Pentecost 19 C: Who is Your Widow?
Dear Partner in Preaching,
Where has the persistent widow showed up in your life? Or, maybe better, who has been the persistent widow in your life?
Perhaps it was an advocate for LGBT inclusion, motivated by the love of a gay son or daughter who is always pushing you to move your congregation to a more inclusive welcome sooner than you – charged with keeping the congregation together and therefore leery of divisive issues – were ready. Or maybe it’s the parent of a special-needs kid, asking – and, honestly, it probably feels more like demanding – more accommodation for his or her child than your congregation can affordably provide. Or maybe it’s members on different sides of a mining project, one arguing passionately for care of the creation and the other, having seen so many jobs lost in recent decades and too many families forced into poverty, arguing just as passionately that there is a way to responsibly mine that will create jobs and protect the environment, and both want you to address the issue from the pulpit.
What’s hard about all these instances is that when someone comes to advocate – or, in the words of Luke’s parable (and often in the words of those coming to us), asking for justice – you suddenly feel like they see you as the unjust judge. No, no one thinks you have no respect for God or neighbor, but they want you to do something, something you’re not sure you can or want to do, and it’s easy for that to put you on the defensive.
Now, what I find interesting about this parable is that the details of the situation are nearly non-existent. Luke reports Jesus saying there is an unjust judge and a widow demanding justice. That’s it. No word on what her cause is, who has wronged her, or what she wants. And no details about the judge’s reluctance to do so.
We know – not from the parable but from biblical and historical context – that there is a significant power differential between the two. She is a widow, among the most vulnerable in her society and, for this reason, regularly the subject of both biblical promises that God defends widows and biblical commands that we, also, should care for, protect, and advocate for the widow (Dt. 27:19, Is. 1:17, Prov. 15:25, Jer. 49:11, Ps. 146:9 and 68:5, Luke 20:46-47, 1 Tim. 5:5, James 1:27, just to offer a few!). And we might infer that because she comes to the judge on her own, she has no advocate and so is doubly vulnerable. The judge sits at the other end of the spectrum, a male with authority and respectability and the power to grant or refuse requests. This is, if there ever was one outside of 1 Samuel 17, a true David (or perhaps Danielle) and Goliath story.
And it plays out that way. Because about the only other thing we know for sure is that her persistence pays off. Eventually, the judge grants her request not from a change of heart, or any particular sympathy for her or her cause, but from fear that she will tarnish – literally, give a black eye to – his public image.
And that seems to be Luke’s point (he greatly influences our reading of Jesus’ parable in the set-up): be persistent. Or is the point not simply about working for justice but continuing to pray – for justice, certainly, but also for all the other things we need. Or is the point – sticking more with Jesus’ words – the promise that God will eventually bring justice, a word of comfort to those who feel victim to unjust systems and people and encouragement to those working for justice. Or maybe the point is the challenge at the end of Jesus’ words, about whether the Lord will find faith – faith to persevere? faith to keep working for justice, often against the odds? faith to grant justice and see in others God’s beloved children?
Rolf Jacobson, in a splendid Dear Working Preacher letter this week, outlines several of these preaching trajectories and then offers the sage advice to choose one and stick to it rather than try to cover all the bases. I completely agree. You know what your hearers need to hear (and perhaps what you need to hear and preach) better than Rolf or I. But whatever direction you go, note that we’ve – each of us – probably met this widow, and perhaps some of us have been this widow (and all of us likely have felt like we were her). And most of us have had moments of feeling like we are the unjust judge, or at least unfairly cast as the unjust judge.
What occurs to me is that part of the challenge of this parable is that whenever someone makes a case in the name of “justice,” there is suddenly no middle ground and little room for compromise or even conversation. After all, if one side is just, then anyone opposing it is unjust. That seems to be the case in the parable, but far less frequently is that the case in real life. (And the minute your mind does to the cause dearest to your heart, please think of one or two persons that you love and respect but who disagree with you. Because there almost always is someone.) Maybe that’s why even Luke – who demonstrates throughout his Gospel a concern for justice for the vulnerable – seems to struggle with what to make of it.
So perhaps one ingredient in figuring out how to preach this parable is simply to begin with a deeper empathy – the one characteristic notably absent from the judge – for the person on the other side of the conversation, be it a widow or judge or someone in between. Can our communities be the one place where we recognize that while issues and causes matter, the people behind them and affected by them and advocating for/against them matter even more? There is precious little space in the culture just now for caring conversations and incredibly few examples of mature dialogue that refuse to ignore the humanity of those who disagree with each other.
I don’t know how you might end up preaching this, Dear Partner, but I do know that I’m grateful that you’re willing to try. For the sake of the persistent widows we’ve known – and even for the judges reluctant to grant justice – and have been. For all of us crave the mercy, care, and, yes, the justice of the God we know in Christ. May your words this week help us to believe Jesus’ promise embedded in the question, “And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night?” It’s a word and promise we need to hear, and you are just the one to offer it. Thank you for your faithfulness and courage.
Yours in Christ,
David
Thank you for asking the question: who are the widows in our lives. Got me thinking.