First Presbyterian
Church of Inglewood
100 North Hillcrest Ave
Inglewood, California
90301
Telephone numbers:
(310) 677-5133 Fax (310) 330-8342
Electronic mail: PRESBYTS@SBCGLOBAL.NET
Sunday, February 7,
2010
Rev. Dr. Harold E. Kidd
Luke 18: 1 - 8
SHE WOULDN’T TAKE NO
FOR AN ANSWER
“And
there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me
justice against my adversary.’” Luke
18: 3
We are well aware that Jesus often
spoke in parables. Parables were a customary method of teaching by Jesus in
which he would take people, customs, and settings out of the life situations of
His hearers in order to drive home a principle within the kingdom. “You are the
salt of the earth, but salt which has lost its savor is good for nothing.” “I
am the vine, you are the branches. Apart
from Me you can do nothing, but abide in Me and I in you, and you shall bear
much fruit.” “A Farmer went out to sow. And some seed fell on stony ground,
some by the wayside, some was taken up and eaten by the birds, and some fell on
good ground.” Yes, He taught them in parables many truths concerning the
kingdom of God.
This Parable of the Persistent Widow is
used by Jesus to teach us about being persistent in prayer. We should never
give up on our prayers or in our prayers. The first verse of this text informs
us, ”Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should
always pray and not give up.” Amen. Never give up on prayer, meaning never think
that God has not heard our prayer. Never give up in prayer, meaning cease not
to pray without ceasing. Pray on until you have prayed through.
No matter how delayed the answer, no
matter how difficult the challenge, no matter how impossible the request might
appear from a human point of view, the Lord is teaching His disciples and used
to never give up in praying, but that we should always pray and not faint.
The parable tells of an occurrence
that happened quite often in Palestine and which Jesus’ hearers would have been
quite familiar with. Washington, D.C.,
or any other municipality for that matter, is not the only place where those who
hold the power of legislation can oftentimes be found in misuse of their
authority and position. He says that “in a certain town there was a judge who
neither feared God nor cared about the people within his jurisdiction.” He was
dispassionate and ill concerned for the people who came to him seeking justice
and/or mercy. This judge was most likely
one of the paid magistrates appointed either by Herod or by the Romans. Such judges were notorious for being
unethical. And because these judges were
not of the faith, very rarely did they exercise any kind of compassion in
formulating the decision in their rulings.
In other words, unless plaintiffs had
influence and money to bribe their way to a verdict, they had no hope of ever
getting their case settled. They were at the mercy of the judge. The Jews commonly referred to these kind
judges as “robber judges.” So within the legal system of Palestine, there were
those judges who were in it solely for the political favors and money that
their position could demand. So here in
this parable we have one person who is in a position of high authority, and he fears
neither God nor people.
The other person in this parable is a
widow who, says Jesus, “kept coming” to this unscrupulous judge continually
with a plea for justice. We don’t know
her particular circumstances, what wrong had been done against her, but we do
know that she kept coming before this judge with a plea for justice.
The widow was, in the Old Testament
as well as in the New Testament, the symbol of all who were poor and
defenseless. After the death of a
spouse, widows most often were left to live out their lives in destitution. In those days there was no such support
programs as AARP, Survivor’s Pension, Medi-Cal, or Medicaid. No lump-sum death benefit upon the death of a
spouse. Widows were therefore subject to
the mercy of the culture which paid them no mind.
Jesus says in Matthew 25, “As you’ve
done it unto the least of these, you’ve done it unto me.” Widows would have
been placed in the societal grouping of “the least of these,” meaning the
powerless and the voiceless. Yet, while being
of such a lowly position within their society, widows, we are reminded, play a
prominent role in God’s salvation history. Amen.
Ruth, with a Book in the Old Testament
bearing her name, is a young widow through whom God will some day produce the
grandfather of David. When Naomi decides
to return to Bethlehem after the death of her own husband, Elimelech, Ruth is
the one who clings to Naomi expressing words of faithfulness in saying,
“Entreat me not to leave you or to return from following you. For wherever you go, I will go, and wherever
you lodge, I will lodge. Your people
shall be my people and your God my God.” Though a poor young widow, God has
highly favored her.
In 1 Kings 17, God used a widow at
Zarephath to house and sustain His prophet Elijah during a three-year famine. All she had was a handful of meal and a little
jar of oil, but because she was willing to share what she had with God’s
prophet, God supplied what she needed, and He raised her near-dead son through
the ministry of Elijah.
Then the person whom Jesus uses to
teach us the value of sacrificial stewardship in love and devotion to God is
the widow with the two mites. You recall
the story. As Jesus watched their giving, he said to His disciples, “This poor
widow has put in more than anyone, for they have given out of their abundance,
but she has given out of her poverty all that she had.” So the Lord uses a poor
widow to teach us that it’s not about the amount, but the weight of the sacrifice.
So we come to understand that, while widows
had no value in their society, they were highly favored by God. Hallelujah! I wish I knew how to make it plain.
This widow then, given the condition
of widows in the Old and New Testaments, was without resources of any kind and
little, if any, hope in ever gaining justice from such a cold-hearted judge.
So here we have a striking contrast between
two persons and their positions within their society. One has power, position, and prestige; the
other has no position, no power, and is at the bottom of her social ladder. One, by the power of his word, can make it so,
the other is a voiceless minority, invisible to the powers that be. This widow may not have had what the judge had,
but there’s something she has that elevates her above the judge. Her power is in her persistence. And her persistence gives her position because
he comes to realize that she ain’t going nowhere, until he rightly deals with
her case.
She has persistence. She refuses to give up. She will not be denied. She won’t take no for an answer. She believes that she is in the right, and
furthermore she believes that right makes might. And if we are trying to do the right thing,
God who is the God of all righteousness will come see about us. Because God is the God of Justice and Mercy.
Finally after this continued
agitation, after being worn out by her constant reappearance, he’d send her
away, and back she would come. He’d send
her away, and up she pops again. He’d
send her away -- maybe a day would pass
maybe two, maybe three weeks, maybe even a couple of months, we don’t
know how long -- but as sure as the sun does rise and the sun does set, sooner
or later there she was, like a broken CD track, playing the same old tune,
singing the same old song over and over again. “Grant me justice against my adversary.”
He probably asked her on more than
one occasion, “Woman, don’t you ever get tired?” Wherein she may have replied something like, “Judge,
I don’t have time to be tired. If I
don’t stay after my justice, it ain’t gonna happen.” And because she kept coming back, kept coming
back, wouldn’t take no for an answer, kept working on her justice, kept
reminding this judge that justice had not been served, it gave her power to
change the outcome.
Now the judge may have taken it lightly,
but she went away saying within herself, “I got justice.” Doesn’t matter what he thinks, I got it. He may see it as trivial pursuit on my part,
but it’s all the world to me and that’s all that matters! “I got justice.”
The power of India’s dream to free
itself from British rule under Mahatma Gandhi and the power of the civil-rights
movement under Dr. King and the power of the poor peoples movement in Latin
America during the turbulent 1970s, as many Catholic bishops and laity put
their lives on the line against corruption in government who continued to oppress
the poor, had nothing to do with financial clout or knowing people in high
places, but like this poor widow, they were all built upon the power to
persist.
And Jesus closes this parable with a
real-life application. If an unrighteous
judge who neither fears God nor man can be wearied into giving a widow woman
justice, how much more will God, who is our loving heavenly Father, the God of
all justice, not give His children what they need?
Just because God has not yet
answered, doesn’t mean He has not heard. It may be in the next hour, the next week, or
the next year, but God will answer our prayers. So Jesus says, “Don’t give up in your prayers.”
And the principle applies to every area
of our living. Whatever it may be, like
this widow, keep bringing it before the Lord in prayer. Keep doing the best that you can do with it,
but keep it before the Lord in prayer.
Unlike this judge, God is not wearied
with our many requests and constantly coming before him with the same
petition. He’s just using the time to build
in us a praying spirit. He’s just using
the time to make it so that all things work together for our good. He’s just using the time so that we can
understand that our prayers keep us while we are waiting on the answer.