My parents, had they still been alive today, would now both be in their late 90s and so they were of a generation that grew up without TV. For them, as for millions of others of theirs and similar generations, home entertainment meant listening to the radio and playing records on a gramophone or record player. It’s not too surprising then that when I was growing up, even though I don’t remember a time when we didn’t have a TV, the radio or records would be playing in our house every bit as often as the TV would be on.
So when I was growing up I heard a lot of radio programmes. I must admit that I don’t remember too much about the programmes themselves except how annoying I found the habit of the presenters and DJs to constantly talk over the music they were playing. One thing I do remember though, from one early morning radio programme, that I heard on one particular morning, is the words that were spoken rather than any music that was played.
It must have been a ‘Thought for the Day’ slot in the programme or something like that and on this particular day the presenter was talking about a time when a younger member of his family had fallen seriously ill and, despite the prayers of other members of the family, had died. The presenter said how angry this had made him, and although he was now a Christian, at that time he was agnostic but even so, his anger was directed towards God. He said that he wanted God to be real, not to just exist, but to be a real, live person whom he could get his hands on because he wanted to put his hands round God’s throat and throttle him for allowing this young person to suffer and die and for putting his family through such pain. Even more, the presenter said he wanted God to have a family so that he could throttle the life out of them, so that God could know what it’s like to lose someone you love; so that God could suffer in the same way that he and his family were suffering. The thought for that day he wanted to make though was that later, when his anger had subsided, he realised that suffering isn’t God’s fault because people usually suffer at the hands of other human beings, and the world is the way it is because the world and it’s people have, to a very large extent, turned their backs on God and the love that Jesus Christ came into the world to proclaim and show. And he also realised that God had experienced the pain of seeing a loved one suffer and die, in the Passion and Cross endured by Jesus. And indeed, in the suffering of the world because each and every one of us is beloved of God.
I’m not sure when I heard those words, I’m not sure whether it was shortly before or shortly after I’d returned to the Church after my teenaged absence, but I have always remembered it. And I think one of the reasons I’ve remembered those words is that I’m reminded of them whenever I read or hear the parable of the Persistent Widow and the Unjust Judge, which we’ve just heard in our Gospel reading.
On the surface, the similarity is recognisable but not particularly remarkable; the widow isn’t getting the justice she thinks is due to her and so she keeps pestering the judge until she gets what she wants. So, as Jesus said, this is a parable about the need to pray, always, and not to lose heart even when our prayers go unanswered at first because, in the end, they will be answered. But if we look at this parable in a little more depth, the connection between it and the words I heard on the radio all those years ago become clearer.
Our translations of this parable vary, but whichever translation we use, the unjust judge says something like,
“…because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.”
But a more literal translation would be,
“…because this widow causes me so much suffering, I will grant her justice, otherwise she will keep coming and end up giving me a black eye.”
I think the similarities between that literal translation of the parable, and the sentiments expressed in that radio programme are very clear; the anger at someone who could give us what we want but doesn’t, and the wish to cause suffering and do physical violence to them because they haven’t given us what we want.
In the parable, of course, Jesus contrasts the unjust judge with God by saying that even an unjust judge will give justice eventually, if we’re persistent enough in our demands for justice, so how much more will God, who is a just judge, gives us justice and how much more quickly will he do that than an unjust judge. But this is where we run into a problem with this parable.
Jesus says that God will give his people justice ‘speedily’. But, as we look at the world around us, we can’t help but ask, where is God’s justice? We all know, I’m sure, that our prayers aren’t always answered in the way we’d like them to be, nor as speedily as we’d often like them to be, regardless of how often and how earnestly we pray. So what’s going on here, what is Jesus saying?
If we take Jesus’ words at the end of this parable as a whole, I think we can make sense of what he’s really saying. Jesus said,
“…will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them. And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”
I think what these words imply is that God’s justice will come quickly, but only when the time for judgement and justice comes, and that is when Jesus, the Son of Man returns. That is when everything will be put right but the problem for us is that we have no idea when that will be, and it might not be in our lifetime. Nevertheless, we, as God’s people, are called to keep faith and persevere in prayer until Jesus returns, whenever that might be and however long that means we have to wait for justice.
That is difficult for us because we want to see justice now. We want to see the wrongs of the world put right now. And we want to see the suffering in the world end now. And that’s only natural because we think and operate on the short span of our human lifetimes and when we don’t see these things happening, when it looks as though our prayers aren’t being answered, it’s very easy for us to be disheartened. We can give up on prayer because we don’t think our prayers are being answered. We can become very angry at the injustice and suffering in the world, and angry with God too, if not for allowing these things to happen then at least for delaying in doing something about it. And, in the end, because of these things, many people start to question faith itself, and many give up on their faith.
The real problem for us, I’m sure, is that we simply don’t understand at times just what God is up to in and amidst all the injustice and suffering, either in individual lives or in the world at large. But we’re not alone in that. In the Scriptures, doesn’t Job lament the bitterness of life, the injustice of it all, especially the injustice of the good and innocent who suffer? Doesn’t he wonder how we can make sense of it all in light of our belief in a just and loving God? But in answer God begins by asking Job a question;
“Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?”
In fact, God doesn’t really give Job any answer at all except to imply that Job has no right to question God because he, Job, is only looking at things in human terms and neither sees nor understands the bigger picture.
And in the New Testament, doesn’t Peter rebuke Jesus, criticise Jesus and tell him how wrong he is when Jesus tells the disciples that he must go to Jerusalem where he will suffer at the hands of the religious authorities and be put to death? And doesn’t Jesus, in turn, rebuke Peter by telling him that he’s looking at things through human eyes rather than God’s eyes, in other words, that he doesn’t understand God’s ways?
It is natural for us to do that though because we are human, and we want to see things happen that we think are right and we want to see them happen in our own lifetime. So, and as the Scriptures tell us, it’s only natural for us to question God, to wonder what God is up to, even to become angry with God for not doing what we think he should be doing. But, in the end, we have to accept that our ways are not God’s ways, and he works on a cosmic scale and timescale that we simply can’t comprehend. We have to remember that, just like Job, we were not there when God laid the foundation of the earth.
We need to remember too, that there is no human emotion that God doesn’t understand, not only because he created us in his own image and likeness, but also because his Son has lived on earth as one of us. Jesus himself wept at the grave of Lazarus, his friend. He wept at the fate of Jerusalem and his own people because they wouldn’t listen to what God was saying to them. The Father knows what it’s like to see his loved ones suffer and die because it has happened to his chosen people, Israel. It happened to his own Son, Jesus Christ. And it continues to happen today because he loves each and every one of us as his own children.
So, when we see the injustice and suffering in the world, let’s try to remember that it’s not God’s fault. Let’s try to remember that it doesn’t happen because God doesn’t care and doesn’t love us. When we see these things, let’s try to remember the parable of the Persistent Widow and the Unjust Judge and try to remember that these things will be put right, but in God’s good time, not necessarily in ours. And let’s persevere in faith and in prayer so that we will be ready for Jesus’ return when all will be made well.
Amen.
The Propers for the 29th Sunday in Oridnary Time can be viewed here.
Parish Church of St Mark Chadderton 