Pentecost 22-October 20, 2013
Luke 18:1-8
If the parables of Jesus don’t leave you chuckling
with delight or shaking your head in bafflement or just a little hot under the
collar…..you probably haven’t heard them in all their richness and glory. Because—whatever else we may think of Jesus’
parables—in the first place, they’re simply “thumpin’ good” stories!
And the parables are proof positive that Jesus was
willing to go to any length to get his point across. Jesus was always ready to skate right on the
edge of propriety, in order to draw our attention to what God is up to in our midst.
So this morning we have before us a parable
inhabited by two indomitable, unforgettable characters.
First there is this judge who always, it would
appear, operated as a law unto himself.
This judge neither fears God nor respects
people. He is not bound by religious
principles. Nor is he beholding to the latest opinion poll.
This judge must have had a lifetime appointment!
He reminds me of the ruthless banker in a small
town, who doled out loans with a legendary stinginess. This banker took peculiar pride in the high-quality
glass eye he had—a glass eye that almost perfectly matched his one good eye in
both size and appearance.
So one day a poor dirt farmer, hat in hand, humbly
came to the banker’s office, seeking a loan so he could plant his spring crop. The farmer, stammering, made his case while
the banker idly stared out the window.
In response to the farmer’s plea for credit, the
banker replied that he’d help the farmer out if he correctly guessed which of
his two eyes was the glass eye.
After carefully studying the banker’s face for
several moments, the farmer guessed that the glass eye was the banker’s left
eye.
Amazed that he’d guessed correctly so quickly, the
banker asked the farmer how he knew his left eye was the glass eye. “Because when I studied your left
eye—compared to your right eye—I thought I detected some compassion in it!”
Just so, in Jesus’ parable, the unrighteous judge was
a hard-nosed, unsentimental bully, accustomed to having his own way, as he
stingily doled out justice. Folks
hearing Jesus tell this parable would have had this man “pegged.” Each hearer, no doubt, could think of
someone they knew who was just as bull-headedly arrogant as the unrighteous
judge.
And then there’s the pleading widow in this parable. In terms of the power dynamics of this
story, she clearly operated at a disadvantage, compared to the judge.
This widow was utterly powerless. She was a woman in a rigidly male-dominated culture. Moreover, she was a widow—bereft of the husband who once provided her with standing in
the community.
This poor, pleading widow had only one trick up her
sleeve. She was utterly shameless in
her persistence before the unrighteous judge.
If he turned her down one day, she was back again the next, continually
knocking at his door.
Perhaps you have known such persons. When I was senior pastor at Our Savior’s on
the blue-collar north side of Moorhead, we had a steady stream of needy folks
coming to our church office for financial assistance in making ends meet. Some of their faces became familiar to us,
and I grew to appreciate their tenacity--their utter lack of shame in pleading
for help. As our long-time church
secretary once told me: “These folks are so focused on putting bread on the table
for their children that they will do anything to piece together a living…”
So the pleading widow exercised the only power at
her disposal—the power of persistence…
….and in the end, that proved to be enough to win out
over the judge’s refusal to do the right thing. “Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone,” the judge
muttered to himself—“yet because this
widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me
out by continually coming.” ’
Sometimes even an utterly unrighteous judge will
execute justice—despite himself!
And then who had the last laugh—the powerful man or
the powerless woman?
Now, my friends, that’s just a thumpin’ good story,
told with an economy of language that makes the point unmistakable.
And what was that point? More specifically, why did Jesus spin this particular yarn?
I think simply this: to reveal God unfailing mercy by painting a
vivid, memorable image of how God does not—never,
ever, ever—treat us.
The unrighteous judge is the exact mirror opposite of our ever-ready,
always-listening, endlessly merciful God.
When I was a seminary student many years ago I had
two professors of preaching. One of them
had completed no formal graduate work in homiletics, the art of preaching. But he was a great preacher, and we seminarians
soaked up all sorts of learning simply by hearing him preach.
The other professor had a doctorate in homiletics
but was abysmal in the pulpit. He couldn’t
preach his way out of a paper bag.
And yet I figured out a way to learn from him
nonetheless. I found that if I as a budding
preacher did everything the opposite of how he did it—I just might become a fairly
decent preacher.
It’s been said that no one is utterly useless; you
can, after all, always serve as a horrible example to someone else!
That would be the unrighteous judge here in this
parable.
Carefully trace the outline of this awful judge’s
face—and then reverse that image,
turn it around 180 degrees….and you’ll catch a glimpse of God, who doesn’t need
to be brow-beaten into responding to us, who sits on the edge of his seat—eager
to hear us, who starts to answer our prayers even before we give them voice!
Whenever
you make your case before God, whenever you throw yourself “on the mercy of the
court” before God--you will never walk away empty-handed.
And we’re talking about more than just your personal
“wish list,” here. We’re talking about
the big, wide, deep prayers that bubble up from deep inside of us---prayers for
God’s merciful, sustaining presence with us…pleadings for the advent of God’s peaceable
kingdom among us….longings for God’s good and gracious will to be done “on earth as it is in heaven.”
The first century Christian community for whom Luke
wrote his gospel probably knew what it was like to be backed up against a wall by
persecution. They no doubt lived with
the nagging frustration of crying out to God and not getting the answer they
sought as quickly as they wanted it.
Jesus told and Luke retold this parable to bring
them—and us—the courageous trust we all need, sooner or later--to believe that
God never turns a deaf ear toward us and that God will never leave us hanging
high and dry.
In fact, our faith
will run out long, long before God’s tenacious grip on us will ever give out. (I take that to be the thrust of Jesus’ final
question here in our gospel lesson.)
And even then, when our knuckles are bruised from knocking,
when our voices have become hoarse, when laryngitis stops us dead in our
prayers, another voice will pick up where we leave off--the gentle whisper of
the Spirit who continually pleads for us “with
sighs too deep for words” (Romans 8:26).
My friends, when it seems that you and I just can’t
pray any longer, let us remember Who it is we’re praying to--the One “who did not withhold his own Son, but gave
him up for all of us--will he not with him also give us everything else?” (Romans 8:33)
When we lose heart in our praying, let us not forget
that Someone else will pick up our petitions and plead our cause before God the
mercifully responsive righteous Judge who will never, ever, ever send us away
empty-handed.
In the name of Jesus.
Amen.
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