32 - Chapter 32
CHAPTER XXXII THE IMPORTUNATE WIDOW
Luk 18:1-8. THIS is the third of Luke’s three “ prayer ’ parables, so-called. We have seen that one of them is not a parable about prayer, and that the second reaches far beyond the confines of prayer as commonly understood. This third parable inculcates an attitude to life, especially to the Christian mission, rather than to prayer in the narrow sense (though in his introduction Luke finds in it the teaching that ’ ’ men must always pray and never lose heart “ (Weymouth).) In various parables Jesus described the character of the citizen of the Kingdom, and then in the Midnight Petitioner he taught that the world in which the programme of the Kingdom has to be carried out provides a friendly environment, that it has boundless resources which are freely at the disposal of the citizen of the Kingdom who approaches them in the right way.
One needs little experience of life to discover that there is much in the world that militates against this optimistic creed. In some moods and in some circumstances one is far more impressed by the unresponsiveness of the world than by its friendliness to the aims of the Kingdom. There is much in life to justify those passages in the New Testament in which the word ’ world ’ is used to summarize the forces in life that fight against God. It is with this fact in view that Jesus in the Unjust Judge (or the Importunate Widow) reiterates in stronger terms the teaching of the Midnight Petitioner. In the latter parable the neighbour, though not specially neighbourly, is not an absolute churl, and the petitioner has good reason to believe that by persistence he will get what he wants. In the Importunate Widow Jesus pictures a very different situation. The petitioner is among the most helpless of human beings, a poor and persecuted widow without influence. Nor could anyone seem harder to move than an unscrupulous judge, irreligious and with no regard for public opinion. ’ By dogged persistence,” says Jesus, ’ even such a woman will get what she wants.”
If the judge cannot be persuaded into giving her justice, he can be plagued into it.
Jesus, then, urges his followers to go forward on the mission entrusted to them, refusing to be dismayed or made afraid by the hostility of men or the seeming indifference of the universe; to go forward in the faith, nay, in the knowledge that in the end God will vindicate them and their cause will triumph. He that endureth to the end, the same shall be saved. Patient endurance, invincible determination, quenchless faith, the ability to see the guiding hand of God behind the hostility of men and the perverseness of things, these were qualities that Jesus ranked high among the qualifications for the citizen of the Kingdom. They had been his rock amid the storms of his own life; he knew how desperately his followers would need them. This is the most daring, the least allegorical, of all the parables. Though persistent prayer is only one application of it, it is, as Luke discerned, one application. But the screams and shouts of the widow have the faintest resemblance to the earnest prayers of the Church, and the atheistical, cynical judge is the antipodes of the heavenly Father. There is just the one point in common: the faith that refuses to despair, that believes to the end, will be justified. A reminiscence of this application, and a recognition of the experiences that make such confidence difficult, are seen in the words of Jesus with which Luke closes the story: ’ Howbeit when the Son of Man comes, shall he find faith on the earth? “ (Luk 18:8). The criticism of this parable on the ground that it teaches those “ vain repetitions “ in prayer which Jesus denounced in the Sermon on the Mount has no substance. In so far as the reference is to prayer at all, and this is only one of the applications, what is inculcated is not that the followers of Jesus should badger God into answering their prayers by the endless repetition of a meaningless prayer formula, but that they should continue in expectant prayer, even though Qod delays to answer them (the mistranslation of this last phrase at the end of Luk 18:7 has added to the confusion). In spite of all appearances to the contrary we must never abandon our conviction, a conviction that will be vindicated, that God’s purpose for us, his purpose for the world, is a purpose of good; that he is working all things together for good to them that love Him: we must never cease to identify ourselves with that purpose, to pray to God, not with our lips only but with all that we have and all that we are, for the consummation of the Kingdom. The Christian usually thinks of his own immediate concerns; God has larger interests to consider: the Christian, especially the Christian in distress, is usually in a hurry; God can afford to wait. In Luke’s account of Jesus’ interpretation of this parable there is a somewhat disconcerting feature. The saints of God are not exactly represented as crying aloud to God for vengeance on their oppressors, yet the impression left on our minds is that that is what they persistently demand; and God is represented as avenging them. The difficulty is not met by the suggestion that the avenging consists in “ preserving or rescuing from evil; ’ it is more satisfactory to suppose that the word has its ordinary sense. As it happens, there are several parallels in the parables. In Matthew’s version of the Wedding Supper, the King sends his armies to destroy the murderers and burn up their city (Mat 22:7). In all three versions of the Vinedressers, the jealous tenants are destroyed. In Luke’s parable of the Pounds, the rebels who protested against the coronation of the new King are condemned to be brought and slain before him (Luk 19:27). It is of course possible, though not very convincing, to say that in these parables the vengeance section is just scenery, not to be interpreted. We cannot give the same explanation in the Importunate Widow, since the “ avenging “ is not part of the parable, but part of the interpretation ascribed to Jesus.
We have seen that the destructive vengeance in Matthew’s Wedding Supper has no counterpart in Luke’s Great Supper, and this feature in Luke’s Pounds is absent from Matthew’s corresponding parable of the Talents. In the Wicked Vinedressers much will depend on whether the prophecy of doom was uttered in a tone of gloating triumph or in pity. When the persecution of the Christians began, as it did within a generation after Jesus’ death, Christian preachers would be tempted to find consolation by giving to certain parables a turn which Jesus never intended. Especially would they see the hand of God in the destruction of Jerusalem, and this interpretation of history would naturally influence their interpretation of the parables.
Jesus taught his followers to love their enemies and pray for their persecutors. Could the same Jesus be responsible for teaching that the elect, when oppressed, should continue instant in prayer for vengeance, and that God would avenge them? That in the fiery trial some Christians were capable of praying for vengeance on their oppressors we know from the Revelation (Rev 6:9-10); but the New Testament as a whole rises above this level. Paul’s advice to the Roman Christians on behaviour under persecution is entirely in line with the Sermon on the Mount (Rom 12:14, Rom 12:17-21). The Christians to whom I Peter was addressed are called on to imitate in his infinite patience under suffering the Christ who committed himself to Him who judges righteously, are taught that only that unmerited suffering which is borne patiently is acceptable with God. The writer “ To the Hebrews “ congratulates his readers on the joy with which they received the spoiling of their goods, not on the ground that they were certain of revenge on their oppressors, but because they realized that they had in themselves a better and enduring possession (Heb 10:34). We cannot believe that the followers of Jesus rose above their Master. In the lament of Jesus over Jerusalem, and in the cry from the Cross for forgiveness for his murderers, we see the true attitude of Jesus to those who persecuted and rejected him.