Jesus tells stories that engage our assumptions; and drive us to consider what it is that we’re really avoiding.
On not losing heart
Proper 24C | Luke 18:1-8
Why does Jesus believe they “need to pray always and not to lose heart”? Because he can see they already are losing it. Just like a speaker can look around the room and tell she’s losing them.
In the gap between last week’s gospel about the borderlands cleansing of the ten with leprosy and today’s teaching about persistent faith in the midst of oppression, Jesus says some stuff that I’m sure freaks them out.
He tells them some dark times are ahead. He evokes Noah and Lot: destruction and division, yes. But also God’s fury. Fury at injustice. [Notice that connection.]
Just like those disciples, we can get really tied up in these questions of what to do when all feels lost. And we get preoccupied with questions of God’s mood and God’s action, that we totally ignore the message itself.
We’ll even ignore all of this context: all of this reason to tell this parable in the first place!: just to focus on the idea of persistence. Because that’s easier to hear! We hear this and remember how that social scientist told us we need to teach our kids “grit”.
We do all of this to avoid hearing what Jesus is telling us. Because we’re afraid. We’re afraid of what we’re experiencing and we’re afraid that Jesus’s solution isn’t even close to what we want to do.
God’s Destructive Power
The elephant in the room (that I brought in—but it’s because the lectionary was trying to avoid it!) is described in philosophical theology as the problem of evil. Why does evil exist? Why do bad things happen? And, as in this case, what do we make of God’s past acts of violence?
These are important questions that have bedeviled thinkers for thousands of years. And ultimately, they leave no one satisfied. Even the smug.
But Jesus doesn’t bring these stories up to talk about the terrifying power of God. He brings them up because of why God exercised that terrifying power then. And in both cases, God spared people with any righteousness at all.
Hear that.
These moments of terror and destruction were brought upon only the people who were purely evil.
This challenges another assumption.
We have a theological conviction that there is nobody that can be so separated from God that they cannot be redeemed. Therefore, there is nobody that is purely evil. And so therefore nobody can be so destroyed.
This is absolutely true.
Which is why Noah and Lot exist for us as argument; not as act.
Jesus doesn’t bring this up to debate the problem of evil. He brings it up to make an argument about the experience of righteous people (Noah, Lot) living through utterly unrighteous experiences. And God’s unfailing commitment to the righteous for having any faith at all.
Just like when your Mom brings up that she brought you into this world, she isn’t starting a conversation about the process.
Remember the mustard seed.
The point isn’t how big your faith is or how much you have. The question is do we have any?
Yes! So pray. And pray more. And don’t lose heart. Because we will face trying times. It really is that simple.
Now apply this to the parable.
The parable isn’t an ode to persistence. It is a reminder to keep faith alive in the midst of evil and injustice.
Jesus isn’t telling a parable about some random person in a random courtroom pushing for their way. This isn’t a lesson in getting out of a speeding ticket.
This is a widow—who, remember, has very few rights in the system they lived in. She amounts to property with no owner.
And he is an unjust judge. The definitive oxymoron and hypocrite. But more importantly, the one charged with deciding between mercy and oppression. Jesus makes it extremely clear which way this guy goes…every time.
Like Noah and Lot, she is the righteous one surrounded by evil and oppression. By people seeking to maintain cruelty.
So what does she do? She keeps pushing. And pushing. Against the evil. Against the oppression. She makes herself a nuisance. And in the end, the guy relents and gives up.
This sounds like what we need to do when breaking up with Spectrum.
This also sounds like a great recipe for social action.
And it is! Jesus is telling these disciples to keep faith in the midst of oppression because it is real! This isn’t a hypothetical, maybe, just in case situation. This is as real in the halls of justice as it is in the borderlands where we throw unwanted people away like trash.
This parable is about faith and persistence. Which also means that at its heart, it’s about hope.
Hope that is based in God’s mercy for any bit of faith; any bit of mercy; any bit of love.
This is why he contrasts the unjust judge with God. Not as a reversal, but to remind us of the scale of God’s promise.
If a person with the least power in the world can get one of the most powerful people, with a heart bent on oppression, to yield, just imagine what that looks like to a God full of compassion!
You have literally done the impossible. You have gotten pure evil to do good. Something Noah and Lot couldn’t do.
Now the Son of Humanity’s eye view.
Jesus then pulls them out of the eyes of the protestor and into the eyes of the Son of Humanity, coming on a cloud.
When he arrives, “will he find faith on earth?”
When we’re afraid, we get really selfish. We think of preserving our own safety. Maybe the safety of our kids, spouse, close loved ones. But that’s about it. We shut and lock doors, close the blinds, and hunker down.
Never mind the command to love our neighbor. We throw that straight out the window at the merest sight of evil in our midst. (And then cover it back up.)
And Jesus tells a parable about a lone woman standing up to an unjust judge.
This whole teaching has the hallmarks of answering the question: what can I do? And Jesus has been talking for two chapters now about any faith being enough.
But Jesus pulls us out of ourselves and into God’s shoes. And even though God can see the faith in your heart, the real question is can God see our faith in our world?
It stops being about a hypothetical judge in a hypothetical courtroom and makes us look at all of our courtrooms. Because this isn’t just you and me: it’s our systems.
Would the Son of Humanity find any faith there?
Which isn’t a question we really want to think about.
The high profile conviction of Adnan Syed, brought to public attention in the first season of Serial, has finally ended. He is free after 23 years in prison. Twenty-three years in which the police had DNA evidence that would exonerate him. Twenty-three years in which he and his legal team exhausted appeal after appeal.
This system was not working for justice, but for inertia. Self-preservation. Fear. A lot of stuff impedes justice.
Would the Son of Humanity find any faith in this community?
I think so. He’d see it in Manna from Seven, Pathways, and Centenary’s monthly lunch program. At UCM, the refugee resettling team, and Highpoint Youth Group. And I know he’d see it in our ingathering for Toys for Tots.
We all know that he’d also find a whole lot of oppression, fear, and injustice. So we clearly have work to do.
This is at the root of Jesus’s teaching here.
That faith isn’t just about what I believe. Or even how I believe. This is only half of the conversation!
The other half is us. Who are we? Are we faithful? Are we where Jesus will find any faith at all?
Because the Son of Humanity doesn’t want to guess where it is. He wants to see it where it already is.
This is an us-parable we take for a me-parable.
And we are being reminded of our work. Internal and external. To seek more justice and more mercy in the midst of injustice and oppression.
To be generous when the world would have us cut back.
We show faith, not only to each other, but to God. To express our trust, our hope, our faith in creation. In God! And not in money or power, control or stability.
This is what Jesus teaches us to do when we’re afraid. We reach out to others. Connect with them. And destroy that impulse for loneliness and isolation. We turn toward love. Which is the boldest expression of faith there is.