Luke 18:1-8 (NRSV Updated Edition)
Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart. He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people. In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Grant me justice against my accuser.’ For a while he refused, but later he said to himself, ‘Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.’ ” And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them. And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”
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"[T]he question we have to ask is what is Jesus doing? Is Jesus comparing us to the widow? That as human beings who experience injustice, is the unjust judge to be compared with God? Is there a 'how much more' [...] argument kind of here, how if the judge is like this, how much more will God be?
"But I want to come to the two questions that are asked [by Jesus] here. The Lord says, “Hear what the unrighteous judge says.” Now notice he does not say here "what the widow says.” The emphasis for Jesus in this text is not on the widow or her persistence [...] Here, this is a judge who has no honor. He doesn't care, but he gives in.
"And then Jesus asks this strange question focused on the judge. “Will not God vindicate his elect who cry to him day and night.” If you're part of the audience, your answer to that question is going to be “Yes!” Because you have in your tradition texts that move in that direction. And I want to give you one text in particular that is noted by the scholars on the parables and that comes from the book of Sirach chapter 35 [...] So if you have an Apocrypha, you'll want to go to the book of Sirach 35:14-21. Listen very carefully to this text:
“Do not offer the judge a bribe. He will not accept it. And do not rely on a dishonest sacrifice, for the Lord is judge and with him there is no partiality. He will not show partiality to the poor, but he will listen to the prayer of one who is wronged. He will not ignore the supplication of the orphan or the widow when she pours out her complaint. Do not the tears of the widow run down her cheek as she cries out against the one who causes them to fall? The one whose service is pleasing to the Lord will be accepted and his prayer will reach to the clouds. The prayer of the humble pierces the clouds and it will not rest until it reaches its goal. It will not desist until the Most High responds and does justice for the righteous and executes judgment. Indeed, the Lord will not delay and like a warrior will not be patient until he crushes the loins of the unmerciful and repays vengeance [...] on the nations until he destroys the multitudes of the insolent, breaks the scepters of the unrighteous, repays mortals according to their deeds and the works of all according to their thoughts, until he judges the case of his people and makes them rejoice in his mercy.”
"Here's the takeaways from this and a couple of them are linguistic. Notice here what the unrighteous judge says. “And will not God vindicate his elect who cry to him day and night?” Right out of this passage in Sirach is the language of a widow. Right out of the language of this passage are those who cry day and night. Right out of this passage is the question of will the Lord respond? And the answer is indeed the Lord will not delay. Okay, same phrase that's used here. And notice this “will he delay long over them?” It's the same in Greek here in Luke as it is over in the Sirach text on the phrase, “and like a warrior will not be patient until he crushes the loins of the merciful.” So in other words, anybody hearing Jesus doing this parable is going to have in the back of their mind this little story or text from Sirach, ok, it certainly would have been a popular text amongst the poor. And the question is, “will not God vindicate his elect who cry out to him day and night?” He doesn't say, “And will the father not vindicate?” He doesn't use "the Father” here, he uses the god concept.
"And the vindication is to be of his elect. Now, what kind of language is this business of elect? Who are the elect? We don't see Jesus talking much about the elect. And in fact, we see him doing quite the opposite in just the previous chapter before this. Is it not the case that the rich man who sat who's had the poor man at his gate, did he not count on his election? Is it not the case that the the Pharisees will say we have as our father Abraham? Are they not counting on their election? Was it not John the Baptist who when confronted with the doctrine of election said God can turn these stones into sons and daughters of God? So there's a critique of the notion of national election here that runs through the Jesus tradition. And so it seems odd to me that Jesus is now going to use a term like the elect with reference to his own.
"So what I did was what I always do. I thought this was curious because the commentators aren't helpful. Most of them want to turn this parable into almost the opposite of what it's doing, I think. First of all, when it comes to the noun 'ecletos', the elect. Okay, we rarely find it in the gospels. In fact, it's found more often in Matthew, but only from chapters 20 on, 20, 22, and 24 - eschatological texts. Oh, election, eschatological text. We ought to automatically be thinking of the Pharisees who were apocalyptic. Qumran, the elect community, they were apocalyptic. First Enoch which talks all about the elect. Okay. So election is a category from apocalyptic literature. Good. We can establish that at least. Mark 13 is the only place where elect is used (in Mark) and that's the little apocalypse. Okay. And then only here in Luke 18 and then again in Luke 23 where it is stated this is the elect Christ of God. After that it's used twice in Romans, once in Colossians, three times in the pastoral epistles and one two three four times in first Peter, once in the book of Revelation. It's not a common term.
"First of all, it's not a common term. That ought to tell you something right away about Calvinism, which puts the doctrine of election right at the top of the system. Double election. Okay, we have a problem here. When we major in the minors, when we take things that aren't significant and we make them significant, we make them bigger than they are within our theological model. That's the first takeaway.
"Second takeaway is that with regard to the elect, I want to ask the question, is Jesus countering or critiquing this apocalyptic tradition? Where as if I perceive that I'm part of this elect nation and if this elect nation is praying day and night, will not God come and deal with with the issues? And while I think that the crowd is going to be saying, “Yes, God will indeed vindicate his elect who cry to him day and night.” And then when Jesus says, “Will he delay long over them?” they would they would say no. But remember the delay long over them in the Sirach text is that he will not delay long until he crushes the loins of the of the unmerciful and repays vengeance on the nations.
"Will not God vindicate his elect who cry to him day and night? Won't God do that? Isn't that the way God works? Will he delay long over them? And they're going, “Yes.” And then Jesus says, “I'm going to tell you something. He'll vindicate them speedily. But,” - and there's a very strong adversity here, 'plēn' - “But when the Son of Man comes, will he find 'pistus' on earth?” What is 'pistus'? As we've already seen in the Gospel tradition, as we explained in four lectures at the very beginning of our Unsystematic Theology, 'pistus' is trust. Jesus invites us to trust the Father.
"Okay. Does the woman trust the judge? No. The judge is not like the Father. That that much is clear. Or I should say the Father is not like the judge. Okay. The judge capitulates and gives in because of this woman's nagging of him. And Jesus is is inviting us, as Luke says right at the beginning, that we always ought to pray and never lose heart because we don't perceive God to be like this judge. We know that God is faithful. We know that God vindicates his children. We know this. He did it with Jesus. Many of us have have bits and pieces of our own stories where that's taken place. [...] The Father does that. [But] what the Father is looking for is 'pistis', is trust. We don't have to push God for vengeance. That's what's being sought here, vindication or vengeance, [...] 'make this other person pay' kind of logic. That's not part of the kingdom, as we've seen over and over about forgiveness and the lack of transactional thinking in that's not part of the kingdom as we've seen over and over about forgiveness and the lack of transactional thinking in Jesus teaching.
"So that's why number one, the emphasis is not on the widow and she's persistent and gets her way and therefore Christians who are struggling can pray and pray and pray it up and pray it up and whatever [...] And it is also the case that in the Gospel of Matthew - and whether this is Matthean redaction or not in the Sermon on the Mount, don't know, don't care right now - Matthew's Jesus says, when you pray, don't babble on and on and on like the Gentiles. And the Lord's Prayer itself as a prayer is very short.
"Prayer is not meant to be something we sit and do for hours and days at a time as a religious exercise, my friends. Prayer, I would say - this is not in the text - are those conversations that arise from our heart to the Father. [...] God is not like the unjust judge."
- Michael Hardin, from video "Luke 18" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54U0ojrAr4o)
[For alternative analyses and discussions on all the lectionary texts for this Sunday: https://girardianlectionary.net/reflect.../year-c/proper24c/]
[I also recommend James Alison's video homily for this passage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3iWK46e_HI]
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