October 17, 2010: XXI Pentecost

Pentecost XXI (24c)
Lk 18.1-8
17 October 2010
Fr. Patrick Allen

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"Jesus told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart."  That's how St. Luke introduces this parable of our Lord's.  And that's no fun for the preacher – it kind of closes down the interpretive possibilities, doesn't it?  In fact, it makes it somewhat tempting to stop right here, but the union requires that I stretch this thing out for another ten minutes.

And actually, St. Luke's little spoiler doesn't reveal interpretation so much as it does application.  Jesus told this parable, this parable of "the importunate widow and the unjust judge" to the effect – to the end, with the goal – that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. 

The Christian disciple's prayer, her persistent, importunate, unrelenting, demanding, always and expectantly hoping throwing of herself upon the mercy and justice of God – that is the effect in us this parable is designed to produce.  That we ought always to pray and never lose heart is the goal of the parable.  And given that Jesus, the Lord of Heaven and Earth, is the one who tells this parable for that end, we may confidently assume that the better and more deeply we understand and apply its lessons, the more that goal – constant and hopeful prayer – will be realized in our lives.

So the question then is not, What is the goal of this parable?  St. Luke has already told us that.  But rather we need to ask, How does this parable achieve that goal?  And I want to talk about that, of course, but just as a matter of honesty, I think we first have to ask ourselves, and I think both our Lord and St. Luke want and intend us to ask ourselves, is this a goal we even want to see realized in our lives?  Is this a gift we actually desire?  I think it is often the case that we are unable to receive the Lord's good gifts for us because we are unable to recognize them as in fact good, and that itself, I think, is largely a matter of perspective – or we may say, of an impoverished imagination. 

C.S. Lewis once preached a sermon that became the title piece for a collection of his essays called The Weight of Glory.  In it, he put the matter this way:

... if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.

St. Luke assures us, right up front, that our Lord is offering us something, a good gift, a "holiday at the sea," in this parable – nothing less than a life of insistent and hopeful prayer, which is communion with the Father.  This is a "pearl of great price," and were we wise, we would spend all that we have to gain it.  But then again, here are these mud pies, and they really are quite nice, and they are here, now.  And there's the rub.  Because to fully receive a gift, one has to first admit need, to confess lack and absence.  Which is perhaps the gift beneath the gift here.  Because if the gift and goal is "always to pray and not lose heart," a life of dissatisfaction is part and parcel of that gift.  Dissatisfaction, after all, is what drives us to pray – we plead with the Father for more and better because what have and experience here and now is not good enough. 

President Bush the Younger when speaking of education reforms he proposed used to talk about the "soft bigotry of low expectations."  Whatever you think or thought of his specific policy proposals, it's a good and helpful phrase – well turned, too.  In offering us, calling us to, a life of insistent and hopeful prayer, we might say that Jesus is calling us out of the "soft apostasy of low expectations."  He is calling out of the easy cynicism that says "this is just the way things are and the way I am."  A cynicism that is content with my embittered and unforgiving heart, content with a splintered and splintering church, content to substitute tolerance for love; that has made peace with a warring world, a culture of consumption, made peace with divorce, abortion, poverty; a life that can no longer arouse itself to "rage against the dying of the light" and slouches off finally to the grave without protest.  Or maybe, like me, you just go home and turn on the television.

But God has promised a coming Kingdom of Life and Justice and Peace, he has sworn by Himself, and he would have us hold him to account.  Which brings us, finally, to the parable and this widow.

She is dissatisfied.  She is less than content with the current state of affairs.  She cannot abide the disconnect between the way things are and the way things ought to be.  She hungers and thirsts and demands satisfaction.   She has in some way been wronged, and so she takes herself off to the judge in her city, a judge who neither fears God nor regards man, and with her insistent prayer she demands justice:  Vindicate me against my adversary!  The unjust judge sends her away, but she returns – again, and again, and again.  Vindicate me!  Vindicate me!  Vindicate me!

This woman is the model, the picture, of the disciple Jesus would have us become.  She sees clearly.  She can imagine justice.  She is not content with mud pies but will have the promised holiday by the sea.  Like our forefather Jacob in our first lesson, she will hold on and not let go until she gets the blessing.  She is one of the blessed company of those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, and who will be satisfied. 

And that is the gift this parable delivers, its effect:  the power to see clearly, the capacity to imagine justice, and the zeal to demand it.  And, finally, that Kingdom fully come, by and through the prayers of the blessed.

But how?  And by whom?  Within the parable, of course, the answer is by the corrupt offices of an unjust judge.  And why?  Her relentless pleading, her shameless importunity, is such that finally His Dishonor gives her what she demands. Because this woman bothers me, he says.  I will vindicate her, or she will wear me out by her continual coming.

I have heard that some women can nag.  I've never experienced it myself.  But nevertheless I think I can just about imagine the dynamic at work here.  The judge doesn't care about the woman and her wellbeing, nor the justice of her cause, nor even the God whose character is the ground of all justice.  But it is worth granting her plea just to be free of her nagging.

But the point of the parable is that we serve and seek justice from a God who is not at all like the unjust judge.  And in case we're too slow to make that leap ourselves, Jesus leads us there explicitly:  Hear what the unrighteous judge says – that is, I will vindicate her, or she will wear me out by her continual coming – And will not God vindicate his elect who cry to him day and night? 

And here is the answer to our question.  This is how the parable brings about its intended effect; this is how it inclines and empowers us always to pray and not lose heart – by leading us to the contemplation of God's character.  If even an unjust judge will do the right thing, will deliver justice, if only to be rid of the incessant pleading of the supplicant, what will the righteous God, whose character is the ground of justice, whose property is always to have mercy, the God who loves his people and binds himself to them with promises staked to his own good and holy Name – what will that God do?  I tell you, says Jesus, he will vindicate them speedily.

So contemplation empowers prayer – and specifically the prayer of the Church, the prayer taught us by the Lord:  Thy will be done, Thy kingdom come.  The discipline of seeking first and always that coming Kingdom and its righteousness stands upon the discipline of contemplating, reflecting upon, considering, wondering at, the character of God, who has promised a reign in which justice will roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream (Am 5.24).  This is the God who has led his people out the land of Egypt and the house of bondage, "The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness" (Ex 34.6,7).

But what these disciples who first heard this parable knew by type and shadow, though they knew it truly, we have seen and can know in fulfillment, because God's character – his love, justice, mercy, and holiness – we have seen unmasked on the cross of Jesus Christ.  He offered himself for us – became poor for us, suffered and died for us, "a fragrant offering and sacrifice" (Eph 5.2).  That is who God is...he is Love.  He is the one to whom we may go insistently and hopefully, confidently, seeking vindication. 

And if on the cross of Christ we have seen and may contemplate the full revelation of God's character, we have also seen the decisive beginning of the promised vindication:  "On the third day, he rose again."  In Christ, the Kingdom of Righteousness has established its foothold, its beachhead, and is coming in its fullness, and it "shall have no end."

And so, with our eyes firmly fixed on Jesus, the perfect icon of the invisible God (Col 1.15), whose perfect justice and mercy is revealed on the Cross, and having seen the vindication to God's elect in his rising from the grave, we can and ought always to pray and not lose heart.

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