The parable of the unrighteous judge and the persistent widow is completely unique to Luke 18:1-8 in God’s Word. This is the only place that we encounter it. It is a very special part of God’s holy revelation. It is an amazing teaching.

The widow is a picture of the Church and of every true member in it like you and me. We are helpless and without power and yet the Word and the Spirit leads us to a stubbornness and tenacity marked by a constant crying out to God. We refuse to give up. This is a challenging word for us, because this same widow is forced to wait for “a while,” and this is the part that causes us to really struggle. We cry out, “how long O Lord, how long?” Furthermore, we know that we often see the inconsistency and failure of our persistence…we are not as persistent as we ought to be.

We are, however, led to an amazing comparison that our Lord Jesus Himself makes: He compares God to the unrighteous judge. In what way? And how is this comparison used as a startling comfort for us as we strive in the face of our real burdens?

Come to Church and hear the Good News. I think you’re going to like it! And it is the Word of Life that will give you hope that is real hope, hope that does not disappoint.

The Gospel text also describes the coming of the Lord as coming “speedily.” We will also proclaim how this is true. In knowing this, we are greatly encouraged. In the meantime know that the Lord comes speedily tomorrow morning to feed you with His body and blood so that you are strengthened and given hope even now in the midst of your struggles.

What a joy it is to serve you dear Christian. I look forward to the feast of victory we will celebrate tomorrow morning!

Here is an excerpt from tomorrow’s sermon:

“On Account of God’s Speedy Vindication, We Don’t Lose Heart” (Luke 18:1-8)

October 20^th, 2013

Pastor Espinosa

 

            Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. It is so easy to lose heart. I was receiving a prayer request from a Christian friend this past week who told me about his old friend who is going through more than one crisis in his life at this time. My Christian friend tried to encourage his old friend to call on the Lord during the storm (after all it is often the case that people are most willing to seek the Lord when they are going through hard times). But my Christian friend was extremely saddened – and I with him – as he told me how his old friend responded. He said in what sounded like a bitter and hopeless response: “[God] and I are not friends.” Why did he say this? The answer was simple. This man had prayed to God before, but he perceived that his prayer was not answered and so the old friend is acting as if he has lost all hope in God.

 

            This is a shocking state of affairs, but it is probably more common than we realize because the Lord Himself in our Gospel this morning — Luke 18:1-8 — is addressing this very problem. This is the only place in the entire Bible that we see this parable of the unrighteous judge and the persistent widow and the evangelist Saint Luke begins the presentation of our Lord’s parable by stating the purpose of the parable up front: “[Jesus] told them a parable to the effect that [the disciples] ought always to pray and not to lose heart (v 1).”

 

            This is a staggering and wonderful gift from God in a very simple and straight-forward manner in His precious Word to us: persistence in prayer is the church’s posture until the glorious second coming of Christ (Just, Luke 9:51-24:53, 671); the Lord was teaching that a “constant prayer life is the opposite of growing weary or tired (Buls, Exegetical Notes: Gospel Texts Series C Luke-John Sundays after Pentecost, 71).” The Word of God is also straight-forward in other places about His divine strategy for keeping us in the kingdom: “Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer (Romans 12:12).” This constancy in prayer means that prayer in your life Christian is to be regular and frequent and in light of why it is so urgent (as in warding off losing heart) prayer is quite simply presented as a necessity in the life of the disciple of Jesus Christ.

 

            We need prayer so that we do not become discouraged or give up if our petitions are not answered immediately (Just, 671). True prayer continues to pray in such a way so as to wrestle with God even as Jacob did as recorded in Genesis 32 and insisting unto the Lord, “I will not let you go unless you bless me (v 26).”

 

             Along these lines of faithful persistence in prayer is the widow in this parable. The scene is absolutely striking (and in a second you’ll see why the word “striking” is so appropriate)! This judge has all the power; and the original audience would have been shocked by this judge’s shamelessness: he did not fear God – he was a real pagan absolutely unmotivated for doing the right thing – and he did not respect man (so he didn’t even care about what others thought about his cold heart). Again, he had all the power, but he was also shameless. What was anyone going to get from this guy? Absolutely nothing!

 

            To make matters worse is that this wasn’t just anyone asking the judge for vindication, but a widow. In the Hebrew culture this meant that the woman – having lost her husband – had also lost all of her rights; she was powerless; she was a nobody. What chance did this widow have in the face of a shameless judge? The ancient church father Ephrem the Syrian is great at this juncture: “These two were stubborn, but persistent prayer was even more stubborn. The persistence of the widow humiliated both the iniquity that was rebelling against God and the boldness that was behaving arrogantly towards human beings…Persistence transformed these two bitter branches, and they bore sweet fruit that was against their nature (Ancient Christian Commentary New Testament III, 277).” Translation? The persistent widow beat up the unrighteous judge! He could not withstand her; she was too much! The verb here at verse 3 “kept coming” is in the imperfect…she came and she kept coming; she wouldn’t stop!

 

          “[This widow] is a different kind of widow. She fights back (Concordia Journal, Vol 24, Num 4,  October, 1998: 373).” She was probably widowed as a young woman. She was healthy and strong and would not be complacent in the face of her troubles. Verse 5 uses the words “beat me down”…the Greek concept comes from the world of boxing. This is confirmed by 1^st Corinthians 9:27, the only other place in the entire New Testament that uses this same verb. In speaking of what he does to his body to keep it under control while using this verb, Saint Paul’s words in 1^st Corinthians 9:27 are translated by the KJV as “I keep under my body and bring it into subjection,” by the NAS as “I buffet my body and make it my slave,” by the Williams translation, “I keep on beating and bruising my body and making it my slave,” and the Beck translation, “I beat my body and make it my slave.”

 

            In high school I had a friend who came to me explaining that she was being harassed by some scary guys. I told her that she should let me take her to my former Karate dojo. I met up with her one evening and introduced her to my former sensei. She became an amazing student eventually advancing to black belt and became the California state Karate kumite or tournament fighting champion. I was considerably bigger and stronger than my friend, but there was no way I ever wanted to get into a fight with her!

 

           In this parable the unrighteous judge met up with a widow with a black belt. The Word of God at verse 5 is that the unrighteous judge is concerned that this widow is going to “strike [him] under the eye.” This is the actual original language translation!

 

            Well, this can be all very exciting and as the Law is always good at doing, you can start to hear the Rocky song “Eye of the Tiger” in your mind as you psych yourself up to be fighting in prayer like this widow (the widow does after all stand for the church and all of her members like you); or to be wrestling in prayer like Jacob, but be careful, because if this is how we leave Luke 18 we are all going to be in a lot of trouble. We’re only half-way there.

[come and receive the most important part, the GOSPEL tomorrow morning!]

Invite a friend!

In Your Service and To Christ’s Glory,

Pastor

p.s. tomorrow during adult Bible Study at 11:00 am I am presenting a power-point study on Individual Confession and Absolution. What in the world is this anyway? Why do Lutheran Christians offer it? What is it for? Come find out. It is a powerful gift of the free Gospel of Christ.