Pray always and don't lose heart

Pentecost 22 Year C Sermon Luke 18:1-8 

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Can you remember a time when something horribly unfair happened to you? You felt like you’d been punched in the gut…all the wind knocked out of you.
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And how at first… even though you were hurt and angry… you felt paralysed and powerless…
you were devastated and depressed…
by the sheer injustice of what had happened.

It wasn’t fair…something you thought was rightfully yours…had been snatched away…
How could anyone get away with such a thing?

It’s happened to all of us…as children and as adults…
it’s certainly happened to me

Maybe what was snatched away from you…
was your reputation…maybe it was your job…your property …or your savings…maybe it was your control or your power…or maybe it was a person… someone you loved…

Whatever happened…you were left with a deep sense of injustice. You may have even felt that… God had let you down. Perhaps you… cried out loud… If God was a just God…
then this wouldn’t have happened.

And what happened next…did you…give up on God…
did you lose heart…or did you continue on to seek justice? What did you really want?
If it was justice…then you found someone who could vindicate you…who could judge in your favour… someone with the power to rule… your complaint was justified…
and order… that things be put right.  

But maybe it wasn’t justice you wanted…
maybe it was revenge…

in that case… you didn’t want compensation…
you wanted your enemy…your adversary …punished.

Now with that memory in place let’s listen to Jesus’ parable again.
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"In a certain city… there’s a judge who has no respect for God…or people. A widow keeps coming to him
to plead that he decide in her favour…
against someone who’s done her wrong.
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For a while the judge just flicks her off…
and does nothing …but… she keeps coming back…
over… and over again…she demands…‘I want justice!’
Eventually… this godless merciless judge…
comes to the conclusion… the woman’s not about to give up…and so he thinks to himself… ‘I don’t fear God and I certainly don’t care about people…but to get rid of this nuisance…I’m going to judge in her favour…
not because I actually think she’s justified...
but so she stops bothering me…  [pause]

And that’s the end of Jesus’ story…
Now he asks his friends…to pay close attention…
to what the unjust judge says. And asks them: so how much more will God bring about justice for his chosen ones… who cry out to him day and night?

Will God keep putting them off? I tell you….
Jesus says…God will see they get justice… and quickly.

[pause]

You know…there was a time when I used to think this parable meant you’ve got to wear God down…
you’ve got to keep praying away…
and eventually…God will grant what you pray for…

but now I don’t think that’s how Jesus disciples would have understood the story at all…and I’ve learned that… before we decide what Jesus means…we have to stand at the back of his original audience…first century Jews… faced with military occupation by pagan gentiles…
an Empire that neither fears Israel’s God…
nor respects human life.

All the Jews of the day…long for justice…
against their Roman oppressors…
they pray for God to reinstate the reign of his chosen people…
Two Jewish religious political parties…the Pharisees in Jerusalem and the Essenes at Qumran…
are sure...that with strict observance of Jewish laws and rituals…God would bring justice just as they dreamed of it…
the Messiah…a saviour… would drive the Romans out of Israel…and establish once again the throne of David.

And so day in and day out…they strive for religious perfection…and they pray unceasingly…for their vision
of the Kingdom of God… to come about…

And when we read Jesus’ parable of the persistent widow in context… we learn he’s just warned the Pharisees …Hey guys…"The kingdom of God doesn’t come with your careful observation…nor will people say,
‘Look…here it is,' or 'There it is.' …and why is that?

Because…Jesus says…the kingdom of God is within you."

And Jesus warns his disciples…his friends…
the political triumph Israel dreams of…
might never happen…that kind of justice…isn’t what God’s kingdom is like…in fact things are going to get worse.

and that’s when Luke reminds us… ‘Jesus told his disciples a parable… about the need to keep praying
and never give up.’

Jesus is preparing his friends for tough times ahead…warning them of an era… when not only he’s gone…but when Jerusalem…it’s Temple…and half the population are destroyed…
because Israel continues it’s rebellion against Rome.

When those days come…Jesus instructs his disciples… not to interpret it… as abandonment by God…
they are not to stop praying…they are not to lose heart

[pause]

Yes… against the power of the Roman Empire…
the Jewish nation is like a vulnerable widow…
seeking justice…and yes…like the unjust judge…
the Roman’s don’t fear God and have little respect for human life…

And yes if they grant justice at all…
it’s only because of Israel’s nuisance value…

But Jesus disciples… are not to think that God…
is like the unjust judge. God’s justice… God’s kingdom is different…it thrives within us…and even in the midst of disappointment...oppression and violence…
it persists…it lives…
so Jesus says…even when I’m rejected and executed… don’t give up… even when Rome’s legions destroy Jerusalem…and the Temple… don’t give up

God’s kingdom isn’t about triumph over your enemies…

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it’s about loving them…

[pause]

if only Israel would believe that.

Standing behind the crowd Jesus is speaking to
we learn the judges and courts they’re familiar with are very different from our own…in their day if someone stole from you…you had to bring a charge against them yourself… you couldn’t get the police to do it for you.
If someone murdered your husband it was the same.

So in Jesus’ day… a judge decided to vindicate one party or the other on the basis of their pleading; ‘vindication’ or ‘justification’ meant upholding their side of the story…deciding in their favour.

The word ‘ justification’ which we meet a lot in Paul’s letters… but hardly ever in the gospels… means exactly this: that the judge finds in your favour at the end of the case.[i]

So the question facing the Pharisees and Jesus disciples is ‘whose path…whose way… whose understanding…
will bring justification? Will God’s kingdom come…God’s will be done…at the expense of Israel’s adversaries…or will it include them?

When the final judgement comes…
who will be vindicated…who will be justified?

Will it be the religious purists…who keep the law perfectly…or will zealots… who campaign for a violent overthrow of the Romans…or will it be those who stand with Jesus and persist in faith…by carrying his message throughout the Roman Empire.

In the court of divine justice…will Israel be justified by the routing of their opponents?  Or will it be those
who oppose Jesus’ message of peace…
who ultimately lose?

As they approached Jerusalem…his arrest and execution…Jesus knew the temptation to give up would be strong for his friends. I don’t think Jesus wants us to think of God like the unjust judge at all…It seems to me it’s the widow in Jesus parable who is most like God…

for she persists…until justice is done.

And while her persistence wrings a verdict from the judge it also brings him an unexpected and valuable gift… the gift of conversion.

Her untiring efforts… turn the godless inhumane judge…from a man of in-justice into a man who does justice.
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That kind of persistence belongs only to God. And that is why Jesus asks his friends…to have faith… no matter what happens…no matter how hopeless things appear… keep your faith…keep your relationship with God alive in prayer and never give up hope that God’s will…will be done…
 on earth as it is in heaven.

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[i] I’m grateful to biblical scholar Tom Wright for this insight in  Luke for everyone