There was a certain woman in a church I was once a part of. Every single Sunday, during every prayer and sharing time, when the microphone was passed around this woman would stand up and make a lengthy announcement about some type of justice work, inviting us to participation and prayer: “Come and join the anti-war protests and come to visit those in prison and come and pray at the vigil to abolish the death penalty…come and serve meals at the shelter with unhoused folk.”
If you were a regular in those pews…you would know that when the mic headed her way, every single week this woman would stand up and give a prayerful petition for justice to all of us and to God. Now some weeks she could be long-winded, some weeks I’m sure people tuned out when she shared yet again, sometimes such prayers can be annoying in their vigilance.
In today’s gospel text Jesus tells a parable about a frustratingly faithful woman, a widow petitioning for justice, and a man, a judge, who could care less about justice, be it human or divine. The woman of the parable is unnamed – but I imagine that each of you can think of somebody who has been unrelenting in their quest for justice.
For me it was this woman at a church I attended. For Jesus, I imagine it was first of all his mother, who sang prayers before he was born about God bringing the powerful down from their thrones, and lifting up the lowly, and filling the hungry with good things, and sending the rich away empty. Who comes to your mind – a woman, or another person – who has relentlessly, prayerfully, pursued justice?
The widow of our parable cries out for justice against her opponent. We don’t really know who she is or who her opponent is – or what injustice is afflicting her. Has she struggled to find housing? Has violence been committed against her? Have her former inlaws withheld resources from her? We don’t know the particularity of her struggle.
All we know is that her husband has died. Traditional avenues to pursue justice would have come through a husband or other male family members, but here she stands alone. And even though the Hebrew Bible is full of reminders to care for the widow and the orphan – as vulnerable people without the stability of family structure in the ancient world – the widow of Jesus’ parable acts independently. She is persistent – the text says that she “kept coming” to the judge and saying, “Grant me justice against my opponent.”
We know this judge. We too can think of people seated in weighty positions of power and authority and responsibility, entrusted by our society to uphold justice and equality for all yet who merely enrich themselves and their small-circle of friends.
We too can think of judges who do no justice, and courtrooms in which the vulnerable appear day after day week after week or never gain access at all, and it seems that no justice is done.
The precarity of a widow, or of someone appealing an immigration case, or the indigenous Apache Stronghold organizers protecting Oak Flat, or any number of people and communities petitioning the powerful, remind us that unjust judges continue to remain seated in courtrooms, with respect for neither God nor humanity.
Jesus, journing towards Jerusalem, aware of all that he would face there, also knew about unjust judges and their death-dealing ways.
Our story is ultimately not about the judge and how awful he is. Yet we should be heartened by our story’s reminder even for his self-centeredness, the judge is ultimately human and he wants an orderly court room and doesn’t want the prayer and sharing time to stretch on and on any longer than the rest of us do. The judge relents – to the widow’s incessant, week after week demand, not out of the kindness of his heart or because he had a wake-up-call where he finally grasps the responsibility of his role.
No – the judge relents because of this woman’s tenacity to hold him accountable. The judge relents because he doesn’t want to be embarrassed by this woman. Literally, the text says, the judge doesn’t want to get slapped in the face, or get a black eye from this woman… he is worn down by her relentless barrage, demanding justice.
God is not an unjust or aloof judge that we have to wear down with our efforts in faithful prayer and action. God is the bringer of justice, a friend of the poor, a comfort to the afflicted. God hears our cries and all cries for justice. Jesus turns our attention to the faith and bold confidence of the widow in his conclusion to the parable: “Yet when the son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” Jesus asks. I’ve told you a story about faith, Jesus seems to say, “Will you, too, exhibit such, prayerful boldness!”
It is one thing to petition the powerful of our world, the judges of our day, with such incessant, annoying, petitions if there is a guarantee of our tactical success. If by such unrelenting demands, we could know that our demands would be granted.
And this type of strategic prayer and protest and nonviolence work is certainly called for, especially in this current moment when we must hold the powerful accountable and commit ourselves to protecting vulnerable people across our country.
But Jesus calls us even a step further. Jesus asks us to pray and to protest even when there seems to be no assurance that anything will come of our petitions. Jesus calls us, like the woman, to raise our voice, even if it feels like no one else stands with us.
Jesus, calls us to cry out for justice, even when we scarcely have the capacity to even imagine how that justice will be come about. Jesus tells his disciples and tells us about the need to pray always, because prayer joins us with the very work of God. God is the bringer of justice and our prayers join our action and our contemplation with that of God.
“Pray always and don’t lose heart,” Jesus says. May we like, the brave woman of Jesus’ story, exhibit such relentless persistence in the pursuit of justice and the practice of prayer. May Jesus find that kind of faith among us.
Please pray with me: God, bringer of justice, sustain us with your Spirit of courage, so that our prayers may be protests against all that is unjust and ugly. May our hands join yours in your work of healing and wholeness. May our lives be transformed so that we would know your peace. Amen.