Readings:
- Exodus 17:8-13
Psalm 121:1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8 Response: “Our help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.” - 2 Timothy 3:14-4.2
- Luke 18:1-8
Reflections on the Gospel Reading
Once again Luke displays his artistry as an author by taking a parable from his special source and using it to illustrate one of his favorite themes – the necessity of persistent prayer. His skill is so great that we overlook the fact that the parable says little about prayer but much about the reversal of roles that is a sign of the coming of God’s kingdom.
It is clear that Luke uses the parable of the widow and the corrupt judge to illustrate the power of persistent prayer. However, we can also ask what the parable meant to the people who listened to Jesus tell it. These reflections will concentrate on that aspect.
Recall that Luke was writing around the year 85, after the demolition of the Temple in the year 70 and after the irretrievable destruction of the social order in which Jesus lived and in which the gospel traditions began to take shape. It is unlikely that Luke ever visited the Land of Israel. Writing in some other part of the Roman Empire, he depended on oral and written accounts handed down to him in order to write his Gospel.
As he wrote Luke had several documents before him: a version of Mark’s Gospel, a collection of sayings of Jesus (Q), and some special sources of his own (L) that were unknown to the other Gospel writers. Luke tells us in his prologue (Luke 1:1-4) that he used what others had “set down” to compose his own “orderly account.” The gospel passages for the last three Sundays (Lazarus and the rich man, the servant who was only doing his duty, and the cleansing of the ten “lepers”) were taken from this special source L.
Another section of Luke’ special source comes right before today’s gospel reading.
“You won’t be able to observe the coming of God’s imperial rule [=reign of God]. People are not going to be able to say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘Over there!” On the contrary, God’s imperial rule is right there in your presence.” (Luke 17:20b-21 Funk, Hoover & Jesus Seminar 1993, 364)
After that Luke inserted a long passage from Q (17:22-37) and composed an introduction (Lk 18:1) that puts the parable in the context of prayer. Then he returned to his source L:
Once there was a Judge in this town who neither feared God nor cared about people. In that same town was a widow who kept coming to him and demanding: “Give me a ruling against the person I’m suing.” For a while he refused; but eventually he said to himself, “I’m not afraid of God and I don’t care about people, but this widow keeps pestering me. So, I’m going to give her a favorable ruling, or else she’ll keep coming back until she wears me down.” (Luke 18:2-5 Funk, Hoover & Jesus Seminar 1993, p. 368)
Thus, it appears that in Luke’s special source the parable about the widow and the corrupt judge was an illustration of a saying of Jesus about the reign of God. The rule of God, which establishes a social order based on justice, does not manifest itself in spectacular displays such as military parades or impressive building projects. God’s reign is already present and effective in ordinary, everyday events when roles are reversed and when the helpless succeed against seemingly insurmountable odds.
In the world of Jesus’ parable a widow is trying to get a fair decision from a thoroughly corrupt local judge. The man boasts that he has no fear of God and no regard for his reputation. The matter at hand probably relates to the woman’s late husband’s estate that, according to Israelite law and in all fairness, ought to go to her support. Her adversary is pressing his case for some or all of the estate and has probably bribed the judge. The judge is delaying judgment, probably hoping that the woman will give up and go away, that she will be too timid and ashamed to argue for her rights in public.
Since she has no adult male child to present her case, the widow has to appear on her own behalf. She is within her rights but definitely a woman out of place in a male dominated society. Her vigorous public campaign for the decision that should be obvious to everybody makes all of the men uncomfortable and they respond by trying to shame her. However, she does not let that deter her and boldly continues her pursuit of justice.
Hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue. Eventually, the judge realizes that he can’t go on forever blatantly flaunting justice and still maintain the minimal esteem necessary for him to continue as a judge. Even if he is corrupt, he has to keep up at least the appearance of impartiality. So rather than get a black eye from the widow (the literal meaning of the Greek text), he does the right thing. In spite of his protestations to the contrary, in the end he caves in to public opinion.
This is another parable of Jesus that opens our eyes. It enables us to see the reign of God breaking in upon us. It echoes lines from Mary’s canticle:
He has shown strength with his arm;
He has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly; (Luke 1:51-52 NRSV)
Barbara E. Reid observes that the widow “is like the widows and mothers of Argentina, who, for almost twenty years, have continued their weekly march in the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires. They have uncovered the fate of about one-third of their nine thousand disappeared husbands and sons. Her face is seen in the Jewish ‘Rose Street Women,’ who gathered on a Berlin street in 1943 where their husbands had been taken by the Nazis. They cried out repeatedly, ‘We want our men. Give us back our men!’ until they succeeded in blocking their deportation.” (Reid 1996, 193)
In our own day Jesus’ parable highlights the importance of publicity as a non-violent tactic for justice. It underscores the role of a free press in a democratic society. Blatantly unjust acts of the powerful (whether in government, business, or the church) cannot stand up to public scrutiny. An important step in resisting injustice is to name unjust acts, to bring them out into the open and to label them for what they are. Often this requires the kind of courage that the widow in Jesus’ parable showed.
One of the best attested sayings of Jesus is one which Luke takes from Q: “Nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known.” (Luke 12:2 NRSV) In the end, openness and accountability are signs of the presence of the reign of God in our midst. What will be the final state of humanity is already breaking in upon us.
Explanatory notes:
L “L” is the general name for passages, making up as much as 40 percent of Luke’s Gospel, that are not found in any of the other three Gospels. It is “a designation for source(s) of information about the Jesus-story in the early Christian community Luke would have tapped in various ways.” (Fitzmyer 1981, 85) These sources could have been either oral or written. With regard to oral sources, Luke would have put them in writing for the first time. In that sense they would be Lucan compositions, even though they were based on traditions that had been handed down, possibly for generations, by word of mouth. With regard to written sources, Luke would have either copied them or (more likely) revised them to fit with his style and theological perspective. Luke followed “the respectable Hellenistic practice[s]” of rewriting his sources, writing in various styles, and fitting his style to the character or occasion. (See L. T. Johnson in ABD 4.406b)
Q “Q” (from the German “Quelle” or “source”) stands for a lost written document made up mostly of sayings of Jesus which scholars have reconstructed from an analysis of passages in the Gospel of Matthew and Luke which are very similar to each other but generally not found in the Gospel of Mark. Examples would be the Sermon on the Mount or the Lord’s Prayer. These scholars hold that Matthew and Luke were written independently. However, each of the authors had access to written copies of Mark and Q.
In preparing these reflections, in addition to the biblical texts, I consulted the following works:
Fitzmyer 1985 – Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Gospel According to Luke X-XXIV : Introduction, Translation, and Notes. Anchor Bible Volume 28A. (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1985), pp. 1157-1163, 1175-1182.
Fuller 1984 – Reginald H. Fuller, Preaching the Lectionary. The Word of God for the Church Today (Collegeville [MN]: Liturgical Press, 1984), pp. 515-516.
Funk, Hoover & Jesus Seminar 1993 – Robert W. Funk, Roy W. Hoover, and the Jesus Seminar, The Five Gospels: The Search for the Authentic Words of Jesus (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1993), pp. 364-365, 368.
Herzog 1994 – William R. Herzog II, Parables as Subversive Speach: Jesus as Pedagogue of the Oppressed (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1994), pp. 215-232.
Hultgren 2000 – Arland J. Hultgren, The Parables of Jesus: A Commentary (Grand Rapids [MI]: Eerdmans, 2000), pp. 252-262.
Johnson 1991 – Luke Timothy Johnson, The Gospel of Luke , Sacra Pagina Series Volume 3, A Michael Glazier Book (Collegeville [MN]: Liturgical Press, 1991), pp. 268-273.
LaVerdiere 1990 – Eugene, LaVerdiere, S.S.S., Luke. New Testament Message, Volume 5. A Michael Glazier Book (Collegeville [MN]: Liturgical Press, 1990), pp. 217-219.
Malina & Rohrbaugh 2003 – Bruce J. Malina and Richard L. Rohrbaugh, Social-Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels, Second Edition (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2003), pp. 298-299.
NRSV 1994 – New Revised Standard Version – Bruce M. Metzger and Roland E. Murphy, Editors, The New Oxford Annotated Bible containing the Old and New Testaments. New Revised Standard Version. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994)
Pilch 1997 – John J. Pilch, The Cultural World of Jesus, Sunday by Sunday, Cycle C. A Liturgical Press Book (Collegeville [MN]: Liturgical Press, 1997), pp. 152-154.
Reid 1996 – Barbara E. Reid, Choosing the Better Part? Women in the Gospel of Luke. A Michael Glazier Book (Collegeville [MN]: Liturgical Press, 1996), pp. 190-194.