The Unjust Judge

Readings: Psalm 119:97-104, Jeremiah 31:27-34, 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5, Luke 18:1-8
Preached at First Presbyterian Church, Baldwin, NY, October 20th 2013

A printable PDF file can be found here

There are some verses of Scripture that guys probably relate to better than their spouses. Indeed I hesitate to mention these particular passages, but well, they do kind of fit in with today’s bible story. I’m thinking of a couple in the Book of Proverbs. I’ll give you them as they appear in the Good News Bible, a Bible that when it was first released had the title “Good News for Modern Man”. 

Proverbs 19:13 “A nagging wife is like a tap that goes drip, drip, drip.”
Proverbs 25:24 “Better to live in a corner, out on the roof, then share the house with a nagging wife”

Hey, it’s the inspired, infallible, unchanging, Word of God, don’t get mad at me!  Just telling it like it is. And you may well verify this word if when you get home, there’s somebody saying, “Well, did you hear what the preacher said this morning, Can you believe that? I mean for goodness sake, are you listening to me? I mean I pity his poor wife, having to put up with that sort of behavior, which reminds me, have you taken the trash out yet? Are you paying attention? You said you were going to do it last night, but there it is still sitting right there. Now you just better get off that couch, put down that remote and get busy, Bubba!”

According to tradition King Solomon, the compositor of Proverbs words of wisdom, had seven hundred wives, princesses and three hundred concubines. (1 Kings 11:3). You could say he was pretty experienced in the wife department. In fact it was some of his wives, wives who had come from foreign lands and wanted temples set up to their favorite deities, who eventually led Solomon away from the path of the Lord his Father David had hoped he would follow and weakened his reign.

“Go on Solomon give me a temple to my god. You’ve got a great big temple for your God. How about a little one for mine. I mean you gave whatshername a temple for her god. That’s not fair. I want one. I need one. And I’ll never ask you for anything ever, ever, ever again. Please Solly baby, please, pretty please, it’s just a little god, just a little temple, that’s all I’m asking”

Words. Endless torrents of words. Waterfall like, gushing, crushing floods of words have a habit of breaking a person down. “Allright, Allright, Allright, I’ll do it. Please just BE QUIET!”

Of course you ladies know that we guys don’t give up so easily. Oh no. We give it the silent treatment. “Well why don’t you say something?” and we know that what ever we say it’s going to be exactly the thing we shouldn’t have said. “You don’t love me anymore. All I wanted was for you to take out the trash!”  As comedian Jeff Foxworthy says, “I have learnt that when my wife says, “We need to talk” I’m not going to be saying a whole lot”.

Jesus gives us a parable, not about a man and a wife, but an indifferent Judge and a poor widow.  The woman has very little, in terms of wealth or social position or prestige. But she has one thing that wears the corrupt judge down. She is what in Liverpool they’d call a “Motor-Mouth”. “Ag-Ag-Ag Ag-Ag-Ag- Ag-Ag-Ag”

We are told at the start of the parable that it is a parable about our need to ‘pray and not to lose heart.’ (Luke 18:1). As is often the case with parables, the characters involved are greatly exaggerated. The man is not simply a judge, but a judge whose characteristics question his ability to do the job.

In a society where the two most important commandments were about loving God and loving your neighbor, this guys saying, “God? Whatever! Who cares what God thinks, I’m the main man around here. You’ve got a problem? Here’s the problem – You are a loser! Get over it. I have better things to do.”  Just the sort of judge you want on your case. Right?

Then there’s the widow. As the parable unfolds the widow represents the chosen ones, ‘the elect’, of God. The widow stands for all those who, though chosen by God to enjoy God’s blessings, live outside of those blessings and feel powerless to bring about any change.

The parable focuses on a relationship that has gone wrong because one of the parties, the judge, is failing to fulfill his duties. It challenges us to consider how we see God. Is God this “I answer to nobody” –Distant – barely moveable force out there – who really isn’t concerned about us – because He has more important – God-focused things to do in the world?

Do we, building upon such an image, concede that the only way to ever get an answer to our prayers is to keep going on and on and on and on and on until God gets tired of hearing us and caves in to our demands?

On the contrary Jesus is quite clear that God is the total opposite of the Judge pictured in the parable. God is the one who does step in and who honors justice and lifts up those who have fallen. God does not drag His feet when it comes to things that concern His people. Verse 7 poses the question, “Will not God grant justice to His chosen ones?”

As is often the case with the parables of Jesus, there is a sting in the tale. It’s as though we are set up for a fall! Follow the argument through to the last sentence.

God (the God who is not like a bad judge who ignores a needy widows prayer) hears us and will meet us in our needs when we pray to Him. We should therefore be persistent in prayer and everything will work out right. Simple! Until you get to the last line. The last sentence throws the whole thing out of perspective.

Verses 18. “And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on earth?”

What a set up! Here we are being told that prayer and asking are as straightforward as dialing 1-800-GOD LOVES U. That it’s not complicated. That we ask and we receive. But then comes this disturbing rhetorical question. “When the Son of man comes will He find faith on the earth?”

The implication is “No, He won’t”. That if a faith evaluation had taken place on the earth back in Jesus day, or were to take place in the midst of our busy days, or anywhere in between, the last thing to be found would be found was faith. That in spite of this business of persistently asking and graciously receiving from a good and great God, we still miss the mark.

What I’m thinking, where this parable is pushing me, is to consider that faith, real faith, has very little to do with getting God to do anything or even God getting us to do certain things. That faith is really about allowing God to be God and allowing ourselves to ‘live and move and have our being' in God's love. That persistence in prayer has little to do with asking and asking and asking, but has a whole lot to do with resting in God’s love and accepting ourselves and the situations of our lives as only finding meaning through their relationship to God.

In the parable, what creates the situation that causes the woman to ask, ask, ask, ask, and ask again, is the character of the unjust Judge. So, Jesus explains, God is completely the opposite of such a judge. God is ready to help, always does the right thing, and is way above such a tawdry character as the unjust judge.

The implication is that if God is not like this bad judge, then we don’t have to be like the widow, whom can only get things done though incessant talking. That we have a God who elsewhere is pictured as having every hair on our head accounted for and knows intimately what is going on in His Creation to such an extent that even if a little sparrow falls to the ground it does not go unnoticed.

By picturing for us a bad relationship, the parable attempts to push us to consider what a right relationship may look like. We laugh about nagging wives and retreating husbands, because there is part of us that realizes that although that’s not the way relationships should be, that’s the way they sometimes go.

Putting it in that way, opens the door then for us to go beyond the kind of relationships built upon asking and receiving, towards relationships that are built upon accepting and believing.

Often times in long-term relationships it starts to be, that less is said, and a whole lot more is understood. Communication becomes not a matter of words, but a matter of understanding. The one partner doesn’t have to tell the other what’s going on, because the other has come to a point where they recognize the problem even before it can be framed into words.

When the Son of Man comes, will He find those who know in their lives the depth of relationship that Jesus had with the Father?  Will people be at the point Jesus prayed for in His High Priestly prayer; “Holy Father, keep through Your name those whom You have given Me, that they may be one, as We are one.” (John 17:11)

This parable tells us that faith should not function after the manner of a nagging widow badgering an unjust Judge, but rather within a framework of mutual respect and understanding. We are called to be persistent in prayer.  Persistence in the light of a God who knows our every need, is not about asking and asking and asking till we get what we want, but trusting and trusting and trusting in God in such a way as we become quietly confident that God is working out God’s purposes in the situations of our lives.

Nagging wives and Idle husbands, Persistent Widows and Unjust judges, these situations do not offer us role models to be copied. They show us the reverse side so we can flip things around and discover how to approach troubling situations in a positive way.

And there is no more positive approach to life than placing our trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, than believing that God is in control, and seeking to allow the Holy Spirit to guide us and lead us through the varied situations that come to our lives.

For there is no greater name than that of the Lord Jesus Christ, and no greater endeavor than to be involved with others in the work of His kingdom.   To God’s name be the glory. AMEN.

The Reverend Adrian J. Pratt B.D.