Scripture Daily

Context No. 675 of 4322 · Luke

Context · Reflection

Luke 18:1-5: in context

1He also spoke a parable to them that they must always pray and not give up, 2saying, “There was a judge in a certain city who didn’t fear God and didn’t respect man. 3A widow was in that city, and she often came to him, saying, ‘Defend me from my adversary!’ 4He wouldn’t for a while; but afterward he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God nor respect man, 5yet because this widow bothers me, I will defend her, or else she will wear me out by her continual coming.’”

Luke tells us the point of this parable before he tells the parable, which he rarely does. Jesus spoke it, he says, to teach them that they should always pray and not lose heart. Then the story: a judge in a city who feared neither God nor man, and a widow who kept coming to him with one demand, grant me justice against my adversary. She has no leverage. She is a widow, at the bottom of the ancient order, with no money to bribe and no man to press her case. All she has is that she will not stop coming.

For a while the judge refuses. Then he gives in, and he is honest about why. It is not that he has found a conscience. It is that this widow is wearing him out, and he will settle her case just to be rid of her. Jesus is arguing from the worst possible judge to the opposite. If even a man like that yields to persistence, the God who is nothing like him, who actually wants to do right by his people, will not put them off. The widow's one weapon was that she kept coming, and Jesus holds her up as the picture of how to pray.

The widow won by refusing to stop coming, and Jesus called that faith. What have I stopped bringing to God, because I decided too early that the asking was useless?

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