Shortly after moving to Texas, I was eating Wednesday night supper and chatting with one of our members about a very important topic – where to get my hair cut. And as that critical conversation was happening, Sophie McKinney had something very significant to say. It was a story so vital that it couldn’t wait for another second. I think, ultimately, it had to do with spaghetti. And that wasn’t even the meal we were eating that night. So, I lamented with Leslie across the table how teaching our kids to patiently wait for their time to talk was really difficult. My own girls have this problem of constantly saying, “Mama, Mama, Mama, Mama, Mama!” It’s a constant refrain in our home. “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!” “What?” “My tooth is still loose. I can’t find my blue socks. Where are the markers? Can you get me a snack?” Whatever is on a child’s mind tends to be the most important thing in the entire world. When children, and some adults, want something they often want it right now.
Amanda and I often say to our girls, “I’m not here to give you what you want, I’m your parent and my job is to give you what you need.” This lesson is played out in today’s Gospel reading. A widow needed justice and she needed it now, but an unjust judge wouldn’t give her what she needed. He wanted to be left alone and he wanted to maintain his status and power. But God knew better. God knew that justice needed to happen and happen quickly. And, in this parable, it took a persistent widow to get it done.
Widows lived difficult lives in Jesus’s time. A wife had no legal rights to a deceased husband’s property or estate, so she was often homeless. If she did not have grown children to take care of her, the estate reverted back to her husband’s male relatives and kinsmen on his father’s side. If she had small children, then her husband’s parents could take her property and her children. The life of a widow was precarious and perilous. In this parable, the persistent widow provided the perfect lead character; she became a teachable moment for the disciples.
And oh, those disciples needed some teaching. They needed this story at just this time because it appears they were doing two things about which Jesus was concerned: they were not remaining in a state of continuous prayer and many of them were losing heart. It is easy to understand why this particular parable would teach someone about losing heart, seeking to be saturated in prayer, and craving justice. For you see, there was in a certain city a judge “who neither feared God nor had respect for people.” This judge was supposedly charged with enacting fairness and impartiality, but it seemed these good traits rarely came from his judicial decisions. Jesus depicted him as a despicable character, only in office to benefit himself and to exercise power.
The parable continues with a widow from his region who kept coming to him, appealing, begging, for her rightful legal protection. I’m not sure if the dispute was about property, preservation, or protection, but as a plaintiff she said, “Grant me justice against my opponent.” Someone was taking advantage of this widow and she needed justice. The unjust judge refused to hear her petition over and over again. I can almost hear her pestering him, saying like children do, “Judge, Judge, Judge, Judge.” “WHAT?” Finally, her persistence got the best of him.
A widow, an outcast, a leftover and left out outsider, needed help. She needed an advocate, a friend, a righteous judge. What she got was someone who did not fear God and did not respect people. Can you imagine a worse judge? Can you image needing a favorable judgment from someone who did not value morality and wisdom and did not care for human compassion? Her simple and meager life would not be enough to convince this worthless judge to rule in her favor. Her existence wasn’t enough, but her persistence was. She would keep bothering, pestering, badgering this judge until justice was served. The judge relented so as to not be tormented any longer by the persistent widow. The widow followed a God of justice and knew that she would conquer the huge mountain before her.
George Mallory was the famed mountain climber who may have been the first person ever to reach the top of Mount Everest. In the early 1920’s he led a number of attempts to scale the mountain, eventually being killed in the third attempt in 1924. Before that last and fatal attempt, he had said “I can’t see myself coming down defeated.”
Mallory was an extraordinary climber, and nothing would force him to give up. His body was found in 1999, well preserved by the snow and ice, 27,000 feet up the mountain, just 2000 feet from the peak. Give up he did not. His body was found face down on a rocky slope, head toward the summit. His arms were extended high over his head. His toes were pointed into the mountain; his fingers dug into the loose rock, refusing to let go even as he drew his last breath. A short length of cotton rope – broken – was looped around his waist.
When those who had set up camp for Mallory further down the mountain returned to England a banquet was held for them. A huge picture of Mt. Everest stood behind the banquet table. It is said that the leader of the group stood to be applauded, and with tears streaming down his face, turned and looked at the picture. “I speak to you, Mt. Everest, in the name of all brave men living and those yet unborn” he said. “Mt. Everest, you defeated us once; you defeated us twice; you defeated us three times. But Mt. Everest, we shall someday defeat you, because you can’t get any bigger… but we can.” In 1953 two climbers, Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzig Norgay, reached the top.[1]
We must get bigger as church. We must give bigger. Maybe that means we tithe a little bit more than we are comfortable. We must sacrifice bigger. Maybe that means we go to bed a little earlier on Saturday nights so we can be rested and ready for church. We must love bigger. Maybe that means we reach out to other faiths or people of no faith and see where they are being ignored and abandoned and offended. We must fight bigger. Maybe there are people in our lives or leaders in this city who are acting like the irritated judge. Maybe we must pester and persist and persevere to show that we ultimately serve a big God who has given us a big command to fight for those who have no strength left to fight. The Mt. Everest problems of the world seem too big to conquer, but we must have faith that God will help us get bigger and be more equipped to do good things.
We must be persistent and relentless in our faith that justice will be done and that we are all, each and every one of us, part of the solution. But we must also be patient. The changes we hope to see in the world will not come quickly. We will need to know that those in other churches, in other synagogues, in other mosques, in other cities, and all over this nation, need to be involved, as well, in changing our world. Sometimes we need to cultivate and grow leaders. Sometimes we need to wait on allies in other communities. Sometimes we need to get to know the systems already in place. But even though we are waiting and are patient, we need to do so with relentless and persistent faith.
Since today is also Bread for the World Sunday, I was reminded of a story relating to justice. It is called “Rafts on the River” and it speaks to the systems in place and how we must act with relentless and persistent faith.
“There once was a nice town by a big river. The closest town upstream and downstream was a hundred miles away. One day, a raft with twenty children on board beached near the town. The children were hungry and in rags. It was beautiful to see how the townspeople rushed to pick them up, carried them into their homes, and cared for them as their own.
About a month later another raft of hungry children arrived. Several families who hadn’t taken a child the first time offered to do so this time. At a town hall meeting they tried to decide how to pay for the care of the children. They decided to raise their taxes. It wasn’t pretty.
When another raft arrived a month later, people ran down to the riverbank. Some began yelling, “We can’t handle any more poor children! They must be sent down the river!” Others shouted, “But if we do that they’ll surely starve to death!” Finally, the town took in this last group of children.
Guess what happened next month! Sentries were posted up the river. When the alarm sounded, everyone in town rushed to the shore. As the raft with more hungry children came around the bend, several people with long poles pushed the raft out into the current. While the raft slowly floated out of sight, fighting broke out on the shore. Never had the town been so divided. But in all this time, not once did the townspeople think about sending a canoe upriver to find out why all the hungry children were floating down the river. Not once did they think about trying to find out what could be done to head off the problems.[2]
I wonder if the town felt isolated. I wonder if they didn’t feel equipped. I wonder if they didn’t know others cared as much as they did about changing the lives of the abandoned and hurting children. I wonder if they felt that they couldn’t do everything by themselves and needed a lot more help. I’m sure they were afraid and alone. And I’m sure that many churches feel this way today. We want to bring the Realm of Heaven here to earth and show the love and comfort of God to all of God’s creation but we aren’t truly connected to each other. We aren’t working together with our civic leaders, our faith leaders, our leaders of goodwill, our business leaders, to really understand the pains people are feeling, the hurt and heartache that our communities face. We are so exhausted and afraid with our current problems that we can’t even begin to think how to fix them.
I think the first step is to lean into our relentless and persistent faith, and know that we are not alone. We can’t do this alone. We must begin to canoe upriver and find out where our world is broken. We must relentlessly and persistently write letters to our elected officials when we see people being hurt and abused. We must relentlessly and persistently join other faith communities, even non-Christian communities, to be people of goodwill in Dallas. We must relentlessly and persistently empower those leaders who understand our faith values and will listen to the people whose voices aren’t being heard. We must relentlessly and persistently pray for the people who economically run this city that they will not favor the powerful but will give comfort and grace to the powerless. We must relentlessly and persistently have faith, that no matter how hopeless we feel, how powerless we feel, how alone we feel, how ineffective we feel, that our little bit, this church’s faith of a mustard seed, will help grow this city into a huge tree of hope and comfort and love to all of God’s children. We must have a persistent and a relentless faith. For if we do, who knows, we might see our world actually change.
We are preparing to ordain five new deacons to our diaconate. These five servants, along with Terry Berrier who was previously ordained, must have persistent and relentless faith for the work ahead. They are called to be in persistent and relentless prayer for our church, for each of you, and for this city. They are called to be persistent and relentless in their love of God and their following the life of Jesus. They are called to be persistent and relentless in their care for you as they assist the clergy in our pastoral visits and spiritual encouragement. They are called to be persistent and relentless in their support of the vision and mission of Royal Lane. They are called to be persistent and relentless in their faith.
And like our new deacons, may we all, each and every one of us, be such servants in the world, as we follow the widow’s example, and as we too live out our persistent and relentless faith.
Amen.
[1] Information reported in Seattle Times (Jan 16, 2000) and Illustrations Unlimited
[2] Hunger for the Word: Lectionary Reflections on Food and Justice, Year C. Larry Hollar, Editor. 2006.