A sermon given by the Revd Tessa Stephens
"The persistent widow"
When our daughter Ellie was a baby she was very contented and easily amused. But as she’s got older, she has become more and more assertive. So perhaps it’s not surprising that when I first read this passage I was reminded of my daughter and her persistence at getting what she wants. I hope that we as her parents aren’t like the unjust judge but I know from nursery that when she gets involved in a dispute with other children she doesn’t hesitate to stand up for herself.
The widow in this story also doesn’t hesitate to stand up for herself. And she needs to be assertive because the judge in the story does not fear the Lord. Despite being a judge himself, he does not take the judgement of God seriously. He is legally required to give precedence to a widow but he does not do so until she wears him down with her continuous requests. As a widow she probably has few resources but she does have a determination to obtain justice and in the end she succeeds.
So how should we understand this parable? Is God like an unjust judge who only responds to his children’s pleas because he is worn out by our complaints? Is God like an exhausted parent in the sweetie aisle at the supermarket?
Well I don’t think that and I’m sure you don’t either. So I wonder if we can understand this any better by turning the parable upside down. Let’s start with the widow. In the Bible, it is often the case that God is the one who identifies with those who mourn. God is the one who promises that those who have been brought low will be lifted up. God challenges us to take care of them and all those who are destitute.
Now, consider the unjust judge in this story, who neither feared God nor had respect for people. Does that seem like a picture of God? Or is it less like God and more like the way humanity sometimes behaves? Perhaps we sometimes look out for ourselves and think more about our own best interest than about others? Perhaps his stubbornness and refusal to listen is more human than divine?
So, we could see this parable as a story about how God simply refuses to give up on us. He pursues us until in the end we give in and start to listen. In the end we do allow ourselves to be guided towards the right course of action.
So perhaps the lesson this story has to teach us about prayer is that prayer, at its best, is not just about us telling God what we want. Instead it is about giving up our preoccupation with ourselves, and allowing this persistent God to enter into our lives and soften our hearts.
There are some words that express that thought beautifully in Psalm 139. The Psalmist ponders the immensity of God and his presence with us at all times and in all places. As he says,
“Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast."
And so this God who pursues is with us even in the darkest and most difficult times of our lives, even when we have entirely given up on him, even, perhaps when we find ourselves wishing that he would give up on us.
This amazing persistence of faith under the most difficult of circumstances has been illustrated in a very vivid way this week by the Chilean miners. Entombed underground since the beginning of August, it was their faith that helped them to survive. It must have been very hard not to despair, especially during the first 17 days when there was no contact with the outside world.
But even after that, it must have been incredibly difficult to have kept a sense of unity and hope when so many men were confined together at such close quarters. The whole story has been a spiritual triumph; a victory of hope over despair, of solidarity over the quarrelling and divisions which often break out when men are confined together for prolonged periods of time. One aspect of the story which has been little reported was that one of the first requests the miners made when contact with the surface was re-established was for statues of Mary and the saints so that they could construct a makeshift chapel in the corner of the chamber where they were trapped. This improvised chapel must have functioned as a beacon of hope for those who were trapped as they and their families persisted in prayer and hope.
Most of us will never have such a strange and dramatic experience. But we may find ourselves trapped in prisons of our own making or experiencing times of difficulty which make it very hard to keep the faith and to remain hopeful. In those times perhaps we too should build an altar in the darkness and seek to spend time with God knowing that our God finds us wherever we are, even if in the words of the Psalm we make our bed in the depths or settle on the far side of the sea. Amen