Lectionary 29C/ Proper 24

Luke 18:1-8

When a much-anticipated movie or book is released, people rush to watch it or get their copy, devouring it as quickly as they can. And then they inevitably want to tell others all about it. Warning whoever is listening they’re about to give away something important about the storyline, they say, “spoiler alert!”

I remember when the seventh and final Harry Potter book was released. It was summer and our daughters were with their grandparents, and I had the luxury of being able to read the book cover to cover without any distractions. This was the early days of social media and spoiler alerts were easy to avoid.

Today, you have to turn off the tv, and stay off your phone if you want to escape someone else’s take on a story. And in today’s gospel we see that the impulse to tell others what we think is happening in a scene or a story is ancient.

Our gospel this morning includes yet another parable, and Luke is quick to tell us what it’s about. The gospel writer says it’s about “the need to pray always and not to lose heart.”(8:1) If we let him, he will take away any chance we have to listen to the characters for ourselves and draw our own conclusions.

But we’re not going to let him do that.

Instead, we’re going to look at the text of the parable in verses 2 to 5 and listen for what God is saying, recognizing that the verses before and after the parable are Luke’s commentary on it.

The first character Jesus introduces us to is the judge. The parable’s often titled “the widow and the unjust judge” but it’s Luke, not Jesus, who identifies him as “unjust”, later in verse 6.

In verse 2, Jesus says the judge “neither feared God or had respect for people.” In the Small Catechism, Luther teaches that the very first commandment “You shall have no other gods.” means that “we are to fear, love, and trust God above all things.” Luther then teaches that our fear and love for God directs all of our human relationships. The judge doesn’t follow the commandments
given to us by God
to govern our relationship with God or with others.
He denies God.

When I hear Luke’s word “unjust”, I immediately think the judge is corrupt or dishonest, but what Jesus describes isn’t necessarily a criminal or a miscreant. It is someone turned in on himself, selfish and self-centered, without regard for God or neighbor.

The second person that Jesus introduces is the widow. I recently re-read an article that talked about how different words are “marked” or carry assumptions with them.[i]

The unmarked form of a word carries the meaning that
goes without saying -- what you think of when you're
not thinking anything special.

I think “widow” is a marked word. When we hear widows named in Scripture, we may remember Anna, a prophet at the Temple in Luke Chapter 2, the widow at Zarephath who met Elijah (1 Kings 17) who Luke references in Chapter 4 or the widow who gives all she has to the treasury in Chapter 21. In Luke’s telling, all of these widows are aged and alone, with little means of their own.

But maybe not.

Amy Jill-Levine, Professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies at Vanderbilt, suggests that because Anna’s husband goes unnamed but she is introduced as “the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher” explicitly connecting her to the Northern tribes of Israel that were taken into exile, she “represents the tenacity of holding on to her identity.” Levine also notes that the widow at Zarephath argues with Elijah, advocating for her son who is ill, instead of submitting to his demands. And finally, the widow who gives her two coins clearly had her own money and choices to make about how she used it. No one had exploited her. These women all have “agency and individuality.”[ii]

In the translation we just heard, Jesus tells us that the woman kept saying to the judge, “Grant me justice against my opponent.”

But the word translated here as “justice” is ἐκδικούμενα
(ek-dee-kó-mena) which is “vengeance” or “revenge”,
not the κρίσις (kree-sis) that we recognize from the prophet Isaiah’s instruction to “learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.” (Isaiah 1:17)

Hearing the woman sought vengeance changes how we hear the parable. Vengeance or revenge is consuming; it distorts how we view the world and events. It isolates us from others who do not share our passion. Reconsidering how we imagine “widows” and casting the woman as vengeful makes her character less sympathetic or morally exemplary.

Continuing the parable, Jesus tells us that the judge relents. We shouldn’t mistake his action as a change of heart, or repentance, turning toward God. Still adamantly denying God and neighbor, he is motivated by self-preservation; in our translation, it says the woman will “wear him out” but the Greek is actually a boxing word that is better translated as “beat on him” or even “give him a black eye.” He acts because he feels threatened, not compassionate.

So now what?

Jesus doesn’t commend the judge to us as a moral exemplar. The judge remains turned inward, searching out the most expedient way to get rid of the fuss and bother that interacting with his community brings.

And Jesus isn’t commending the woman’s dogged pursuit of vengeance to us either. After all, in Leviticus we hear the Lord command Israel,

You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself…. (Leviticus 19:18)

and in his letter to the Romans, Saint Paul writes

Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord." (Romans 12:19)

As we have listened to the parables, we have learned that Jesus often told these stories to disrupt and prompt us to see the world a different way. So perhaps this parable points us to think differently about what justice is, and how it’s achieved.

This weekend, a Mississippi memorial to Emmett Till was rededicated. Kidnapped by two white men in 1955, the fourteen-year old black boy visiting family in the South was beaten and killed. His body was discovered in the Tallahatchie River three days later. The two men arrested for his murder were acquitted, and because of double jeopardy laws, were never convicted even after they publicly professed to what they had done. Till’s mother had her son’s body brought back to Chicago and his casket was open during his funeral to display the brutality inflicted on him. Today you can see that casket on display in the National Museum of African-American History and Culture in Washington, DC.

There was no justice for Emmett Till, but more than fifty years after his death, a memorial commission was formed in Mississippi and people continue to work to tell the story of his death and work for racial justice now. One of the ways they tell Till’s story is through markers or memorial signs, and after the first three signs were vandalized with graffiti, bullets and acid, they constructed a more durable memorial that was rededicated this weekend.

Justice – setting things right – is what we hear the prophets argue for. It is what Amos calls for when, as Eugene Peterson wrote in the Message paraphrase,

“Do you know what I want?
I want justice - oceans of it. I want fairness - rivers of it.
That's what I want. That's all I want.” (Amos 5:24)

Where revenge is personal, justice is rooted in community and society. It isn’t about “getting even.” Instead, it is about correcting wrongs that have been perpetrated and systems that have gone unchallenged.[iii]

Where revenge is punitive and wants someone to suffer, to be hurt or feel pain, justice is restorative, recognizing that God cares for both victims and perpetrators and we are created for relationship. Restorative justice doesn’t eliminate accountability or consequences but seeks reconciliation and repairs relationships.

For all of us, who have a lot more in common with the widow and the judge than with Jesus, this parable is good news that gives away the ending of the greatest story we have. God doesn’t play the games that these two characters play. We neither have to pound on God for attention, or fear God’s disdain. God welcomes us with abundant love and gives us unearned grace in faith. God knows us fully, even we fail to love and fear God,
even when we are angry or vengeful,
or selfish and unmoved by the troubles of those around us.

And God invites us into this life with God, with each other and with the world, trusting us to seek justice, to set things right, that God will be known.

Let us pray…
Good and gracious God,
We give you thanks for your Son Jesus and for the grace you have given each one of us —
grace that is patient with us as we learn what it means to fear and love You; grace that strengthens our voices and encourages us to love our neighbors and seek justice in an unjust world.
Prompt us to listen to Your Word and what You are saying to us as You call us to follow Jesus.
Amen.

[i] Deborah F. Tannen. “Wears Jump Suit. Sensible Shoes. Uses Husband's Last Name”, New York Times. June 20, 1993, Section 6, Page 18.
[ii] Amy-Jill Levine. Short Stories by Jesus. 257-260.
[iii] Leon F Seltzer Ph.D. “Don’t Confuse Revenge with Justice: Five Key Differences.” Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/evolution-the-self/201402/don-t-confuse-revenge-justice-five-key-differences, accessed 10/19/2019.