Luke 18:1-8
October 17, 2004
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.
We can all picture a small toddler trying to get the attention of an adult by pulling on a pant leg over and over and over again; saying, “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy,” trying to get her father’s attention and finally getting through. When I visited our two-year old granddaughter, Evi a couple of weeks ago, she would say, “Help me, Yeh, Yeh, Help me, Yeh, Yeh,” until I stop what I was doing to help her. It is call “nagging.”
In this parable in the gospel of Luke there is one simple lesson: nagging pays off. Could it be that a nagging person gets rewarded and the patient one doesn’t? If so, why? What is the point of the parable that we can admire or learn from?
Prayer is a Problem
At the beginning of this chapter in Luke before Jesus begins telling this parable, Luke tells us that the parable is about our need to pray always and not to lose heart. Prayer is a problem for many of us modern people because we stop praying. We wonder, “Does God hear my prayer? Am I really speaking to God or am I only speaking to myself? If I pray to God for healing and I am healed, does that mean that God would not have healed me if I had not prayed?”
The problem is not only that we are uncertain about prayer, but we have the good sense to know that, when we pray, we are really putting our faith on the line. Prayer assumes that there is a God. If there is a God, does God listen? Is there a God who cares for us, who hears and responds? These are frightening questions. No wonder many people prefer to not even try to pray; not even try to nag God. They would rather not risk knowing the answer.
The problem of prayer is not just a problem facing us modern people. Why would Jesus have told this parable to his own disciples if prayer wasn’t a problem back then? Why would he has given them and to us the Lord’s Prayer as a model prayer, if everybody back then believed in prayer? In fact, throughout Luke and Acts, there’s a great deal of talk about prayer. All of this is simply to say that prayer is not only a modern problem—it is a problem for anyone who believes in God.
The problem that we have with prayer is the very problem Jesus appears to be addressing in this parable. We simply lose heart. We just stopped believing in prayer so we lose heart.
You see, if we really believe in the power of prayer, if we really believe that prayer can affect world peace, if we were truly convinced that prayer changes things, changes us, heals broken lives and restores severed relationships, then we would be praying constantly, all the time. If prayer changes things, you couldn’t keep us from praying! But the problem with prayer that we have as well as the one that Jesus addresses here with his disciples is simply that we lose heart. We lack persistence.
The Parable
Jesus tells a parable about a very persistent woman. She’s a widow which means that she is very vulnerable, lacking social status, power, wealth, and male protection. In that day and in that culture, she had no one to look out for her interests, no one to keep her safe.
She has a case against someone. Perhaps someone took advantage of her in business; maybe someone used her vulnerability in order to get something out of her. So she takes her case to the judge, but this judge was not a very conscientious one. Perhaps he is overworked—many judges are. At any rate, he basically tells the pleading widow, “Get lost!”
What hope does this poor widow—without political protection, totally powerless—has before this judge’s bench? The only hope that she has is her ability to pester the unjust judge until he listens. She won’t give up or give in. She is persistently nagging.
Imagine with me for a moment. When the judge wanted nothing to do with this woman, she becomes a public nuisance. This woman was not content to stand quietly in front of the judge’s bench at the courthouse waiting for her turn. She started to essentially stalk the judge, approaching him when he stopped by at a 7-Eleven to pick up some milk, waiting for him outside his fitness center, watching for him when he left the courthouse, waiting for him as he enters the restaurant.
Basically she confronted him where he lived and pretty soon his public reputation was being tarnished. He got the media smear that he didn’t care for one of the most vulnerable people in the world. In verse 5, the judge complains that the woman was “bothering” him. In the original Greek, this word, “bothering” is translated giving someone a “black eye.” It wasn’t just that this woman was badgering him; she was damaging his reputation, causing him much embarrassment! In the footnote found in the NRSV Bible, this verse (18:5) that the woman kept on coming to bother the judge to the breaking point of wearing him out can be translated as “I’m going to grant her wish so that she may not finally come and slap me in the face!” This was a nagging widow!
Persistence, the willingness to badger somebody and give him a “public black eye,” paid off at the end. Finally this judge says to himself, “Even though I could care less about God and can’t stand humanity, I will give this woman what she wants, just be done with it.” Jesus told us this parable in order that we might pray always and not lose heart.
So how does this story motivate or inspire us to pray with persistence?
Maybe in this story, Jesus wants us to understand that, even though the world may look broken, unjust, and corrupt, if we keep working at it, if we persistently believe the world to be basically a good place, things will work out.
Perhaps we are supposed to understand this parable as saying, prayer really does work—if you keep at it. Sometimes prayer works slowly, but never lose heart—it works!
The Character of God
But maybe this parable tells us something about who God is. If we are to be like the persistent widow, what are we to make of the character of God reflected in the unjust judge? Jesus says, “Listen to what the unjust judge says.” Are we supposed to make God exasperated too? Are we to imagine that God worries about getting a black eye, a bad reputation and so gives in to us on that basis? Will God keep putting us off day and night or does God put us off sometimes, even for a little while?
These are all very difficult questions that this parable presents to us. By implication we can assume that God‘s character is the opposite of the unjust judge. Maybe this was so obvious a point that Jesus didn’t need to mention it directly. Perhaps the meaning is if this sleazy and unjust judge will grant justice to those who seek justice, how much more so will God? Remember the story about a child asking for an egg and even for an imperfect human father will know to give an egg instead of a scorpion. Since God is perfect and loving, how much more will God give good gifts to his children! (Luke 11:12-13)
Unlike the unjust judge in the parable, God is not like that. He will not be slow to answer. He will quickly help. God will grant justice to his people who cry out to him day and night. Unlike the judge, God is trustworthy.
But the story ends with a surprising question coming from Jesus, “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” (18:8)
Suddenly, this parable that was focusing on how willing and attentive the judge was to grant the petition reverses the focus on us. No longer are we thinking about how careless the judge is, but instead the story focuses on us. “Are we faithful enough to persistently pray?” The parable turns itself on its own head and becomes all about not the judge but about us. Forget the character of the judge or the character of God, what is your character? Do you have faith no matter what? Are you persistently nagging God?
The point is that no matter what the judge is like or what God is like, nothing will happen if we give up. The parable is about faith to keep on praying and not lose heart.
Trusting God
One of the true blessings of being in ministry with you at FCBC is the ensuing years. My mother once had a saying that goes like this: “In a blink of an eye, a life time has gone by.” In reality, life is more than a blink of an eye. It’s more than instant oatmeal or one hour dry cleaning or twenty-minute pizza delivery. Life is more than a four-minute microwave dinner or a 20-minute exercise routine. You can’t have a true relationship with Christ in just an hour a week routine.
Some of us are experiencing concerns for the future—job security, fiscal stability, good health or long life. When difficulties strike us, we are not to lose heart but to keep on praying and trusting in God’s goodness. Don’t we all want quick, easy, and painless answers? I know I do. But this parable tells us that life is more like the widow who keeps on nagging for a resolution to her case. Following Jesus is to go through life by keep praying and not lose heart so that when the Son of Man comes, he will find faith in each one of us.
Remember when your child came home suffering from some great disappointment, some kind of great blow from life? What do you do? You attempt to comfort the child. You say, “There, there, it’s all right.” What do you mean when you say that? You don’t mean that the child’s pain is silly. You don’t mean that everything is going to be all right in this moment, or that fate will be reversed and everything will work out in this particular circumstance. You know enough about life to know that often things don’t work out all right.
What you mean is that finally, ultimately, in the larger picture, the world is designed in such a way that things will be all right. The pain will not last forever. Even the worst setbacks can be integrated into life and you will be able to go on. In other words, when you say, “There, there, everything will be all right,” you are saying that ultimately when we believe in God, we can trust it will be all right.
There are times when people will call God to account. Moses said, “Didn’t you say that you will deliver us from the Egyptians? Didn’t you promise to feed us when we were hungry? Remember you are the one who said, ‘Have no other gods but me?’” These questions are actually prayers. Genuine prayers hold God to his promises until God reveals his will. We are nagging God and in the process, come to know who God is.
These prayers are saying that God is righteous and will grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night. God will not delay in helping us but will come quickly granting justice to us.
How do we know this? We have no proof. All we have is our relationship with God. This is the God who came to us in Jesus Christ, the one who loved us persistently, all the way to the Cross.
That is why we pray and do not lose heart. Jesus is the reason why we are persistently nagging God until we get his attention because we have already received from God evidence that he cares.
Telephone Company
In my last month’s SBC telephone bill, I noticed a mistake on a charge. On a day that I was flying on a plane, I was charged a 6-minute collect call from Seattle. We all know how challenging it would be to call the 800 number and listen to all of the pound options and hopefully to get to the right operator to fix the problem. One needs to be persistent when dealing with a humongous company like SBC.
My situation reminds me of an employee of a telephone company in the area of customer complaints. This phone company employee received a call from a person complaining about some serious problem with her phone service. While this was a bad problem, it did not come under the telephone company guidelines. In other words, it was the customer’s problem and not the phone company’s.
But the customer persisted. She said, “I’ve always loved and respected the telephone company. Since I was a young child, coming home alone, my mother always told me, “If you have any problem, just call the operator at the telephone company and she will help you. I trust the phone company to do what is right.”
In the head of that telephone company employee, a light went on. She realized that this was a discussion about the character of the telephone company. Even though the company’s guidelines would not help in this case, the employee reached out, saw the woman’s problem, and proceeded to correct it.
In this example with the telephone company, there is something similar to this parable about prayer. If an employee of a big phone company can ultimately be true to the good character of the company, imagine how much more so, will God in heaven be true to you when you persist at your relationship with God.
By now, most of you know that I’m a Boston Red Sox fan. When they are in the playoffs like right now, we go crazy. We can’t focus on anything else; can’t eat, can’t sleep, can’t work! It’s been 86 years since they have won the World Series. But we need to be persistent and remain hopeful and loyal. If the energy and concentrated attention that I give to the baseball playoffs can be compared to the need for us to pray without losing heart, imagine how much more so, will God in heaven be true to me when I persist in my relationship with Christ.
Don’t give up; each one of you. Go on and persistently nag God for the promises that he has made to you and to all humankind. God will not leave you or abandon you. He will not give up on you so don’t give up on God. Pray persistently and never lose heart. And when we do lose faith, we would be once again reminded of the merciful and sacrificially love we know in Jesus Christ on the Cross so that we may have everlasting life and peace.
Let us pray.
Precious Lord God, grant us the steadfastness to keep on praying to you and not lose heart. Show us that in your plan for our lives and the world that you are always watching over us day and night. May we be as persistent in our prayer as the widow was in this parable. In the name of Christ, we pray. Amen.