Text: Luke 18:1-8
Introduction/Literal
This is probably something you don’t hear from a pulpit every day – I hate this particular text. After saying that I think I owe you a couple of things. The reason why I don’t like it and then a clear close reading so any application I might suggest is not just my gut reaction but actually based on the Word.
It probably sounds rather innocuous just reading it. What could cause such angst from this text? For me, how it is normally translated, it causes all kinds of alarm bells both in how I think Jesus reveals the Father and in the simple sniff test of reality. The sniff test part comes from verse seven. Jesus is obviously trying to set up a lesser to the greater comparison. The unrighteous judge grants the widow justice not for any good reasons, but for selfish reasons. The word Luke uses is actually from the boxing ring. “So that she will not beat me down” is actually that. Its normal usage is a losing boxer, naked and bare-knuckles as all greek sports, who is black and blue with bruises. The unrighteous judge doesn’t want the black eye of this woman hanging around. Jesus’ argument is that God – his Father and our Father – is not like that. The Father hears and grants justice because that is his desire. That isn’t the problem. My problem is “will he delay long over them? I tell you he will give justice to them speedily.” Maybe your experience is different, but petitionary prayer for me is rarely about speedily getting exactly what I’m asking for. Jesus, on a simple read sounds like Santa Claus or a politician in election season. “What do you want, yeah, we’re gonna do that, first 100 days, you’re gonna love it.” Something is off in my understanding of this if Jesus doesn’t pass the smell test.
To me that gets compounded by what it says about God. In trying to rescue Jesus from the smell test, I’ve heard all kinds of pious sounding smarm applied. I’ve heard, “well you are not asking for the right things.” Ok, so that Mercedes Benz was probably not the right thing, but most of time I’m asking for Benz, I’m not very serious. Unless we have a set intentional daily prayer practice – which we should, but – for many people prayer tends to be at moments of crisis. Maybe even simply “Jesus take the wheel”. And that is usually a deadly serious prayer. Maybe not all that coherent, but it is asking in the best way known for the right thing. I’ve heard “he’s teaching you patience”. Again, a good thing, but not the thing being prayed for, and something that makes Jesus out to be a liar here. And then you start getting into the mean ones or cries of theological despair like “you didn’t have enough faith” or “you didn’t ask enough” or “maybe you aren’t one of God’s elect”. In trying to rescue Jesus, we paint the Father as what? A capricious and petulant deity applying pickup artist game? Don’t call back, give a few negs here and there, keep’em guessing, show them whose boss.
That’s not the Father, at least not my understanding from the catechism and the rest of the Bible. If our simple reading and translation has us making Jesus sound like a liar or the Father a cretin, we’ve got something wrong. I believe there is a great promise here and a deep understanding of prayer, but we’ve got to get past layers of too easy thinking.
So, I want to sift back through the passage and the context. The larger context in Luke starts back in 17:20. This is one of the places where the medieval chapter breaks I think do us a disfavor. After Jesus cleanses the lepers, the entire scene changes. You can imagine a curtain coming down and then back up for a new scene. And this scene starts with a Pharisee asking Jesus “when will the Kingdom of God come?” And Jesus takes that question as the time to deliver what is called the eschatological discourse – fancy words for end times. The core of Jesus’ initial answer is summed up in his phrase, “They were eating and drinking and marrying and being given in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all.” The Kingdom has come – it is present in Jesus, but unless you have been told and have ears to hear, it won’t look different – until it is too late.
So in that context of asking about the end times where we always want to ask when or maybe where, Jesus turns us away from those questions to a different one. In light of the certainty of the kingdom that he is revealing, but also its hidden nature – “it’s in the midst of you!” – how do we respond. How do we live in the time of Noah? So Jesus told them this parable that they ought to always pray and not lose heart.
Moral
We know that we live in the now and not yet. We know – from all the other parables – that the fundamental characteristic of the Father is his compassion and mercy for sinners. The rain falls on the just and the unjust. The prodigal son is welcomed back from distance and fully clothes as the son. But the coming of the Kingdom, the redemption of sinners has not yet led to the end of this age. How do we live? Through prayer.
Don’t lose heart that this age seems to be long with us. As Peter would say this is God making sure that the full number of his elect are brought in. Don’t lose heart that the devil, the world and our own flesh seem to win an awful lot. Satan has been judged, all he can do is lie to us and try to convince us that the Father is not compassionate, that Jesus did not pay for all our sin on that cross. The world can continue to tempt us with its wares, but don’t lose heart, moth and rust and death destroy everything located in this world. Only what is done for God will last. Put your treasure in heaven. And especially don’t lose heart that we continue to struggle with sin. We continue to fight that. We mortify the flesh. We are conformed to Christ. But don’t lose heart, because the love of God has covered our sin with the righteousness of his son.
And prayer is the invitation to take all of these things to God. Prayer is that cry of faith. Prayer is one of the ways we don’t lose heart. In prayer we can take all of our struggles to God without fear. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth? Jesus recognizes the now and not yet, and knows the problem. The moral force is an exhortation to consistency in prayer as a source of consolation in the strife of this age.
Christology
But how should we hear Jesus such that he is not a liar about the answers to prayer.
I’m following Dr. Art Just here – you could probably contact Tim and have him pass along any questions in case I blow it – as he teaches at Ft. Wayne. Dr. Just makes two suggestions that are both simple and profound. The first is with what the ESV translates as a second question, “Will he delay long over them?” We are thinking prayer and the answers to prayer, but Just says that we miss the promise because the subject for a second to the elect – both as those crying out day and night and as the object of God’s mercy.
Will not God make vindication for his elect who are crying to him night and day? And the answer to that portion is certainly yes. The vindication can be here and now, it might be at the end, but justice is promised. God will vindicate his saints. But if you take those saints, those elect, as the object of the next fragment – “and will not God be long suffering with them”? God will bring justice, and likewise in this age he will have compassion and mercy for his saints – be long suffering with them. In the midst of our struggles, God does not abandon us. It is not a promise for swift delivery of a Mercedes Benz, but a promise to walk with us in our struggle.
Unlike the unrighteous judge who wanted to get rid of the widow as fast as he could. God sticks with us in the midst of trouble.
Just’s second point again turns us from prayer as the focus of verse 8, toward the larger context of His eschatological deliverance. Will God delay in his deliverance? “No, I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily”. That justice took three days. From the Cross Jesus asked the Father to forgive us, and three days later The Father confirmed the justice of his request by raising him up – the firstborn from the dead. The victory of the Kingdom.
When we pray for His kingdom to come and for his will to be done – in that act – in the resurrection - the Kingdom has come and his will has been displayed for all. Will he give justice quickly? Yes, his holy one did not see decay. In Christ we have been given justice.
Eschatological
That realized deliverance in Christ will also be ours. Whenever these days of Noah end, in a flash and the twinkling of an eye, we too will rise.
The only question is how did we approach these days. Did we have faith? Did we not lose heart in our prayers following and walking with Christ – “your kingdom come”?
God has revealed himself before us and shown us the path of life. It is walking with Christ and praying unceasingly – living our entire lives as one continuous prayer – night and day. Lord, let me also be part of your kingdom, in the now and on that day. Amen.