C Proper 24 29 Ord Col Paul 2025
Luke 18:1-8
October 19, 2025
In the stories Jesus would tell, he would use
Jewish archetypes, word symbols, that had a history, to share his meaning and
message. For example, one of the
archetypes he uses is the term historically translated as the “Son of
Man.” Jesus often uses the term with
vague references to himself or to some figure in the future who will come to
judge the righteous and the unrighteous.
The literal meaning of the term goes all the way back to the first
creation story when humankind is created out of the “fertile soil” or the
earth. The prophet Daniel then picks up
on this term to talk about the mythological figure who shall oppose the cruel
and the violent empires of the world, pictured as grotesque beasts or monsters. Daniel says that this figure is literally the
Human One or the Earth Child who comes to judge these monstrous, violent, and
cruel imperial powers.
Our Scripture verse ends today with Jesus asking, “When
that Human One or Earth Child comes, will they find faith on earth?” In other words, there is God’s way and the
way of the imperial, violent, and cruel world, will the Human One find anyone
loyal to God’s way when they come to judge the righteous and the
unrighteous?
Jesus . . . he could get so judgmental! Would Jesus really belong to a UCC Church
with that judgmental stuff?
That summation was the typical way a Jewish prophet would
say that there is a story deeper, a way in the world more everlasting than the
way of the pharaohs, kings, queens, Caesars, and city officials. Their monstrous ways do not have the last
word.
The other archetype Jesus uses in our Scripture passage
for today is the widow. Throughout
Scripture, the widow is part of the holy trinity for whom God’s Heart is
especially devoted. The widow, the
orphan, and the immigrant are seen throughout Hebrew Scripture as without
resource and advocate, people who are extremely vulnerable—so God is a stand-in
as a way to say, “You mess with them, you mess with me.”
In Hebrew, the word for
widow connotes one who is silent or unable to speak, without a male for status
in society.[1] Throughout the Gospel of Luke, widows figure
prominently, brought up in five different stories in the gospel, as those who
seek a different kind of economics and politics, those who seek liberation and
justice. As people dear to the Heart of
God, widows are the megaphone to express the deepest desires of God.
Throughout Hebrew Scripture
are those warnings from God, admonitions to demand that the people of God act
with the Heart of God. To name just a
few Scripture passages, in Exodus, in the Psalms, in Isaiah, and twice in the
Deuteronomy, “The Living God is not partial and takes no bribe. . . . Cursed be
anyone who deprives the alien, the orphan, and the widow of justice.”[2]
You mess with them, you mess with me.
And here she is, this widow
in Jesus’s story seeking justice before a judge who fears God nor public
opinion. The story suggests that the
only way this judge would rule for anyone is by a bribe. This judge has “abandoned all pretense of
impartiality and has become openly what he has been covertly, a judge of
injustice.[3] As a result, this widow is trapped in a
city, a world, where justice goes only to the highest bidder. And . . . well . . . she is a widow, probably
trying to get the maintenance owed to her by her husband’s estate, the
inheritance that might help her survive.
What she might have as a bribe is tied up in court. And . . . and she is a widow.
What is she to do? Jesus uses this story as a way of saying to
those who follow him, people who might identify with the widow and her
vulnerability, what they are to do when their basic economic and political
needs are threatened by a system skewed toward the wealthy and powerful, unable
to deliver justice because the system does not seek justice.
What this widow does is she
throws convention out the window. Women,
widows in particular, are to be private and silent? Pffffft.
She breaks the rules and approaches the judge publicly and
directly. She does not prevail upon the
judge by denouncing him but by telling him to do his DARN job! Do your job![4]
This widow is persistent and
tenacious in her pursuit of justice. She
“forces the judge to reevaluate the cost-benefit ration of her case . . . cut
his losses and move on”[5]
such that injustice is not inevitable.
She makes the judge’s life
impossible. And he delivers justice to
her not because he has become righteous or makes a righteous choice but
because, “she will keep bothering me,” literally, “makes trouble,” or “makes my
life difficult.” In some translations,
the Greek is translated that she will come in and give him a black eye, a
shiner, shame him in her tenacious persistence.
The judge is moved because
this widow will not believe what the wider culture tells her—that her poor
position means that she does not deserve justice. She believes she deserves justice.
In wider cultural
understandings, we often approach Scriptural stories and ask ourselves, “Who is
the most powerful person, the one who orders this or that that we might say,
‘Ah, this must be the person who is the metaphor for God!” We equate earthly power with the Divine.
But Jesus makes it clear
with the amoral references to this judge that God is not found at the judge’s
seat but in the widow’s seeking. God
activity is the widow seeking justice.
In this passage and
throughout the Gospel of Luke, Jesus is trying to persuade his followers, “Rich
people and their official agents are actually afraid of you exercising your
power!” So step up. Jesus effectively says in our Scripture
passage for today, in Luke 18, verse 6, “Pay attention to the unarticulated
anxieties and fears of the powerful—you can outlast them.”[6] You can outlast them.
There is a deeper, a wider
story which reminds us of those vulnerable women who knew they deserved
justice: Mary of Nazareth, Sarah,
Miriam, Rahab, Esther, and even Hagar.
In more recent history,
widows or vulnerable women have shown us the face of God, seeking justice.
In 1976, a military group
took over the rule of Argentina by force.
Soon men in unmarked cars began arriving in the night at homes,
restaurants, and workplaces to take away people in the struggle for Argentinian
peace. Before long there were thousands
of people among the ranks of the “disappeared,”—sons and daughters, friends and
relatives.
Lines began to form in front
of government offices. Mothers of the
missing came day after day, begging for information about their loved
ones. When they were turned away, they
got together and drew up a petition, listing the names of their disappeared
children and demanding that they be returned.
When the government refused their petition, they began a silent, illegal
protest.
Every Thursday they marched
in a circle in front of the government offices that ring Buenos Aires’ Plaza de
Mayo. Each mother wore a white
handkerchief embroidered with the names of her missing children. Many carried pictures. As the number of disappearances grew, so did
the group of silent, walking women.
Despite beatings and arrests, the mothers persisted. Their vigil went on for years, challenging
the dictatorship, drawing international attention to the cruelty and injustice,
recovering some of the stolen children, 400 to date, demanding justice that
resulted in the prosecution and conviction of many military officials, and,
finally, developing a legacy of activism in Argentina.
In 1952 in South Africa,
with apartheid still firmly in place, 20,000 women converged on the prime
minister’s office in Pretoria, demanding justice. In the following decades, mothers marched,
compiled affidavits of torture and murder, and helped children into safe
exile. They did this all under the
rallying cry, “You have struck the women, you have struck the rock.” That rock was one more immovable object in the
work to bring down apartheid.
In El Salvador, mothers and
widows fasted at the tomb of the late Archbishop Oscar Romero and occupied the
cathedral in San Salvador, demanding an end to repression. Their actions kept the number one superpower
from committing to all-out war in El Salvador and to the eventual sainthood of
Archbishop Romero.
All these women displayed
the tenacity, the persistence of the widow in today’s gospel parable. They reflected the Heart of God. They confronted the “unjust judges” of their
time—whether they come in the guise of prime ministers, police, mayors, or
military officers. These women demanded
to be heard, believed they deserved justice.
And today, through our holy Scriptures, they now invite us to join them
in taking a stand for justice—not just for a day, a week, or a year, but to
persist in knowing that the most vulnerable are dear to God’s Heart.
Pay attention! The unarticulated anxieties and fears of the
powerful are fully on display in our age.
And God is on the move to say that there is a story wider and more
everlasting. Wear . . . them . .
.out. So that the orphans, the
immigrants, and the widows, the people who are dear to God’s Heart might find
an ally in you, in us.
Did you think, as people of
faith, you were not supposed to be involved with the injustice of our day,
private and silent? Pfffft. Today our scripture calls us to the deep and everlasting
story. Praise be to God! Amen.
[1] Ched
Myers, Healing Affluenza and Resisting Plutocracy (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2025), p. 173.
[2]
Deuteronomy 10:17; 27:19.
[3] Myers,
Healing Affluenza, p. 173, p. 175, quoting William A. Herzog II, Parables
as Subversive Speech: Jesus as Pedagogue of the Oppressed (Louisville,
KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1994),
p. 225.
[4]
Myers, Healing Affluenza, p. 175.
[5]
Ibid, quoting Herzog, Subversive, p. 230.
[6]
Myers, Healing Affluence, p. 175.
