PENTECOST 19, 10/20/2019

Sermon on Luke 18:1-8, by Paul Bieber

Luke 18:1-8 Revised Standard Version

1 And he told them a parable, to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. 2 He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor regarded man; 3 and there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Vindicate me against my adversary.’ 4 For a while he refused; but afterward he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God nor regard man, 5 yet because this widow bothers me, I will vindicate her, or she will wear me out by her continual coming.’” 6 And the Lord said, “Hear what the unrighteous judge says. 7 And will not God vindicate his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? 8 I tell you, he will vindicate them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

also

Genesis 32:22-31

Psalm 121

II Timothy 3:14—4:5

The Unjust Judge

Grace, peace, and much joy to you, people of God.

Luke tells us that Jesus told this parable to his disciples so that they would pray always and not lose heart. And that means that both Jesus and Luke realize that not all prayers are answered at once; indeed, some appear not to be answered at all. Otherwise why would we have to keep praying and strengthen our hearts against disappointment?

The more you pray, the more you know that not all prayers are answered—at least in ways we can understand, ways that gratify our desires, that is, God doing what we want him to do—or in ways that respond to our most desperate pleas. Because for us prayer encompasses everything from plaintive intercession for a dying child to the petition that God will intervene to find me a good parking place.

But the kind of prayer that Jesus is trying to effect in his disciples and us is praying that is “always” because it is a state of being in relationship with God, the God whose ways are not our ways and whose thoughts are not our thoughts. It is not me telling God about a situation he already knows better than I do and then telling him what to do about it. That is a prayer for my will to be done. Not what Jesus had in mind.

Of course I do have desires, some of them desperate. Suppose I slyly talked my brother out of his birthright, conspired with my mother to get for myself the blessing my father intended for that brother, engaged in a years-long struggle with my unfair uncle to get the daughter of his that I love as my wife, then, going back home to face my brother, having one more river to cross, I pray that he will not wipe out my family and household in vengeful rage. That kind of praying might feel a lot like wrestling.

And even if you haven’t had a “Jacob at the ford of the Jabbok” experience, we have all prayed that God might get us out of just this one scrape, and this will be the last time we ever . . . (fill in the blank). We might think that we’re not as bad as devious Jacob, or as that adulterer and murderer King David, but we have to admit that we do not always—all right, ever—approach the prayer desk with clean hands and a pure heart.

And so we hear the parable of the unjust judge. This is one of Jesus’ parables that draw lessons from the immoral realities of life in a broken world: an unjust judge, a dishonest steward, a greedy rich man, an unforgiving servant—bad people who become illustrations of the goodness of God. Then and now, a judge is a person with extraordinary power. Although being a widow is no easy thing today, then it meant not only the loss of her husband, but also social standing, economic livelihood—the loss of life as she had known it.

But this widow has a plan to get it all back, to be vindicated. She has a case. No details are provided about the widow’s case. Thirty years ago, when I was practicing law, advertising legal services was in its infancy, and no reputable attorney wanted to be known as an “ambulance chaser,” a lawyer who encouraged people with questionable causes of action to bring nuisance lawsuits. Now you can’t watch a television show without being urged by some “non-attorney spokesperson” to see whether you can’t cash in on some misfortune.

The widow’s persistence says nothing about the merits of her case and, from time spent hanging around the law courts in my misspent youth, I’m inclined to think she was as unrighteous as her judge. In any event, the judge never decides her case on the merits, but on the basis of his own convenience, or concern for his own reputation, or because of what he had for breakfast that day (a common explanation for judicial rulings among lawyers).

And Jesus says, “Hear what the unrighteous judge says.” Hearing the widow’s constant cry, ekdikēsan me, which can be translated “vindicate me,” but can just as well be translated “justify me,” the judge says, ekdikēsō auten, “I will justify her.” Not because of the merits of her case, but for my own reasons. I will justify her though she is weak, though she is a sinner, though we are enemies. For while we were weak, while we were sinners, while we were the enemies of God, Christ died for the ungodly.

Jesus’ own prayer in the garden that the cup of suffering might pass from him was persistent to the point of bloody perspiration, but it was not answered. It’s not that perseverance gets us what we want; perseverance permits us to go on when we don’t get what we want. And what we want—the merits of our claim—doesn’t finally matter anyway. If anything we have matters, it is our simple trust in the gracious thing that God did in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is this that cries to him day and night.

Prayer takes our focus off of ourselves and places it on God. It is a manifestation of faith. It is not a matter of our persistence, but of God’s. Will we put our faith in this God? Two Sundays ago, we heard the disciples’ plea at the beginning of the previous chapter, “Increase our faith!” Jesus said, even a mustard seed is enough. Today’s gospel ends with a poignant question: “When the Son of Man comes will he find faith on earth?”

God justifies the unrighteous, faithful to his promise. Paul calls Timothy to hold firmly to what he has been taught, to be persistent in his proclamation, and this is the proclamation. We are called to

the same perseverance in a world of competing, incommensurable claims to justice and fairness. We are called to persistence in prayer and proclamation, to the faith that is simple trust in gracious thing that God did in the death and resurrection of Christ. Faith, like prayer, is a state of being in relationship with God, a relationship of fiducia, trust in the God who, though his ways are not our ways nor his thoughts our thoughts, remains faithful to his promises, who will vindicate, will justify, will bless.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Rev. Dr. Paul Bieber
San Diego, California, USA
E-Mail: paul.bieber@sbcglobal.net

(top)