Tale of a feisty widow - Twenty first Sunday after Pentecost

LUKE 18: 1-8

You know, there are times when I get angry about the safe conformist Jesus to whom I was introduced in my childhood. Why? Because the more I learn about Jesus, the more I realise that I have learnt a picture of Jesus which needs to be unlearnt.

You see, the real Jesus is so much less tameable than the “Gentle Jesus, meek and mild” who infected my childhood. For the real Jesus far from explaining away the world as it is, boldly invites us to go to places where we have never been before.

We see this so clearly in the parable of the persistent widow and the unjust judge - a seemingly safe story which challenges our temptations to live lives of quiet acceptance.

First let’s look at the widow. She is a feisty sort, the sort who would seem to have hit on girl power long before the Spice Girls revealed both “girl power” as a slogan and a disturbing 20th Century reality that the lack of talent is no barrier to fame and fortune. Anyway, our widow had no pop moghals behind her and yet still she was able to make every bit as much noise as the inane sounds of “Tell me what you want” as Scarey, Ginger, Sporty, Baby and Posh, forced themselves upon our attention.

For a widow to create a rumpus ‘though would have been seen as quite a shock. You see, widows were the nobodies of their days. This was very much a world in which women were defined by their men. And this woman had no man anymore and so she was cast adrift upon the margins of society. We don’t know whether she was young or old for this was a time in which girls were married in their early teens. This was a time when life was brutish and far too many, both male and female had their lives cut tragically short. All we know of our widow was that life would have been painfully hard for her and any children that she had. And so she would need to seek her rights in terms of finance. After all, the alternative would be to go under, possibly even to be driven to a need to offer her body so that she might live.

Well, this widow is not prepared to be pushed around and so she determines to fight for her rights. And when she encounters a judge who refuses to address her needs, she does the girl power thing. She creates a lot of noise and pesters the judge night an day until he is driven into submission. Yes, this woman may be a highly irritating nag but I put it to you that today we could do with more of her type, people who are unwilling to be held off by the sort of officialdom which lacks a capacity to be passionate about the needs of the little people.

But what of the judge. He would seem to have been one of the Roman judges of his day. That Jesus castigates one of these representatives of Roman power offers us a sign of the political Jesus who is not afraid to rail against the injustices of the empire that dominated the world. This judge would seem to be the sort of character who has no redeeming features. He is not going to upset the powerful on behalf of a nobody - no way! As far as he is concerned, the widow can go on with suffering the hardships of life for this is a shameless judge who cares not for such a woman. He is not going to bother his sorry arse about a nobody.

Well that is until things get too much. The nagging and the threatening of the widow finally begins to get too much for him. Wearied he finally concedes;

“Even though I don’t fear God or care about men, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t continue wearing me out with her coming.”

Now of course, this judge bears no resemblance to the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ. In the face of human suffering, he is a remote figure - so totally different from our God who cares sufficiently about us to share in our sufferings and to weep as we weep. But the point is that this man who arbitrarily uses power on the basis of self interest, ultimately acts on behalf of justice for the widow. How much more does the God who is deeply committed to us, reach out to us in our times of need!

This doesn’t mean that we are called to a “name it, claim it” understanding of prayer. It doesn’t take us far in understanding the mystery of so much being cruel and unfair in the world. Nor does it suggest that we are able to manipulate or nag God into doing our will. Of course not! What we have here is a warrant to seek God amidst the unfairness of life. And if that means we end up shouting at God, so what! God can take our anger, have no fear. The real offence is not our being angry with God but the times in which we treat God with indifference.

But yet, there is another way of seeing the parable. Sure, Luke interprets it against a background of an argument to be persistent in prayer. But parables have always had the power to challenge us in unexpected ways. When we feel that we have worked them out, they come back and hit us again and again in new and unexpected ways for through his stories, Jesus is in the business of turning how we see the world upside down.

Too often we have seen prayer as about our speaking to God. All too often the prayer meeting is the home of a shopping list approach to faith. And yet surely, if prayer is about getting close to God, we need to be doing a good deal more listening than talking.

So just for a moment let us turn this parable upside down. Instead of seeing God as the judge, let us see God as the widow - a persistent voice devoid of power calling for justice. Let us see ourselves as the judge. We are challenged to follow the path of justice. Yet do we ignore the inconvenient voice that persistently challenges how we see our lives and the world. Now, might not this parable be not so much about our asking God to act but instead be about God asking us to act. Seen like this, the parable becomes a challenge to us to truly live as the people of God daring to turn the world upside down by responding to the call of God to support the weak and to be God’s agents for liberation and grace. Now the parable challenges us to our very core And the essential question becomes not so much as to when God will favour justice but when will we have the faith and obedience to do God’s will in our world.

There we have it - a fascinating parable with the power to be dynamite in our world.


This sermon was preached at Northam Methodist Church on Sunday October 21st 2007