FINDINGS II


Proper 24 - C - October 17, 2010

Luke 18: 1-8


 
Harry T. CookBy Harry T. Cook
10/11/10


 

Luke 18: 1-8

Jesus told his disciples a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart. He said, "In a certain city a judge lived. He neither feared God nor had respect for humans. In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, 'Grant me justice against my opponent.' For a while, he refused her; but later said to himself, 'Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, yet this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continuing to come before me.'" And the Lord said, "Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them. And yet, when the One Like Us comes, will he find faith on earth?" (Translated and paraphrased by Harry T. Cook)

 

 

RUBRIC

Synthesis as a process is an exegete's friend, and indeed, an expositor's. The subject of the passage at hand is "prayer," or what we might call persuasive argument as in that which an attorney before the bar might make to judge or jury. With synthesis in mind, consider that a close parallel, thematically speaking, to the importunate widow is the persistent Abraham at Genesis 18: 22-33 trying to talk Yahweh out of destroying the city of Sodom. The widow won't go away until she gets the justice she believes she deserves (did she deserve it?), and Abraham is willing to test the testy patience of Yahweh until he obtains the promise of leniency if at least 10 righteous ones may be found there. Thus when Luke depicts Jesus as telling his followers never to give up in the matter of asking what they needed, never to lose heart on the way, he was not talking about a pious, mewling act but of a robust petition, expectant of success. Such self-advocacy takes what the text calls "faith," that is, trust that the outcome sought is the right one and courage to pursue it to the end -- "faith" not being here a passive reliance on an external force or power.


WORKSHOP

Continuing the use of material unique to Luke, we now consider the parable of the unjust judge -- a confusing passage some commentators think may be a fugitive from a lost context. The burden of it seems to be that human persistence in prayer will avail, that more prayer, that more intense prayer, more prayer over a longer time may avail.


The effect of the parable is that the disciples should persist in asking for what they must have, and should never give up. -- Here the Benedictines help us with their rule of life: "Ora et labora," pray and work. Add an "s" to "et" and you have "est," as in prayer IS work. One can pray that the rule of God should dawn, but can just as well work for its dawning. I suppose it is to join Pelagius in ignominy to suggest that it is possible to effect that rule through human initiative. If that rule is within us as the gospels' Jesus proposed, our fellow heretics may not have been that far wrong. Persistence is possibly the key.


Speaking of persistence: the widow is an interesting figure -- largely powerless and generally without partisan or advocate in first century Palestine. Unable by law and custom to inherit what estate her husband may have left, she would have to depend upon the judicial system for a redress of grievances. The character to whom she is depicted in the parable as petitioning is in Greek a "kritās," one who weighs, assays, discerns what is right. Our word "critic" comes from it. Luke does not bother with the widow's particular issue, but in real life it may well have been a question of economic justice.


But the "kritās" is "adikias," i.e. "without rightness," caring for neither divine nor human opinion. He cannot be bothered with the imprecations of the troublesome widow and her nickel-and-dime complaints. Luke lets us into the mind of his dramatic antagonist (the widow is the protagonist) by making us privy to the calculation of the "kritās:" "Because this widow vexes me with her continual petitions, I will rule for her before she gives me a 'poke in the eye'," which is almost the literal translation of the Greek at this place.


A ham-fisted contrast is made between the judge without rightness and God. God, Luke's Jesus says, will vindicate from among his chosen those who keep up the racket day and night. What's more, there shall be no delay unlike the waiting game the widow had to endure.


Then Luke puts these words on the lips of the parable teller: "Even so, will the One Like Us find such faith on earth when he comes?" This suggests that the widow's dogged persistence in seeking justice for herself should be the model of discipleship for those who will seek justice for the poor, and that the obduracy of the judge-without-rightness is like the hard-heartedness of society's economic and social rigidity, its practice of exclusion and the neglect of the already poor.


The disciples are to pray/work for the realization of the divine rule through the living out of the Jesus ethic both by precept and example. The "faith" sought by the coming One Like Us is a risk-taking willingness and readiness to practice that non-violent communal ethic, even and maybe especially in the face of scorn.


If the powerless widow could extract justice from an unjust, uncaring system, who cannot?


HOMILETIC COMMENTARY


It is tempting in a complex society to throw up one's hands and say, "I quit." One can go to the polls at every election, cast his or her vote and always be in the minority. One can write his or her congressman or senator, but know that he or she will never actually read the letter and, if it is actually answered, the reply will be boilerplate. One can invest the time and energy in grassroots organizing, local party caucuses and end up being unable to move a legislator or a legislative process to do the right thing. It is said that the way to cure the constant pain in one's head is to refrain from pounding it against a brick wall. Commonsense tells one to cut his losses and move on. That, however, is not what the parable of the judge-without-rightness counsels. Its counsel is that of Winston Churchill in some of the most discouraging days of the second Great War: "Never give up . . . never surrender." What if he and England had given up, had surrendered?


� Copyright 2010, Harry T. Cook. All rights reserved. This article may not be used or reproduced without proper credit.


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