Luke 18:1 - 8
Mother Theresa got n appointment to
see the president of a large corporation and used her time to ask him
for a sizable donation to her charities. He told her that this
wasn't a good time for such a donation because the future of the
company was a little uncertain. She thanked him and left. Later as
he was leaving his office he saw her sitting there in the waiting
room. “What are you doing here,” he asked. She replied, “You
told me that it wasn't a good time for a donation, so I'm waiting
here until it will be a good time.” She got the donation. She
knew how to pray always. But maybe that's not what this parable is
all about.
I don't want you to call me a heretic,
but one of the things I don't like about Saint Luke is that he always
tells us why Jesus told a particular parable. If you know something
about how the gospels were put together, Luke, like the other
evangelists, was writing the story of Jesus for a particular
audience, in this case, for gentile Christians. Luke is also
concerned about the poor, those who are outcasts, those who are
neglected by society at large. When he tells the story of Jesus, he
uses the information he has in order to make his point. Is the Holy
Spirit there? Of course. Does Luke;'s gospel reflect what God wants
us to know about his will for us? Of course. Does Luke's
interpretation of why Jesus told a particular parable reflect Jesus'
own reasons? Maybe not always. Because Luke has collected the
parables Jesus told, and he has the framework of the Gospel of Mark,
and he wants to show the Gentile Christians that they are as much
welcome in the Christian community as the Jews, and he wants most of
all to show those who read the story of Jesus that Christianity is
about caring for those who can't defend themselves, those who are
helpless, at the margins of society.
This parable on the surface seems to
say that if we bother God enough, He will come through. If we pester
and beg and nag, we'll finally win Him over. But our human
experience is not like that. We all have had prayers that have
seemingly not been answered; we've all been disappointed by God.
Some of us finally give up and stop praying; others continue to pray,
but make excuses for God. “God always answers our prayers,” we
tell each other, “but sometimes the answer is 'no'”. And Luke is
to blame, He is the one who tells us that if we nag God hard enough
He will give in.
But for a moment imagine that you are
hearing this story from Jesus' lips. You have not heard the
introduction to the story that Luke gives. Look at the story with
fresh eyes. Jesus makes sure we know that the judge doesn't fear God
or man. And he is unjust. He takes bribes, he condemns innocent
people, he can be bought. Does that sound like God? Not really. In
fact, it sounds a little bit like a lot of people I know, people who
might think about God on weekends but not the rest of the week.
People who make compromises, people who look the other way when
injustice is happening, people who don't want to rock the boat, who
are great at coming up with excuses. “Those drug addicts brought
their troubles on themselves.” “Those undocumented immigrants
should have known better than to break our laws and enter our country
illegally.” “I know that there are people who need help, but
even if I gave everything I had it would hardly be a drop in the
bucket.”. In fact, it sounds a lot like me. Saint John Chrysostom
said that if we have two outfits and our neighbor has none, one of
our outfit belongs to our neighbor. If that is the case, there are
about nineteen people who have a share in my wardrobe. I am the
unjust judge.
And who is the widow? Maybe the widow
is God. Maybe the widow is standing outside constantly nagging at me
to change my ways. Maybe no matter what I do, no matter how I try to
shut her voice out, she never stops, she persists, she doesn't give
up. She wants my sinful soul, she wants my heart, she wants me, and
won't give up until I am hers or until I definitively reject her when
I die.
Should we pray always? Of course.
But we should pray in response to God's constant overtures to us. We
should pray because we want to know what God wants from us, what is
his will for us. And we should pray because we owe God, in justice,
our whole beings, everything we have. And we should pray in the
humility that we probably can't love God the way we should, but we
can at least love Him in our own fallen, selfish and human way. And
that may be enough, because the unjust judge responds, not because of
justice, but because of shame, of fear, of public opinion.
God wants us and will take us no
matter what our reasons turn out to be – just so we give ourselves
freely to him.
The poet Francis Thompson was a drug
addict and an alcoholic, and in order to keep body and soul together,
sold newspapers on the streets of London. He had a conversion
experience, stopped using drugs and alcohol, and spent the rest of
his life between the tabernacle and helping other street people. He
wrote poetry, and his most famous poem was the one he called “The
Hound of Heaven”.
I FLED Him, down the nights and down
the days;
I fled Him, down the arches of the
years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the mist of
tears
I hid from Him”.
But God pursued him, in the words of
the poem, "with unhurrying chase, and unperturbed pace,
deliberate speed."
As the poem goes on, the author cannot
shake the Hound of Heaven, who keeps pursuing him no matter what he
says or does, no matter where he hides, until he finally gives up, at
which point he surrenders himself to the relentless pursuer, who
turns out to be a perfect lover.
If I am the unjust judge, there is no
hope for me. But if God is the widow, there is hope, because God
will not stop banging on the door and calling out to me until I
answer with justice and mercy of my own.
