Batter My Heart / Do Not Lose Heart

A sermon based on Luke 18:1-8

Don Friesen

Ottawa Mennonite Church
October 21, 2001
omc315@ottawamennonite.ca
www.ottawamennonite.ca

Edward Bennett Williams, a well known trial attorney for whom Georgetown University named its law library, was a philanthropist and contributed nearly four million dollars to the construction of the library. Williams and his family also gave to other causes and, in fact, Williams and a friend were in charge of a prestigious foundation when they were approached by Mother Teresa, who had requested money for a hospital she was building for people with AIDS.

AIDS was not one of Williams' favourite diseases, and he and the other members of the foundation had already decided they would listen politely to Mother Teresa, let her have her say, and then send her on her way with a firm but polite "No". Mother Teresa explained to them why she was in their office, asked them for money, and they said no. "Let us pray," said Mother Teresa, folding her hands and bowing in prayer. One lawyer caught the eyes of another as he rolled his eyes, but they too bowed their heads and prayed. After she said "Amen," she went through her request again. And again they declined. "Let us pray," said Mother Teresa, bowing her head and folding her hands, and praying again. And again she launched into her request. "All right, all right!" said the lawyer. "Give me my chequebook."

Jesus' Story of a Widow and a Judge

This story -- a "little-nun-meets-big-lawyer-and-lawyer-blinks-first" story -- is not unlike the Gospel story we heard this morning. Jesus told a parable, a rather brief one, with but two characters in the story -- a widow, and a judge. The widow was in a bad way. She was the victim of fraud, and to obtain recompense she had to seek legal recourse. There appears to be no doubt of the justice of her claim; the story focusses on the difficulty she had in getting a hearing!

Widows in Jesus' day were powerless and vulnerable. For one thing, women could not inherit property. Property, when a man died, was willed to the man's oldest son, and in the absence of a male heir, to the nearest male relative. The relative, of course, had the responsibility of caring for the widow and her children, but disputes about these arrangements were not uncommon. There were loopholes whereby a man could receive the property but avoid the responsibilities "pertaining thereto". There were many widows whose husbands had owned no property and those women were in even worse straits, left with little choice but begging, stealing, or prostitution. It's not accidental that in Scripture Israel is rapped on its spiritual knuckles time and again and reminded to "care for the widow" (Exodus 22:22; Deuteronomy 10:18; 24:19-21; 27:19; Job 31:16, 18; Psalm 146:9; Isaiah 1:17; Jeremiah 7:6; 22:3; Ezekiel 22:7; Zechariah 7:10; Malachi 3:5; etc.). Widows were at the mercy of others; often they had no home, but slept wherever people would let them huddle in a corner -- like today's "bag ladies," but with-out the bags!

At least the widow in Jesus' story had a claim to legal recourse, but she was frustrated because she wasn't even allowed to "approach the bench!" The law provided for her needs, but someone was standing in the way ofjustice, and that someone is the second character in the story -- the judge -- an unsavoury member of the legal profession that might give one liberty to trot out all of the predictable jokes about lawyers, but I shall restrain myself.

The judge in Jesus' story was not a philanthropist. No libraries were named after him, but that's the best that could be said of him. Jesus summarizes the judge's character by saying that he "neither feared God nor had respect for people" (Luke 18:2), a sentiment and reputation to which the judge himself refers in verse 4. Some say that he was not a Jewish judge, for the circumstances don't match Jewish jurisprudence. Perhaps Jesus had in mind one of the magistrates appointed by Herod, or by the Romans, for their notoriety was not lost on members of Jesus' audience. Unless a plaintiff had influence and money to bribe his way to a verdict he had little hope of getting a hearing. These judges were said to pervert justice for as little as a prime cut of beef! Officially they were called "Dayyaneh Gezeroth," which means judges of prohibitions or punishments, but the punsters on the street called them "Dayyaneh Gezeloth," which means "robber judges".

The in-attentiveness of these disgusting jurists is doubly reprehensible in the case Jesus puts to us because the plaintiff is a widow. Too poor to resort to bribery and lacking influential friends, she had no weapon but her persistence. Like Mother Teresa, she just kept at it, and in the end won the day, not because of the judge's lofty ideals or inspiring moral vision, but because he wanted to get her out of his hair! Constantly banging on his door, leaving messages on his answering machine, emails in his hotmail account, the judge finally said to himself, "Even though I could care less about God and can't stand most specimens of the human race who appear before me, I will give this woman what she wants, before she wears me out!"

God as Callous Judge?

We know that Jesus' parables were intended to teach us about God, and about the kingdom of God, so it is natural to ask ourselves a more immediate question: Who is God in this parable? There is a natural inclination to equate the authority figure in the parable with God, and in this case, given but two characters, it's not that hard to identify the authority figure. It's a little uncomfortable squeezing God into the role of a judge known for his indifference and his callous manner, but it's not completely unreasonable.

Jesus told us this parable, says Luke, so that we would not "lose heart" (Luke 18:1), but to those whose faithful prayers meet with the silence of God, year after year, it's not impossible to picture God in the role of this judge. Sometimes it feels as if God doesn't care enough about us to respond straight away. Sometimes it feels as if we have to keep on praying until God is sufficiently irritated by us to answer! To some people God appears aloof, at best, and at worst, mean!

If Jesus' parable was designed to encourage the disciples not to lose heart, it must mean that disheartenment was within range! Indeed, in verse 7 Jesus describes believers "who cry to (God) day and night, " suggesting a crisis of faith. Jesus' parable follows immediately upon a discussion of the final judgment at that Great Courtroom in the Sky (Luke 17:20-37), and it could be that believers were growing weary of ever receiving their vindication. Christians were often regarded by the Roman Empire as malcontents. When Caesar yelled, "War," they weren't quick enough to dust off their patriotism, and consequently were often punished with imprisonment and death. In a context of severe persecution, it was discouraging to keep on praying with no answer in sight, sufficiently discouraging that some gave up, denied their faith, and supported the status quo. It felt like God was delaying justice. It's one thing for God to delay the final judgment another day or so when life is good and the sun is shining, but when lions' appetite for Christians is at an all-time high, it would be nice to see some action!

Sometimes it's not that hard to lose heart. I can certainly find reasons to be disheartened. I find the cowardly, criminal, and hate-filled, monstrous acts of September 11 most discouraging. I also find our panicked responses discouraging. As Tom Yoder Neufeld pointed out at our retreat, it's as if we've never been out of the cave! It's right back to primordial clan spirit, naked patriotism, and tribal revenge.

I find it disheartening to give my life to a cause -- a cause that believes in human redemption, and radical commitment -- and continually come up against mediocrity walking about on feet of clay. I find it dispiriting to preach God's good gospel year in and year out, hoping that we are taking it seriously, only to discover that it vaporizes at the first whiff of sex, wealth, booze, or another demon of choice. I find it utterly demoralizing when we play at being the church, as if this is some second-rate costume party with low admission and even lower expectations. Sometimes "2 and 2 and 50" don't make a million -- don't even come anywhere close to it! (reference to Chuck Neufeld's song, "My hands alone can't heal a broken world, but if two and two and fifty make a million, we'll see this world come round") I don't like it when such feelings wash over me, for I end up like Jacob, in our Old Testament reading -- wrestling -- wrestling, not with an angel, but with myself, because I don't know if I'm a dupe of my own generation's arrogant belief that we really can change the world, or if I'm just being cranky.

We remember John Wesley as a well-known and successful preacher and hymn-writer, but it's interesting to look at his diary; listen to these excerpts:
One doesn't know if one's being cranky, or if God in His deep but mysterious wisdom will see fit to somehow use our meagre efforts.

If we feel that way at times, how much more so the people of Jesus' time listening to his words and being forced to acknowledge that by and large they had resigned themselves to the evil around them. It's even easier to give up trying to change things when you're powerless and persecuted.

In World War II the Germans sealed off the city of Warsaw to keep the Jews under control until they were in a position to send them off to various concentration camps. The Jews weren't certain what was going to happen to them but they were fairly sure that they were going to be put to death. A young man who had been an art student before the war discovered a way out of Warsaw and was able to forge papers that would pass examination by the German guards. He made dozens of false identity papers and passes, and offered them to as many of those in the Warsaw Ghetto as would take them, but with the exception of two, everyone was too scared to escape. They would rather stay on with the devil they knew than risk the one they didn't know. They had given up hope. They were resigned to their fate.

It's not that hard to see God as an indifferent and callous judge when one's prayers disappear into thin air. In the play, "Fiddler on the Roof," Tevye says to God: "Today I am a horse. Dear God, did you have to make my poor old horse lose his shoe just before the Sabbath? That wasn't nice. It's enough you pick on me, Tevye, bless me with ...a life of poverty. What have you got against my horse? Sometimes I think when things are too quiet up there, You say to Yourself: 'Let's see, what kind of mischief can I play on my friend, Tevye'."

The Scriptures encourage us to "pray without ceasing" (1 Thessalonians 5:17), but I don't know if God anticipated someone like Tevye, for he continues talking to God in this manner: "As the Good book says, 'Heal us, O Lord, and we shall be healed.' In other words, send us the cure, we've got the sickness already. I'm not really complaining -- after all, with your help, I'm starving to death. You made many, many poor people. I realize, of course, that it's no shame to be poor, but it's no great honour either. So what would have been so terrible if I had a small fortune?" Tevye's prayers come from the depths of his being, and therein lies hope, for he has not given up on God. He has not lost heart, and you can rest assured that if he does, God will receive sufficient notification!

God as Persistent Widow?

We may feel at times as if God is as indifferent as the callous judge in Jesus' story, but chances are that Luke did not intend this parallel. And if God is not the judge, there's only one other character. Perhaps God is the widow. An obvious interpretation when reading this Gospel is to cast ourselves in the role of the widow, incessantly pleading with God until our prayers are answered. That's the conventional reading, but given the widow's persistent demands for justice, it's not that much of a stretch to see God in her role. It's also not that much of a stretch to see ourselves in the role of the judge who has respect for neither God nor people! Imagine that it is God who continually calls us, who just won't let us alone until our resistance is broken down.

It's certainly a role that fits God, pursuing as he did figures like Jonah, whose only persistent streak lay in his obstinacy. Then there was the Apostle Paul, who was heading south along the spiritual road until God caught up with him on the road to Damascus and told him to go north! Think of St. Augustine's beautiful but poignant lament over his profligate life,
John Donne (1573-1631), the seventeenth century English poet and priest, expressed God's relentless pursuance of sinners in these wonderful lines:
Several centuries later there was a man whose father wanted him to become a priest, but the young man flunked out of seminary. He then studied medicine, but after six years he failed again. He sold newspapers for a while before becoming a drug addict. It was at this point of utter turmoil and with every reason to despair, when any judge would have dismissed his case as unworthy of a hearing, that the man penned some unforgettable lines. In the midst of a horrid addiction, and dying of tuberculosis, the young man wrote a poem expressing his relationship with God: God pursued the young man, in the words of the poem, "with unhurrying chase, and unperturbèd pace, deliberate speed, majestic instancy." I love those words, and I like God in the role of the widow, the relentless "hound of heaven" challenging our complacency and calling us to deeper commitment. It may seem like an unusual interpretation, but consider that while initially the focus of Jesus' parable is on waiting for God's action, the focus at the end of the parable is on our action. Jesus asks, "...when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?" (Luke 18:8) If in the first part we are holding God to account for the silent response to our prayers, in the second part God is holding us to account for our efforts.

There is about Christian spirituality this curious synthesis of trusting in God's faithfulness despite all evidence to the contrary, and working hard to offer God the best of our own faithfulness. We work as hard as we can to be faithful, even in the face of seeming ineffectiveness, if for no other reason than that the New Testament tells us, "Stand firm and steady. Keep busy always in your work for the Lord, since you know that nothing you do in the Lord's service is ever useless." (1 Corinthians 15:58, TEV)

In 1911 Calbraith Perry Rodgers made an outstanding contribution to aviation with his courageous and daring four thousand mile coast-to-coast crossing of the United States in an aeroplane. Rodgers took off from Sheepshead Bay, Long Island, on September 17, 1911 and landed in Pasadena, California on November 5. It took forty-nine days to make the trip, but his actual time in the air was three days, ten hours, and four minutes. That's because along the way Rogers crashed thirty-nine times, and made thirty additional unscheduled stops. Made against seemingly overwhelming odds of weather and mechanical malfunctions and failures, the only parts of Rodgers' original plane that were left when he completed his venture were the rudder, the engine drip pan, and a single strut. After yet another crash Rodgers made the last leg of his trip with his leg in a cast and his crutches tied to the side of his plane. (National Aviation Hall of Fame web site)

Now, our inclination, in typical North American individualistic fashion, would be to apply this anecdote to ourselves, thus encouraging high-achievers to become over-achievers. If God-as-Widow provides us with some helpful insights, perhaps God-as-Aviator yields a helpful perspective as well, for I think that God is determined to get His Church off the ground, no matter how many parts fail, no matter how many crashes and no-starts and inclement weather and inclement attitudes and unscheduled stops on the way to glory. God is faithful, and will work His purposes out, with or without our help, but God will still ask us, at some point or another, about our faith, and our faithfulness.

I pointed out a few weeks ago that there are two kinds of parables; one is the "Go Thou and Do Likewise" type of parable, and the second is the "How Much More" type. The parable we studied this morning is also a "How Much More" parable, pointing out that if a no-good, dishonest, indifferent, callous judge will respond to a powerless widow's persistence, how much more will God -- not only a good judge, and the Judge of judges, but a merciful God -- how much more will God honour our efforts and prayers. The faithful and trustworthy character of God is motivation enough not to lose heart and to press on in prayer and persistent effort for the establishment of His just and loving kingdom.

God will not pull us into the Kingdom against our will. God will not drag us, kicking and screaming, into His purposes, but God will constantly and unceasingly nag every one of us with His compelling love and beauty. God's inescapable love will catch up with us, and will be completely and thoroughly victorious. And so we don't lose heart. We keep praying. We keep working. For the realm of God is already among us and even death cannot destroy it. Thanks be to God!

All quotations of Scripture, unless otherwise noted, are from the New Revised Standard Version.