Today’s gospel parable would fit right in to the 21st century news cycle: corruption, justice denied and justice received. In fact, the parable alone, without the context of teaching on prayer that Luke gives us, has made-for-TV-movie written all over it.
In a certain city there was a widow.
To understand the nuances of that description by gospel standards, the movie gives us background on the woman’s character – dedicated to good works, a moral and faithful example in her own community.
And still, one of the most vulnerable people – imagine her losing her home as a result of the crummy economy and corrupt banking practices, with no one to support her. She stays in homeless shelters, and can’t get a lawyer to take her case.
That case is being heard by a certain judge, known by all to be corrupt – not interested either in enforcing the law, nor guided by any recognizable moral standards.
So she shows up daily in his courtroom, demanding justice even after her case has been dismissed.
She confronts him on the street, screaming in his face. She shows up at political fundraisers he attends, creating noise and disruption.
She sleeps on the street at the front door of his house.
She sleeps on the street at the front door of his house.
The English translation of the judge’s description of this persistence is entirely too gentle. In the original Greek, he more literally fears that she is giving him a black eye – with the implication of both physical threat and visible embarrassment.
Somehow, our hero the widow manages not to get thrown in jail for either stalking or contempt of court, and the judge reopens her case, resolves it with justice – not just fair application of the law, but God’s justice which uplifts the oppressed.
The music cues us to reach for the Kleenex as she returns to her home, her good works, and her community.
Then just before the credits roll, we hear Jesus’ narration: “If such a corrupt, flawed system provides justice in the end, don’t you understand that God’s justice comes sooner and stronger. So be persistent in prayer and expectation.
But, when the Messiah comes, will he find faith on earth?”
Huh?
It’s a great story, and it makes clear metaphorical sense – right up until Jesus throws in that last question: When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?
Option one:
Well, of course he will. That’s what the point of this story was, right? That we should be persistent in faith. It’s our obligation, it comes with a promise, and we’ll maintain that faith for God to find.
Option two:
Jesus is answering the questions that take up the previous scene of the gospel story: “When will God’s kingdom and God’s justice come?”
And as usual, he provides not a date, but a description of how to wait.
Or there’s another possibility.
One that most commentators don’t mention; one I learned from Joey Vitti and Austin Nolan when the Journey to Adulthood youth were helping me plan our worship today.
Maybe this story is about how God is going to keep bugging us until we get it.
And that one makes a lot of sense to me.
The corrupt judge can look like a caricature of our own flaws and imperfections. As a society, it’s easy to find examples of disregard for God, or disrespect for others. We don’t, as a community, get God’s justice done consistently.
And the widow, aggressively expecting attention and justice despite overwhelming odds against – well, a lot of God’s story is like that.
We’ve been reading from the prophet Jeremiah for weeks now.
We heard first God’s insistent, dramatic, even pushy insistence on justice among the people of Israel, and a promise of disaster when justice and faith are left undone.
We hear about invasion and defeat at the hands of Babylon, a very impressive black eye.
And today we’ve reached the point in the story when the people of Israel hear God calling them to restoration, to life in a merciful and just relationship, and a chance to start again.
It’s a cycle recorded over and over again in scripture. From long before Jesus taught, God has yearned and promised to create in us the kind of faith in which prayer day and night are a natural part of our bodies and being. Preemptive, radical forgiveness, written on our hearts. Hearts that make us more like God, and more like the widow in Jesus’ story.
There is another story in the news this fall that might help us imagine what that unrelenting faith looks like – another one we may yet see as a made-for-TV-movie.
This one takes place at a mine in Chile. It too, starts out as a hopeless case. 17 days of failed attempts to dig out; rumors of corruption and unsafe practices in the news; 17 days of slow starvation underground.
It ends in wholeness and reconciliation – a world-watched hopeful, tearful restoration as 33 miners return, mostly healthy and joyful, to the world.
But it’s the middle that teaches us what Jesus teaches:
It’s the 17 days of drilling, even when rational expectation was failing.
The 52 days of insistent presence – a full court press of doctors and experts, family and friends on the surface and colleagues underground, unrelenting and proactive in their expectation that restoration would come soon. News and nutrition, tasks and plans flowed both ways, so that the miners and the rest of us were ready for any day to be the day of restoration.
That’s what Jesus and the widow are telling us about faith (and about when the kingdom of God will come) and it applies to our response to the endless, joyless economic recovery, and to more personal pain, like illness or loss.
That in prayer, in relationship with others, in everyday living, we are to act as if today is the day that the mine will be opened.
As if today is the day that the kingdom of God comes, today is the day when justice and mercy restore us to wholeness.
It’s not especially easy. We’ll get tired, we’ll get renewed, and sometimes it will seem ridiculous.
But – like the hope climbing out of a Chilean mine – this persistent faith can be both attractive and contagious.
God calls us to be as active as that widow, or a mine rescue crew, pursuing healing and justice and wholeness every day, in small ways and big ones. Not only because it’s good for us, but because our living like that is good for the world.
For most of us, there will probably be no TV movie. But our stories will still be the answer to Jesus’ question:
When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?
