Gospel Reading: Luke 18:1-8
“Knock-knock” “Whose there” ….
How many ESKOM executives does it take to change a light bulb? ….
An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman go into a bar together
I’m sure you all recognise those phrases as the start of jokes. But these sorts of jokes are not realistic, are they? I mean, when someone knocks at our door, we don’t shout out, “Whose there?”, we go and open the door and see whose there. Of course, regardless of what the joke says, it only takes one person to change a light bulb. And would an Englishmen, Scotsman and Irishman really go into bars together? Jokes are a bit like parables. They are stories that are not meant to be completely realistic. They are stories which help to get a message across.
Many of these starter line to jokes or catchlines are now very old fashioned and not used by stand-up comics these days. I wonder if there were any catchlines to jokes in Jesus’s day? Perhaps they started, ‘In a certain city there was a judge…’ Just like Jesus’ parable does this morning. So, am I saying that Jesus is telling a joke? Well, one commentator I read said: “Enjoy the humour of the story and the colourful nature of the characters.” So maybe he is. But isn’t this the nature of all of Jesus’ parables? We must enjoy the story that Jesus tells, the same as we enjoy a joke and, as with all parables, we must not take them too literally. They are told to us to teach us a deeper meaning for our lives and they tell us more about our faith.
This morning gospel parable is one of Jesus’ most complex. A widow comes to the judge for a legal decision against her opponent. She is a widow, and like all widows in Jesus’s time she would have been dependent on a son or possibly a brother for all her needs. It appears that she owns some property — but someone else is laying claim to that property. We are not told whether her claim or the other persons claim to the property was legal or right. We only know that it is disputed by the widow and her unnamed opponent. But the parable doesn’t require us to know the facts of the legal case. We only need to know that she is widowed and that she has property to which someone else — we don’t know who — is laying claim. And so she goes to the judge again and again to get a decision on the case in her favour. The judge, however, doesn’t care one way or the other about this pestering widow. At first, he puts up with her, but the woman simply will not stop. She’s not important to the judge, but the trouble is, she won’t go away. She is annoying at first, but then simply a pain. She’s always there. Our translation is polite when it says the woman keeps “bothering” the unjust judge. In the original Greek, however, the word translated here as “bothering” literally means to give somebody a black eye. Can you imagine a elderly widow giving a judge a black eye? Well, finally the exacerbated judge thinks to himself that though he fears neither God nor does he respect anyone, this woman is so troublesome that the only way to get rid of her is to give her what she wants. Otherwise, she’ll just wear him out. And so the judge resolves the case in her favour. Case solved. Woman gone. End of story! Or is it?
You can see that this story is a bit like a joke – it is not realistic – I mean, a woman giving a judge a black eye? A judge finding in the woman’s favour merely to get her to stop bothering him. I mean, what about the law? What about Justice? These questions make us ask, ‘Why did Jesus tell this parable? What did Jesus want to teach us from this parable?’
Well, he actually tells us at the begin of the reading. “Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart.” Need to pray always and not to lose heart. Two things there… ‘need to pray always’ that is to be persistent in our praying to God. And secondly, ‘not to lose heart’, in other words to remain sure, faithful, that God will answer our persistent prayers. We could say that the message of the parable is, “If persistence can pay off with even a lousy corrupt human judge, how much more effective will persistence be when we pray to a perfectly just and loving God!?” But notice, Jesus doesn’t quite say that at the end of the reading, does he? Instead, he says “Listen to what the unjust judge says.”
But what are we supposed to learn from what the judge said, besides his sheer frustration, and it is self-centred frustration at the woman? Is Jesus telling us that we are to make God frustrated by our persisted prayers? Are we to imagine that even God worries about getting a black eye from us? The judge had ‘no fear of God and no respect for anyone.’ Do we think that God is scared of losing his reputation and so will give in to us because of that? Surely not!
And what about when Jesus, speaking of God, asks “Will God delay long in helping those who are persistent in prayer?” This question from Jesus doesn’t really need an answer from us, does it? Because we know that God will answer our prayers. That is our faith, that is what we believe. But if that is the case, why doesn’t Jesus just say that flat out? That God will never delay in helping us when we pray to him. But he uses the words “delay long” and that makes it sound as though God does sometimes delay a short time in answering our prayers. Have you found that this to be the case?
But this Gospel passage makes it clear that in the end it’s not about whether, or to what extent or in what way, God will bring justice to the earth. It’s not about whether there are times when for some mysterious reason God has to delay answering our prayers. There are countless unknown variables in God’s ways. What’s the famous say?… ‘Our ways are not God’s ways.’ We cannot see what God can see, so there are prayers that appear to us to go unanswered. However, they are not unheeded, but unanswered in the sense that we are not receiving what we want or what we think is the best for us. That kind of disappointment all too often leads us to begin wondering what God is up to, what is on God’s mind, what kind of a God is he? Unfortunately, this can also lead to a loss of faith in God.
However, notice that in this parable Jesus turns the tables on us and puts the focus back on our faith. We have to assume the best about our God’s goodness, our God’s love, our God’s justice, and our God’s mercy. By faith we hang on to our belief, whether our prayers are answered at once or not. What we have to worry about is not about the character of God but more about the strength and the persistence of our faith. God may well be, as us Christians say, the most generous source of grace and light in the universe. But if people stop praying to God, how can they ever show the might and wisdom of God and God’s hidden kingdom to the world out there? How can those who will not pray, access and tap into the power and love of God? As Jesus said at the end of the parable: “And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” Do you have that sort of persistent faith?
Oh yes… How many ESKOM executives does it take to change a light bulb? Three one to hold the light bulb, one to turn the ladder and one to go and start up the generator because loadshedding has started.
Have faith my friends!
