God and the Squeaky Wheel 10/17/04
a sermon by Rev. Rebecca Segers
Luke 18:1-8
2 Timothy 3:14-4:5  

Today we heard the parable of the unjust judge.  We are told right up front what the parable is about: “(we) ought always to pray and not lose heart.”  This is exactly how I presented the parable to our young people today, but I’d like to go deeper with you.

We have two characters upon which we can focus: the widow and the judge.  We also have the focus of never giving up.  Of praying persistently.  Let’s start with the widow – the squeaky wheel, if you will.  In ancient Israel , widows, orphans and foreigners were to be treated with especial care.  These were people for whom it was thought that God had a special place in His heart.  I can talk more about why orphans and foreigners were included in this category at coffee hour or in another sermon, but since our scripture lesson today is about a widow, let’s look at the specificity of being a widow in ancient Israel .  If you were a female and married, once your husband died, you were deprived of his support.  There would be no land passed on to you – widows could not inherit their husband’s estate, which legally passed on to his sons or brothers.  Therefore, you could no longer live in what had been your home, unless the son or brother who inherited it allowed you to stay.  Often, if you were allowed to stay in your home, you might be in a sense “demoted” from the life you had known previously.  A new woman would likely take your place as primary female in the household and the one who made decisions regarding the running the home would no longer be yours.  Your living space would be changed to a less prominent and attractive one – in essence, you would be moved to the back guest bedroom and expected to be grateful for the fact that the household was willing to take on the expense of your presence.  You might also be expected to marry one of your husband’s brothers and to take over his household.  If you had children, they, too, would come under the purview of the new head of household whomever he might be.  Clearly as someone with very little in the way of rights, plus the fact that desires and expectations were different for you and for who was to come into power once you lost your husband, often the local Israelite court would be the most likely recourse for a widow to resort to in hopes of receiving justice.  Because of the disparity in power and the broad way that the law could be interpreted, disputes involving widows and orphans were common.

In our story today, we do not know what the widow’s grievance is.  Perhaps she is supposed to be married to one of her husband’s relatives and he won’t come through, leaving her in destitution.  Perhaps she has been refused a place to live.  Whatever her complaint, we can assume it is valid and can be impressed with the fact that she does not give up despite the unjust judge’s obvious lack of interest in her case.

However, we must also remember that widows are given a place of honor in both the Old Testament and the New – the expectation is that God will vindicate those who are regarded as especially in need.  So this character of the widow would have been a familiar one to the listeners of Jesus ’ time and as well as one with whom they would have had immediate sympathy.

And what about the unjust judge?  What do we know about him?  The duty of a judge in ancient Israel was to maintain harmonious relations and adjudicate disputes between Israelites.  He – it was most often a man, although of course, Deborah in the book of Judges is famous for having broken this mold – he was sort of like the town mayor: a leader personality who knew everyone in town and who took on the job of mediating disputes as a privilege and an honor.  This privilege and honor was openly recognized as not the ultimate authority – everyone knew that belonged to God.  The book of law, Deuteronomy, opens in chapter one with an acknowledgment that God is the one running the show followed by a command to choose “wise, understanding and experienced men” to be head of the tribes and to do the job of hearing cases between people.  Deuteronomy 1:16-17 goes on to charge judges to give fair hearings, saying, “you shall not be partial in judgment; you shall hear the small and the great alike.”

So clearly, the judge whom Jesus describes as neither fearing God nor having respect for people is completely unfit for his position.  And the judge starts off badly in the parable.  We know that the woman is coming to him daily, stating, “Grant me justice against my opponent.”  We also know the judge refuses to hear her case.  We don’t know why this is the situation.  There are many possibilities: perhaps he’s waiting for her to give him a bribe, or maybe the person with whom she has the dispute is powerful and he’s hoping to curry favor by ignoring her, maybe she simply reminds him of a nagging sister-in-law and he can’t stand the sound of her voice.

Whatever the reason, eventually the judge has a little internal monologue where he changes his mind about hearing her case.  This is kind of a surprising little talk with himself where he self-describes just as Jesus did: “Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone,” the judge tells himself, “yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.”

This last little clause is pretty amusing, too.  The judge gives two reasons for his change of heart: the first is so that she will stop bothering him and the second is: το παρέχειν μοι κόπον which literally means “so that she may not come and strike me under the eye.”  In other words, he could be saying, “Gee, if I don’t listen to her case, she might come punch me in the face” although it also has the less exciting metaphorical meaning of “so that she (will) not wear me out by continually coming.”

This, in essence, is the end of the parable.  We move into questions about God and the Lord’s readiness to provide justice in comparison to the unjust judge’s.  So once he hears the widow’s case, it is clear that he must rule in her favor.  She receives justice simply through the act of being able to be heard.

Which of these two characters are you?  Are you the widow – struggling to believe that God will continue to hear your cries, cries that seem to be falling on deaf ears?  Or are you the judge – turning a deaf ear to those who cry out in need?  Or are you both at depending on the time and the situation?

When I was five months pregnant with Grace , her father decided that he did not wish to be with us.  He was sorrowful, but unwilling to give up the life that he knows as the road manager for a theatre company in Europe and settle down into a more stable, secure lifestyle.  I was devastated, not being able to imagine a life without him, much less alone as a single mother.  Also, being bombarded with major hormones, I was, quite simply and plainly, an emotional wreck.  I could not go but an hour or two without bursting into tears, and vacillated between having an abortion, giving my child up for adoption or having her and keeping her.

Obviously, you who are sitting in the pews today, know what the end result was of that time period in my life, and I’m so very grateful that my daughter, Grace , is here with me.  She has enriched my life immensely and from the moment I laid eyes on her, I haven’t looked back.  But at the time, I was in excruciating pain, yelling and complaining and praying to and at God.  I had my idea of how my life was supposed to look and this wasn’t it.  Grace ’s father and I were supposed to be together, and we were supposed to have not only one child, but two or three or four – I had it all planned out and how dare God not listen to what I knew was best.  If you were to hear my prayers from that time, I was definitely the widow.  I was the injured party, the one needing aid and succor, the one who deserved to have her case heard and decided in her favor.  At least, that was my viewpoint.

But that wasn’t what happened.  My life didn’t turn out the way I had it planned.  God didn’t answer my prayers – or did He?  You see, from a ten-year out viewpoint, I think I am exactly where I am supposed to be and amazingly blessed with what has been given to me.  Grace ’s father and I would have gotten divorced in any case – we were simply not suited to one another with different goals and dreams and ideas of what life should be like.  This way, Grace didn’t have to go through an acrimonious situation when she was three or four or five and doesn’t desperately miss a person who’s never been present anyway.  As a result of being a single mom, I have had to make decisions and choices about the direction my life would head, have had to rely on God a lot more than I would have had to had Grace’s father been present and have grown in my faith journey to the point of where I’m standing here before you today, someone who has personally experienced the death and resurrection that Christian life manifests.  God has vindicated me – but in ways and shapes that I could never have imagined or dreamed had things turned out the way that I had planned.

In our story today, the unjust judge, from whom one could hardly expect justice, also comes through in the end.  What are we to learn from this?  There are two ways to look at it: the emphasis could fall on the importance of not losing heart and continuing to pray persistently even if the face of defeat, which is what we’re told upfront at the beginning of the parable.  Luke is very enamored of the value of prayer, not only giving us examples through parables such as this one, but by especially noting Jesus’ withdrawals for periods of prayer, which you can read yourselves in 3:21, 5:16, 6:12, 9:18, 9:28-29, 22:39-45, 23:34, 23:46.

Or the emphasis can be on the Lord – the parable illustrates the importance of persistent prayer, but how much more bountiful is God than any person, much less one that is unfeeling and unjust?  God will vindicate those who are in need and in pain.  God will answer those who pray day and night – but is this statement, information, idea that we are given in the Bible borne out in actual fact?  God did for me, in the example that I gave, but it took me an awful long time to see it and it is sometimes difficult to see God’s presence in situations here and around the world.  Does God truly answer all who pray day and night?

The Carmelite nuns of Indianapolis would certainly say “yes.”  They even have a website called “Pray the News.”  On it, they write as their mission statement:

“We look, and all too often it seems, there is no one to help.  No one, it seems, to free the oppressed, to uphold the fallen, or shelter the homeless.

We may view these events through a television screen, the front page of a newspaper – or event the eyes of someone who has seen.  However they come to us, these painful reminders of the incompleteness of the world are everywhere.

It is in this context, then, that we pray the news.  By continuously making ourselves aware of the present moment of the universe, we awaken ourselves to the presence of God – and in our own way, participate in the healing, loving and creative energy this process can spark.”

Currently the news that they are praying over is the election and the debates, the selection process of the next president of the United States .  You can go up on the website and read Sister Betty , Sister Terese , Sister Ruth , Sister Jean and Sister Joanne ’s comments on the debates and their hopes and prayers for the leadership in the White House for the next four years in America .  They are amazingly non-partisan, which I would imagine a life of prayer and contemplation might do for you.

In her discussion, Sister Jean tells a story about a “debate” that was held at the monastery several years ago by two Sisters on the merits of using various religious devotions and articles such as rosaries, relics, scapulars, holy water, medals and statues.  Sister Mary , laden with such items, spoke of their wonders with total enthusiasm and exaggeration.  Sister Gloria , playing the skeptic, was overpowered by her opponent's gusto and character impersonation.  At one point she said to Sister Mary with much emotion, "You're winning, but I know I'm right." This provoked much laughter but it was a gem of human wisdom.  Because, you see, winning or scoring points (or having the most compelling personality) is not necessarily being right.  Debates are great, Sister Jean says, but I will always prefer the written word and a lot of silence for inner dialogue.

Sister Joanne puts it even more succinctly: “My prayer, she says, between now and November 2nd is for both of the candidates.  I pray that the person elected be the best for our country at this time of history.”  When so much is riding on the outcome of the election – the war in Iraq with the over 1,000 American soldiers who have died there and between 16,000 and 20,000 Iraqis who have lost their lives, the economy, the environment, healthcare and more – I know that each of us in this room has his or her opinion about who should be the next president and what is the right direction for our country to be heading.  But perhaps we need to take a tip from Sister Joanne and the widow who was the squeaky wheel and pray persistently for God’s will for our nation and our world even as we exercise our right to vote on November 2^nd.

The parable of the squeaky wheel and the one who oils it ends with the implication of faith or readiness.  Luke spins the parable around one more time, asking if the Son of Man will find faith when he comes – thus, in the end, the parable is not about persistence of prayer or God’s vindication, but about whether or not we who remain here are faithful.  What starts out as a graphic lesson on the importance of prayer and patient endurance, finally focuses on the quality and vitality of one’s faith.  And perhaps that is the point after all – that without prayer and without actions borne out of prayer, our lives are not those that God intends for us to have.  We are called not simply to pray and not simply to dispense justice and mercy, but to do both.  And it is when we are truly actively engaged in our lives as Christians that we are living out our faith.

Because the fact of the matter is, we are all the widow and we are all the judge.  We all have moments of crying out in pain and moments of ignoring the pain and anguish around us of a world in desperate need.  I was so proud of you, of us, of the people of Sweet Hollow Presbyterian Church yesterday as we came together to support the Mission Team’s Church Fair.  We had several vendors including the UPW and Justin Sommermeyer ’s Eagle Scout Project supporting the fair, and many, many, many of you came out as volunteers and customers or both – ultimately making a total of over $1,500 for the Mission Fund.  This is so exciting!  It means that we, as a church community, have the opportunity to reach out and be just judges in a world that urgently needs us.  We now have a small kitty from which we can draw when we see or hear of a need in our community and out in the world.  As we were closing up shop yesterday, I had a short conversation with Claire Papell about what we might do with this money and she got very enthusiastic about giving some to an animal shelter or to a domestic violence crisis center.  I know that we all have particular causes that have touched our lives and that we hold dear to our hearts.  I invite you to tell me after worship about an issue that you would like to see Sweet Hollow support through its new Mission Fund or even better, come to our next Mission Team meeting and share with us personally your passion.  We invite you to be the squeaky wheel as we strive to be the ears and hearts and hands of Jesus the Christ .  It is as we participate in both sides of this same coin that we truly make a difference in the world.  As we lift up causes that need to be adjudicated and as we respond in love and mercy, that we are being the people that God intends for us to be.  Because isn’t that what this is all about anyway?  Figuring out how we are and who we are to be as Jesus ’ harbingers of love and justice and mercy in a world crying out for those qualities?

I’m going to close today with a quote from Abraham Lincoln that I think sums up this parable in a way that we might live it out in our daily lives.  This quote is from his Second Inaugural Address given on March 4, 1865 and is amazingly pertinent as we strive to live in the world as Christians today:  “With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”  May it be so.  Amen.