Gloria Dei Lutheran Church

The Widow and the Unjust Judge (Luke 18:1-8)

Our Confirmation program started about a month ago, which I have been really excited about. It’s exciting to have the kids back after not seeing them all summer, it’s exciting to have the new faces of the 7^th graders joining and some new faces joining older classes too! Knowing these kids better than I did when I started, we were able to revamp the Confirmation topics for the older class, the 9^th and 10^th graders. Their class topics will dig into how our faith connects with the issues happening in their lives. We started the year introducing that idea and asking what is on their mind, what challenges they are facing, and how they might be struggling in their faith.

Their answers could be left anonymous, as I really wanted them to feel free to share. The topics asked for questions about faith, questions about life, challenges the kids are facing and something they’d want Deacon Ashley to know. My heart went out to them as I read through the responses, reading their pains and their struggles, but my heart also felt connected to them. I remember struggles like these, I still have struggles like the ones they named.

We got a variety of responses from our youth, but there was one recurring theme that I recognized, that has been on my mind since we asked the questions. Statements like: “I’m struggling to keep my relationship with God.”

“Why do I feel so disconnected from faith? I believe in God, but sometimes I don’t know what to believe.”

“How do I become closer to God and strengthen my relationship, even when I pray and go to church regularly?”

The first answers I had in my head as I read these questions were all the responses you should not give when anyone is struggling in their faith: just keep trying, pray more, read the bible, how much are you going to church? Those responses are not helpful. We can never underestimate how much someone is trying to connect with God in their faith, even when that faith feels so disconnected. We teach all the things, read the bible stories, teach prayer, but somehow along the way, within the struggles of life, we wonder, truly, where is God showing up in my life?

The first words of our parable today tell us about our need to pray always and to not lose heart. It goes on to tell us of a persistent widow, who went to see the unjust judge each and every day, begging for justice. Begging and pleading, bothering and annoying the judge, but yet, she persisted. Where in our life have we had to persist? Where in our life have we had to struggle through, beg and plead, wait and wait for what it is we think we need? And how often is it that we put that begging and those needs into prayer, and recognize God’s answers within them?

I’ve spent half of my life praying to God each night. I grew up with the bedtime prayer my parents taught me. “Father in heaven, please hear my prayer. Keep me in my loving care, be my guide in all I do and bless all those who love me too.” As I got older, and more invested in my faith, I added to that prayer. I prayed for my father, mother, sister, brother, our dog Lute and everybody in the whole, wide world. I remember being quite proud of myself for adding my own piece to my nightly prayers; for making them mine, instead of repeating what I had learned. Of course, it was later in High School when I was reciting my nightly prayers, including my father, mother, sister, brother, and our dog Lute… when I stopped and realized… Lute had been dead for a couple years. These nightly prayers I was so proud of were on auto-pilot! Is it really prayer if I’m just repeating words and not bringing real my cares and concerns in my prayers to God?

A strong prayer life is a powerful thing, but also tough to obtain. It’s tough to be persistent. It’s tough to feel connection. But I think something that is really tough, and helpful in prayer, is that sometimes when we lift up what we want in prayer, it helps us wonder… is this something God would want in our lives too? I can pray over and over to win the lottery, but is that truly God’s will and what I should be praying for? I’m not here to say yes or no. Your prayers are yours and what you wish to make of it, but what is the lesson here? What is the good word?

Pray always and do not lose heart. That’s a tall order. How often do we lose heart, simply by looking at the daily news? It doesn’t even have to be the news any more. Just pick up your phone and a headline will crush you. It is a heartbreaking world all around us and sometimes, keeping heart may be the only thing we can manage to do in our faith to get by on that particular day.

So, the questions ask: “How do I strengthen my faith?” And what is the answer? How do we recommend to our struggling teens, our struggling neighbors, people abandoning their faith… how do we tell them to not lose heart? That Jesus is with them and God is at work…

That is when we look to the widow. At this time in the world, a widow is left not only without her husband, but with no financial support. A widow is at great risk of poverty and exploitation, being seen as “less than” in the eyes of everyone around her. The story today does not tell us what justice the widow is asking for, but we can see the powers at play here. The role of a humbled widow, begging a judge, who is of a higher power. She is begging for justice, repeatedly and persistently pursuing her rightful demands, from a judge who does not usually grant justice or care for his people. It is through her persistence that she is granted what she requests.

As I first read this parable, I thought of my own child. Signe, who is 7 and going on to be 8 very soon, is the most persistent person I know. Fighting greatly for what she feels may be “justice”. The girl does not hear the word “no” very well. A few weeks ago, I shared a children’s sermon about our faith being the size of a mustard seed. I got to ask the kids to use their hands to show me big and little answering questions. When I asked the question, how much does God love you? Their arms went as wide as possible, some even lying on the floor to showcase that God’s love for them is bigger than their arms can fit! I followed up that question with “and how much do you love God?” Well, their arms didn’t have to shrink much! They reciprocated that love, with big, beautiful smiles on their faces.

What I couldn’t put in that sermon is the recognition of how greatly our kids hold their faith and trust in God. I remember it from when I was little. I call it a Sunday School faith, where I knew all the answers to the kid sermon questions, I prayed to God each and every night, my love for God was sooooo big and I never think it could change.

See, we can ask the littles how much they love God and how much they feel God’s love, because when us big kids are asked, it’s a bit more of a difficult question. At some point, our faith may seem to falter. It can start when we start seeing the inequalities of the world, it gets harder when we experience personal loss or struggle, and then our world exposes us to different beliefs and even harmful religions. The way we see God’s love may not feel so big that our arms can’t even hold it, no matter how hard we try. We are told the love is there, but how do we feel it? How do we truly trust in it?

Now, what can I say to our Confirmation youth, struggling in their faith, asking for how they can get closer to God? Do we give those seemingly easy answers of pray more, read the bible, go to church? Do we tell them to be like the widow, constantly showing up, hoping, pleading, waiting for that feeling of justice, as we are told, will come from God?

This parable tells us to cry to God day and night, be persistent like the widow. But maybe it’s not just about being persistent, it’s about being persistently hopeful. That woman would not back down. Because somehow, some way, instead of being a helpless first century woman, she was a woman holding on to one thing: HOPE.

My daughter’s persistence exists because she has hope, even if that hope is just fighting for a new Barbie toy, it is still persistently hopeful. Our youth are persistently hopeful, when they put themselves out there, and share what feels uncertain in their world, whether they’re looking for guidance or not. Our prayers can be persistently hopeful. Even if they don’t happen every day, even when we repeat words we aren’t fully thinking through, our prayers have hope, because we are praying to a God of hope. We believe in a God that loves us and is so persistent in that love that we know no matter how distant it feels, our God is there.

God is not an unjust judge. God is not sick of our cries, God will not grant us favors just because we continually ask. God will hear us, God will feel our pain and God will grant us love. God will give us the most love we could ever ask for, if we continue to not lose heart. But how do we not lose heart? How do we keep being persistent? And how do we still have hope?

In Romans 12, Paul says “rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer.”

Are you a person who rejoices in hope? A person who holds on to hope?

If our struggle is between hope and fear, which gets the most of your attention? Is it hope? Or is it fear? If we spend time around fearful people, our hope may disappear. If we listen only to fearful people, our hope may vanish. Instead, let us look to the hope. To those marching in the streets. To those begging and pleading for what’s right.

It may be hard to see always, but if we are persistent in looking for hope, hope is what we will see.

Let us hold onto that. Persistent hopefulness, and let us not lose heart.

Amen.