By Father Jean-Pierre Ruiz
With apologies to the wonderful teachers who tried their very best to teach me math, I have to admit that word problems always frustrated me.
“Fred was running a race with his friend Alice. Fred’s friend ran 16 miles of the race, and Fred ran four miles per hour slower than Alice. If Alice finished the race in four hours and 18 minutes, how long did it take for Fred to cross the finish line if he took a 10- minute break?”
Why should it matter to me how long it took the imaginary Fred to cross the imaginary finish line?
Fortunately for us, the parables of Jesus are not word problems, but that didn’t prevent His disciples from puzzling over why He taught in parables. After hearing the parable of the sower, they approached Him to ask what the parable meant, but before providing an explanation, Jesus tells them, “Knowledge of the mysteries of the kingdom of God has been granted to you; but to the rest, they are made known through parables so that ‘they may look but not see, and hear but not understand’” (Luke 8:10).
Here Jesus alludes to the words of Isaiah 6:9, where God anticipates that Isaiah’s prophetic words will go unheard, and worse, unheeded by those to whom he is sent. With the accuracy that only hindsight can provide, the evangelist knew that many of those who heard Jesus’ words and saw Him proclaim the reign of God’s mercy simply didn’t get it. Yet the disciples got it, and so it would be up to them to take up the challenging task of handing on the message of the Gospel faithfully and authentically.
Framing the Message
As the earliest generations of Jesus’ disciples handed on the parables, first by word of mouth and eventually in writing, they were careful not only to share the words of Jesus, but also to frame what the Teacher said in ways that would help us to make sense of them so that the message of the Gospel could make a difference in our lives. This week’s reading from Luke’s Gospel is an especially clear example of how they did so, offering us a key insight at the start so that an otherwise puzzling parable makes more sense.
Luke explains that Jesus told His disciples the parable “about the necessity for them to pray always without becoming weary.” Simple enough, right? Not quite! There’s much more to the Teacher’s provocative parable than an object lesson about persistence in prayer.
Often called the “parable of the unjust judge,” it would probably be more accurate to describe it as the parable of the audacious widow, or as one commentator has put it, the parable of the feisty widow. That is because, at the time of Jesus it would have been highly unusual for a woman to bring a case before a judge. Such activity in the public forum would have been considered inappropriate.
Jesus Himself appears to have warned His disciples of the potential perils of such litigation: “Why do you not judge for yourselves what is right? If you are to go with your opponent before a magistrate, make an effort to settle the matter on the way; otherwise your opponent will turn you over to the judge, and the judge hand you over to the constable, and the constable throw you into prison. I say to you, you will not be released until you have paid the last penny” (Luke 12:57-59).
Jesus’ words are an incisive critique of a justice system that was thoroughly biased in favor of people who had both means and influence, and utterly inattentive to the concerns of those on the underside of society. Judges could be bought, but the widow in the parable is in no position to purchase a decision with what little she had in her purse, nor does she have the social capital that it would take to sway this judge to find on her behalf and against her adversary. Despite the judge’s reputation for being someone “who neither feared God nor respected any human being,” the widow won’t quit. She is audacious enough to bring her case into the public forum on her own, and stubborn enough to keep insisting over and over again, “Render a just decision for me against my adversary.”
In the end, the judge is forced to admit that he will rule in her favor not only “because this widow keeps bothering me,” but mainly because he fears that she might “finally come and strike me.” Let’s be clear what he means here: the English translation of Luke’s Gospel softens the impact of the original Greek, according to which the judge decides as he does because he is worried that the widow might literally give him a black eye!
That’s how the parable ends, but Jesus isn’t quite done yet. “Pay attention to what the dishonest judge says,” He tells the disciples. While it is a powerful blend of stubbornness on the part of the widow and fear on the part of the judge that eventually wear down his indifference, these crassly human reasons for his ruling are contrasted with God’s swift and certain judgment on behalf of the lowly “who call out to him day and night.” As we sing in the psalm appointed for this Sunday’s Eucharistic liturgy, “I lift up my eyes to the mountains; whence shall help come to me? My help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.”
True though it is that persistence in prayer is important, another takeaway from this parable is Jesus’ assurance that God is not like the unjust judge who eventually does the right thing for the wrong reasons. Because God’s justice is revealed in God’s infinite mercy, God doesn’t have to be begged, bribed or cajoled into acting on our behalf. God always takes the initiative. Even so, our own persistence in prayer also serves God’s purposes, for it can wear down our own reluctance to welcome in faith what God wills for us, which is infinitely more than we can ask or imagine.
Readings for 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Exodus 17: 8-13
Psalm 121: 1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8
2 Timothy 3:14 – 4:2
Luke 18: 1-8
Father Jean-Pierre Ruiz, a priest of the Diocese of Brooklyn, is a professor of theology at St. John’s University.