October 17, 2010 at Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK
Exodus 17: 8-13 + Psalm 121 + 2 Timothy 3: 14-4:2 + Luke 18: 1-
I did not have time this week to work on my new Gospel, and since these verses today and this parable are found only in Luke’s Gospel, I’m not sure it’s going end up in the Gospel of Norman. I need to speak about something else today, but before I do, I am anxious to remind you of a couple of things that are important for understanding parables:
1) They are about the Kingdom of God and God is the point of parables.
2) They nearly always tell a story that twists reality around creating contradictions and revealing something about God and the Kingdom of God.
With that in mind only a most shallow hearing of this parable would lead you to think that it is about prayer or persistence. Leave that alone. Go deeper. The last line of today’s reading should shift us out of that thinking and suggest that somehow this parable is about justice and faith.
Remember that in the first chapter of Luke’s Gospel Mary goes to Elizabeth and there she proclaims what we call the Magnificat – a hymn of praise and thanksgiving that in Luke’s Gospel outlines what is to come.
One of the lines in the Magnificat says: ”He will cast down the mighty from their thrones and lift up the lowly.” That expectation is what is being addressed in this parable. The powerful, almighty judge is being undone by a helpless lowly widow. The parable is being used and told to encourage and hold up the confidence of those who are tired and weary from waiting for what the Messiah’s coming had promised. For the Lukan church, it’s been a long wait for Christ’s return, and they are getting tired, confused, and discouraged.
The Kingdom of God is going to bring about a great reversal of fortunes and roles. This parable story is about the conflict between the powerful and the powerless. It is about how the powerless will prevail if they hold on to faith and live in hope. This parable speaks about Justice, and it suggests to people of faith that Justice is their greatest need, and the lack of it is the greatest obstacle to the coming of God’s reign. In other words, if you want the Kingdom of God you had better work for Justice, and if you do, anything in the way will give way. Both figures break the mold for their times. Judges are expected to act like God according to the Old Testament. Widows are expected to be quiet and stay out of the way. What we get her is another switch in the characters that can lead us to expect and believe that the way things are these days is not the way they are going to be in the future, and is not the way God intends.
When the Son of Man Comes what is he going to find is the question the parable raises?
Things the way they are with the powerful protecting themselves and their comfortable ways?
Or will the weak and powerless because they have not given up and accepted helplessly their unjust fate prevailed upon their opponents to grow more like God. Whichever of these two characters describes us, we certainly need to remember that it is not a matter of “if” the Son of Man returns, but “when.”