There is an old Japanese saying that if a person makes one thousand folded paper cranes, then he/she will be made well. Lots of people believe that prayer works that way: If enough people pray enough prayers to God, then God is bound to grant their request. Prayer is a way of getting God to do what we want.
That’s a mechanical way of understanding prayer: If you put x number of prayers in the prayer machine, then you’ll get the result you want. If you don’t get the answer you want, then you haven’t prayed enough.
That understanding of prayer may stem in part from the parable in our text.
The conclusion people draw is that if a judge who doesn’t care will finally relent under pressure, surely God, who does care, will give justice when his people ask.
But this parable leaves me uncomfortable. Can we conclude from the story of the widow that prayer is a way of putting pressure on God, or that we should nag God? Is God somebody who must be nagged before He’ll do something? I suspect that there is a deeper teaching about prayer in this parable, one that doesn’t imply that God needs to be nagged like the unjust judge.
Think of the folks in the early church to whom Luke told this story. They were worn out from the struggle to be faithful to Jesus in hard times. People around them misunderstood them and rejected them, plus they had the same struggles with illness and tragedy that we have. They had been praying faithfully ... fervently seeking the Kingdom of God, but it hadn’t come yet. They hadn’t received the answers they wanted. The world was still in bad shape, and they were still hurting. They were tempted to lose heart. They needed more than the simple advice to "just keep praying ... to just try a little harder." There must be more help than that to be found in the parable.
Let’s picture the story in our minds. In a certain city there is a judge who has no respect for God or for people. How a person like that got to be judge, I don’t know. But it seems to me that there is plenty of that sort of attitude in the world, plenty of folks to whom God means nothing. There are plenty of folks who have no regard for anybody but themselves and their kin.
Now, in this city, there is a widow who needs to have a judgment rendered. She has taken someone to court. The story doesn’t say why, but I think I can imagine why. In Jesus’ day widows were often in a bad fix financially, and they needed special help to survive. That’s probably the situation of the widow in the story. Someone owes her money, and she really needs that money to make ends meet. The situation is unjust. It’s not right!
So the widow goes to the judge and pleads for her rights: "Help me against my opponent!" And the judge says, "No!" Does she give up? No! Again and again she goes around to the judge’s chambers and knocks on his door, seeking what is good and right.
Seeking, knocking, asking. That’s what prayer is. Sometimes prayer is quiet and contemplative, or conversational. Sometimes prayer is feisty and active, like the widow going down to the judge’s chambers day after day after day to plead for justice.
This passage is a call to pray with our bodies and our actions as well as with our hearts, minds, and mouths.
Think of all the people like that widow who live out their prayer and keep knocking on doors; folks who need and want healing, who prayer for it in words, and who pray for it by actively getting help. Folks who have a hard time getting around, but who struggle and sacrifice in order to come to worship in the congregation on Sunday. Feisty folks just like that widow seeking justice. They are in our congregation.
I remember when Patty’s grandmother was nearing her ninetieth birthday, she was becoming increasingly more feeble. She had a hip replaced and had to walk with a walker. One Sunday as she was leaving after the worship service, she spoke to the pastor at the back door and said, "Brother Maurice, I believe if I can make it to church with all of my problems, surely everyone else can make it." She had a hard time getting around and honestly made the sacrifice until she was unable to attend any longer.
Think of the folks who are earnestly and patiently seeking a cure for cancer. Day after day they go to their labs and pray with their minds and hands. They knock on the door again and again, seeking what is good.
Think of parents who act on their prayers for their children. A story in Good Housekeeping magazine told about a mother who knew that there was something wrong with her daughter. Something about the child’s forehead just didn’t look right or feel right. This mother went from doctor to doctor asking for help for the child, but one right after the other discounted her concerns. But she persisted, and finally she found a doctor who could diagnose and treat the problem. The child did have a bone malformation, and she needed surgery! And she got it! That feisty parent relentlessly went after what was good and right for her child.
Many teachers are like the widow in the story. Tiny little children come to them with heartbreaking life stories. These young folks don’t enjoy many of the advantages we do. They don’t have people who are interested in them, and who will support them, read to them, check their homework, give them guidance, and show them how much potential they have wrapped up inside. These faithful, persistent teachers struggle to maintain hope for their students.
Like the widow in our text, the 1992 Nobel Peace Prize winner, Rigoberta Menchu’, pleads for justice. She is in her mid-thirties, and for her whole adult life she has been crying out for justice in Guatemala. That Central American country has a terrible human-rights record, especially against native Americans ... the peoples who were here before Columbus arrived. Rigoberta is a native American. The government has killed her mother, father, and brother. She has been pleading for the abuse and killing to stop. Rigoberta keeps knocking on doors, seeking what is right, even though it places her in danger.
Again and again, the widow went around to the judge’s chambers and knocked on the door. And for a long, long time he refused to help. She kept on until her knuckles bled. It was discouraging. I’ll bet she did not come near to giving up at least once. It is tempting to give up when it seems as though you’re not making any progress and your hands are bruised and bleeding from the effort. It’s painful and hard to hang in there.
I’m sure any of the folks I have just mentioned could tell you about times when it was like that for them. After he told the parable, Jesus said, "Now will not God judge in favor of his own people who cry to him day and night for help?
Will he be slow to help them?" How does God help people who have knocked on the door until their knuckles are bleeding?
Well, isn’t that what God himself does all the time? God says, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock" (Rev. 3:20). God prays without ceasing. God seeks and knocks and works for what is right all the time. God’s Holy Spirit constantly prays and groans with "groanings too deep for words" (Rom. 8:26). Behold, God stands at the door and knocks.
God is not just sitting back twiddling his thumbs and leaving everything up to us until that great day comes when God’s reign is complete, and the kingdom comes in all its fullness. God is knocking on the door, crying out for justice now! God is like that relentless widow who won’t rest until justice is done. God keeps on confronting a world that is like the unjust judge who doesn’t have any regard for God or others.
There God is demanding justice, when a little girl can be abducted, raped and murdered, and her killer is left to go free. And people are still crying out, "How long, O Lord, before you save us from the ravages of maniacs like that?" (Hab. 1:2).
God is knocking on the door of places like Somalia, and Bosnia, and Korea, and South Africa, and he won’t give up until his children are provided for there.
God is knocking on the doors of troubled and abusive homes. God is knocking on doors of churches that silently look the other way while injustice goes on in their midst and around them. Behold, God stands at the door and knocks!
God knocks on the door even until his hands bleed. In Christ, he knocked on the door, and pleaded for what was good and right, until his hands bled on the cross.
Jesus said, "Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has chosen gladly to give you the kingdom" (Luke 12:32). In his name I say to you "Don’t be afraid little flock." God is going to bring in the kingdom. That great day is coming. It seems slow, to us, but it is surely coming.
In the meanwhile, God does come quickly to help us. He is with us in the place of the widow. This is what prayer is: Prayer means seeking unity with God as we talk with him and act with him. Prayer is something we do together with God.
Through prayer, God talks with us and walks with us, and knocks on the doors of the world with us. The one who sagged in exhaustion on the cross can help us when we sag with exhaustion, and when we’re tempted to lose heart.
The one whose hands bled on the cross can bind up our wounded hands. He takes them so gently in his. We place them in his through prayer.
With hearts, minds, voices, and bodies, we can pray without ceasing, like stubborn, relentless widows, because the most steadfast, stubborn "pray-er" of all is God, who prays in us, with us and for us.
Praise God for his steadfast love and faithfulness! Praise God for every act of justice, for every taste of his kingdom!
Praise God for the day when his kingdom finally comes for good!
