Homily for the 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Church of the Resurrection, Cincinnati
October 16, 2016
(based on Exodus 17:8-13; 2 Timothy 3:14-4.2; Luke 18:1-8)
It would be easy to read this parable as a simple exhortation touching on our life of devotion or piety. A generic command that we be persevering our prayer. Pray always; stay at it even when you’re weary. End of story.
That’s a special risk because this is one of the few parables in Scripture where Jesus himself explains the point of a parable, and he says that’s what it means.
But actually if we take only that lesson away from our reading we would miss some very important aspects and drain off the real power of the whole. There is a lot more at stake here than personal piety.
If we want to appreciate what’s really going on here, we need to try to hear it as the disciples first heard it.With their ears, as it were, within the confines of their culture.
Let’s start with the main character. Who is she?
In our imagination we might see an elderly woman—and miss the key identifier. She’s a widow. And that makes all the difference. When the disciples heard the word ‘widow’ it surely would evoke in them a whole host of references from their scriptural heritage.
The status of widows came up again and again in the preaching of the prophets over centuries. They were one of three classes of people singled out over and over as the special object of God’s love—and the special responsibility of the people of Israel. The three were the orphans, the widows, and the stranger in the land. (We might translate the third group in today’s world as aliens, or immigrants, or perhaps homeless vagabonds. Outsiders in any case.)
Why are they singled out? Because they are the people who had no power in society. They were really outside the law, with no rights and no supports. They were the left-out; the invisible; the forgotten. Since the law did not protect them the prophets cried that it was up to the Israelites as a people to care for them.
And what is this widow asking for? Or, indeed, demanding?
This is not a case of someone asking for a favor: a next-door neighbor asking for a cup of sugar, or a hobo coming down the road asking for a hand-out. She is crying out for justice! We don’t know the exact details of her claim but it is clear that she has been wronged. Someone has violated her rights. And she will not be denied. The text tells us that she has been coming forward continuously.
You know, we can trivialize the act of prayer by what we pray for. People pray that they’ll win the lottery, or that their favorite team will win some children’s ball game. That kind of thing. We can reduce the All-holy God to a function of our need.
In contrast, this widow is being treated unjustly. She has a claim to be heard. For her to be ignored was a serious violation of the covenant between God and his people. It’s not a private fight, it’s systemic: a symbolic of what’s wrong in the whole society.
And then we look at the magistrate. Remember, he’s not just another member of society. He has the power to redress what is wrong. He can choose to listen to her and fulfill the responsibility of his job.
Instead, Jesus tells us twice that he has ‘no fear of God, and no regard for his fellow humans.’ This is a man who has lost all sense of justice. In fact he has lost all sense of any human connection. He’s locked in his own selfish world, enjoying his status in the community, totally alienated from the demands of the covenant. His treatment of her is not merely unjust, it is a form of blasphemy.
Then the story turns into a farce. Biblical scholars invite us to see the scene as really laughable. The judge is not merely tired of her pestering. He’s afraid, as one translation has it, that she’ll give him—literally—a black eye!
When we turn from the way the magistrate deals with the widow to the way Jesus wants us to consider God’s way of dealing with us when we cry out for justice, the contrast is easy to make.
We are not praying to some abstract, detached divine beingcalled ‘God.’ That’s the god of philosophers. Our God has a name and a face. This is Yahweh-Father, a god of history, who has entered into our story. Each time there is a grand crisis in the story of the people, the Lord renews the commitment first made with Abraham: “I will be your God, and you will be my people.”
The Lord has made a promise to us, and that promise will be fulfilled. One of the adjectives frequently applied to God in the Old Testament is one I think we don’t pay enough attention to. We frequently speak of “Our loving God” or “the God of Mercy.” The Old Testament calls out to a God who is the faithful one. That speaks to the existence of the promise: Our God gives his word, and keeps it!
But that reality tells us something about who we are, and how we are to relate to the Lord in our prayer. We are the people of the Covenant, the people to whom the Lord has committed himself. When we pray we need to pray from within that identity, not merely as generic humans. The church at Vatican II proclaimed that we are not saved as isolated individuals but as a people.
When the apostles ask Jesus to teach them how to pray, how does he begin? ‘Our Father’, not ‘my Father’. And what are we to pray for above all? That his ‘kingdom’ may come. That’s a social reality promised to a people. It’s a promise of a community; a world where all people will be included as equals. A world where there are no ‘ins’ and ‘outs.’Where all are welcomed and respected and treated justly.
Even the great prophet Moses grows weary with praying. It is the community that holds up his arms when he gets weary of praying, something we can resonate with. Our concerns and needs may be unique to each of us, but we do not come to the Lord alone. We might be inclined to think of our small parish community praying together each Sunday, but it is actually joined with the one body all over the world celebrating one Eucharist.
I am fascinated with the way Moses himself prayed. When he came down from the mountain he found a people who had strayed from the Lord and was worshipping an idol, a calf. The Lord was angry, and he made an offer to Moses. “I want to destroy this evil people of yours and start over. I will make you the head of a new people.” That was a seductive offer: Moses would replace Abraham! But Moses said in effect, “Oh no! These are not my people! They are Yourpeople. You have committed Yourself to them. It was you who led them out of Egypt, You who journeyed with them by day and night through the desert; You who opened up the sea for them to cross. I won’t let you deny the promise You made. You can’t deny Yourself.”
Do we think the Lord will fail to respond to our cry for the very kind of blessing he has promised?
Jesus is the fulfillment of the promise. The proof of God’s fidelity is revealed at the supper he shares with his disciples even as he is being betrayed by one of them. At the end of that meal, in the Gospel of John, he offers a new covenant with us by offering his life. He says, “I no longer call you slaves, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father. It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you.”
It’s the same banquet tablewe approach as a people, blessed by a God who keeps his word. Let’s come with gratitude and praise. And joy.
Amen?