\n

See, Jesus told us this parable because he knew it\u2019s easy for us to lose heart, it\u2019s easy for us to despair about the state of the world, it\u2019s easy for us to become discouraged in prayer, it\u2019s easy for us to wrongly think that our requests fall on deaf ears.\u00a0 But if an unjust judge will answer you, how much more will your Father in Heaven, who created you, who has given you everything, who provides day to day for your every need, who has sustained you to this very moment, who longs to hear from you, and who even gave for you his only-begotten Son, how much more will the God who loves you listen to you and give you what you need? He who did not withhold his own Son from you, won\u2019t he give you everything else, far more than you could ever ask for or imagine? Jesus told this parable, the gospel says today, about our need to pray always, and to not lose heart.<\/p>\n

Prayer is just our faith breathing, it is listening to what God has to say to us, realizing you and I have been spoken to, addressed by God in Christ, and prayer is our responding in conversation with the voice of our heart, with our mind, with our lips, with our lives. I\u2019ve learned over the years that if you really want someone to pray for you, don\u2019t ask a pastor, don\u2019t just put your name on a list, but go and ask a widow.\u00a0 Like Susette they know how to pray, they know how to hold God\u2019s feet to the fire and they don\u2019t give up until he gives what is needed. There\u2019s a reason that in the early church the worshippers were instructed that the holiest thing in the sanctuary to bow before, besides the altar, were the widows, because they know how to pray, how to ask God for everything that we need.<\/p>\n

Of course the thing that we all need the most, even though we don\u2019t always realize it, is to be made right with God. We secretly wonder if we\u2019re worth it, if we are worthy enough, we fear the sins we commit and our unfaithfulness may have finally cut us off from him, we wonder if there is hope for our lives and for this world. The widow cries today, \u201cGive me justice,\u201d or \u201cjustify me,\u201d and finally the judge says, \u201cI will give her justice,\u201d \u201cI will justify her,\u201d not because of her case, not because of her wonderful merits, not because of anything, but just because he chooses to.\u00a0 And so God looks on you and me in love and says the same thing, \u201cYou are justified, you are made right with me, you are made worthy to stand, I give you what you could not do for yourself, not because of what you\u2019ve done, not because you\u2019ve earned it, but out of love, as a gift, by grace, by my choice.\u201d God chooses for his own reasons to make you his own again this morning, to give you the deepest thing that you need. While you were still weak, while we were still sinners, while you did not deserve it, Christ gave himself on the Cross for you, he died so that you could live, he was pronounced guilty so that you are indeed pronounced \u2018innocent.\u2019<\/p>\n

And he who gave everything for you, even his own life, now lives and reigns and prays for you. The amazing thing about prayer is that it\u2019s not about us, but it\u2019s grounded in Jesus continuing persistent prayers for you and me and the world, and even in God\u2019s Spirit praying within you and me before we even open our mouths. You can pray always, you can pray and not lose heart, you can pray because Jesus prays for you, and his Spirit prays within you. He prayed for you in the Garden that night in which he was betrayed, he prayed for you in those long hours upon the Cross, he prays for you now, seated at the right hand of the Father. He prays for this world still starving for justice, he prays for his broken church, purchased with his precious blood, he prays for you, for every need you know and for every need that you don\u2019t know, because every hair on your head is counted and you are fully known and precious to him. So even if our prayer is slow, and halting, and timid, it\u2019s grounded and supported by his praying and his Spirit that prays and groans within us with sighs too deep for words. \u201cGive me justice, give me what\u2019s right,\u201d we cry, and Jesus says out \u201cNot only that, but I\u2019ve given you everything, I give you myself, I hold nothing back from you.\u201d<\/p>\n

We come in a moment to the Holy Communion, where once again he gives us the gift of himself, his broken, risen body in the bread, his poured-out blood in the wine. If he gives you even that, won\u2019t he give you whatever else you need? Strengthened by these gifts, we will go back to our lives this week, to live in true faith towards God, to stand up for what is right, to love and defend our neighbors and speak well of them, and to pray always, not losing heart, knowing that the God who loves you and gave himself for you has made you his own, and will give you everything that you need.<\/p>\n

And the Peace of God which passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, Amen.<\/p>\n

\n

The Rev. Dr. Ryan Mills
\nNew Haven, Connecticut<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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