Reading Parables Otherwise: The Merciless Widow (14th Sunday after Pentecost; Luke 18:1-8; September 10, 2017)

Reading Parables Otherwise: The Merciless Widow

14th Sunday after Pentecost
Luke 18:1-8
September 10, 2017

Rev. John M. Caldwell, PhD
First United Methodist Church
Decorah, Iowa

Here's the story that Jesus told:

In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected people. 3 In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him, asking, ‘Give me justice in this case against my adversary.’ 4 For a while he refused but finally said to himself, I don’t fear God or respect people, 5 but I will give this widow justice because she keeps bothering me. Otherwise, there will be no end to her coming here and embarrassing me.

It's simple enough story, a story about a confrontation between a widow and a judge, a judge we are told who neither fears God nor has any respect for people. It cannot be said often enough that widows were among the most vulnerable people in the ancient world. This was true because they were unconnected. A widow began her life in one family. At some point her father or brother saw an advantage in marrying her off in exchange for a bride price.

This was in the days not so long ago when a marriage was an agreement between two men that involved the exchange of property and a woman. Traces of this can be found in our old wedding liturgy. "Who gives this woman?" "To have and to hold." Both of these phrases have to do with property.

A wife's responsibilities included insuring that her husband had heirs and managing his household. A husband's responsibility was to provide a household to manage and to protect her from other men. That is not to say that love was never involved, nor even, failing that, that there was never a state of mutual respect or even affection. It's that traditional marriage wasn't about love; it was about property and inheritance and maintaining or advancing the position of an extended family within a community. Traditional marriage was about economics and influence first and only after that (and not necessarily at all) was it about any emotional connection between husband and wife.

So the woman in our story was married. Some goods or money had gone to her family. Some had gone with her into the marriage where they became her husband's property unless he divorced her. Her husband brought property into the marriage which remained his. That is, unless he died before she did. Now if there were sons from their marriage, they would inherit the property and they would be obligated to provide for her and their sisters. But, if her husband died without any other heirs, she would inherit the property that he had brought to the marriage.

This created a crisis for her husband's family. The whole point of marriage was to make the extended family stronger. If their son's property went to a widow instead of to their son's sons that would take property away from the family. So they would often make every effort to get her property away from her. They would try to find any legal excuse to seize her property. Widows were vulnerable and weak to a far greater extent than they are today. We don't know--because the story doesn't tell us--but it is likely that it was this sort of situation that gave rise to the widow's need for justice. And it made sense that she would have a hard time getting it.

To whom could she turn for help? Not to her in-laws: they were her "enemies." Not to her original family. They stood to gain nothing. She was alone and had very few resources. She couldn't even appeal to the better angels of the judge's nature: he didn't have any. She couldn't appeal to the Torah demands for justice, especially for justice for widows, orphans, and immigrants. He didn't care what God wanted. She couldn't appeal to his desire to protect his reputation. He didn't care what people thought of him.

He did, however, have one weakness. He liked to live in peace. He appreciated quiet. He coveted calm. So this widow decided that she would take those things away from him. She demanded justice. She applied through the proper channels. When the judge tried to ignore her, she became more insistent. She waited for him outside his office door. Whenever he came out she would begin to shout her demands for justice. She followed him around, crying out. He couldn't have a conversation with a business associate without her making a scene. He couldn't take a bribe from a plaintiff without her announcing the fact to the whole town. It didn't even stop when he went home. She would stand outside his gate, still shouting out her need for justice against her enemies. Day and night and night and day. She was merciless.

She was merciless until he broke. No, he didn't care what God wanted. No, he didn't care about public opinion. But the comfortable quiet of his life had been shattered and he wanted it back. So for that reason alone, he agreed to give the widow justice.

Now that's the story. And it's a good story. Folklore is filled with stories like this of powerful people who were outwitted or outmaneuvered by the poor and powerless. There are lots of stories about plucky widows.

But that still leaves the question of why Jesus told the story?

Of course, Luke has included a frame around the story that is an answer to that question. The frame tells us that Jesus told the story "about their need to pray continuously and not to be discouraged." Then after the story the frame goes on to make the point that if the widow can get justice from a judge who neither fears God nor respects people, how much more can those who pray get justice from God.

This is a a classic rhetorical device known as ad maiorem, and it comes in the form, "If even..., then how much more...!" Most kids in a family with more than one child have probably heard an ad maiorem arguement: "If even your little sister can keep her room clean, how much more should you be able to do it." Shame is almost always at work in the argument.

So, if even an unjust judge will yield eventually to the nagging of the merciless widow, then how much more will God yield to the nagging--uh, I mean, prayers--of God's people!

If you are content with that reading, I'll not disturb it beyond that.

But, if that reading doesn't quite ring true, let me offer another way to approach the story, one that might make more sense in the series of parables that we have heard and puzzled over through the summer.

Let's suppose that this story about a widow who wants justice and a judge who cannot be bothered to give it to her is actually a story about a widow who wants justice and a judge who cannot be bothered to give it to her.

Legal systems are generally designed by the powerful and the rich. It's no surprise that they tend to favor the folks who designed them.

Sometimes there are safeguards built into legal systems, such as providing defense attorneys for criminal defendants who cannot afford their own attorneys, but that hardly levels the playing field. In ancient systems kings often had the authority to overrule the judges. A Roman citizen could appeal to Caesar and that appeal would be heard. In ancient Judah, an appeal could be made to the king. That is why kings were often charged with making sure that they gave good justice even to those who were not in a position to repay the king some favor. Over and over the prophets demand of kings that they give justice to the widow, the orphan, and the immigrant. This shows two things. First, justice for these folks was important to the God of the prophets. Second, justice for these folks was generally not high on the list of priorities for kings. Mostly, the people with power get a better shake from the justice system. And then you have a case like the one in our story.

The widow needs justice. The system will not give it to her. Where do you suppose God stands? I suppose that the emphatic demand in Deuteronomy 16, where the writer says "Tzédek, tzédek, tirdôf! Justice, only justice, you shall seek!" might give us a clue. God's dream is justice for everyone, especially for those who cannot get it.

But how do those who cannot get justice get justice? How can they get the system to respond when they are stuck in a place from which there is no access to justice?

Last week we heard of one strategy. The powerless can take up arms and violently resist the system. There is something satisfying about this path. We've been shaped by our culture into channeling our anger and frustration into violence. If you don't think so, pay close attention to precisely what it is that the fans around you are shouting during a football game.

But as our story last week shows, violence against the regime doesn't work. The regime knows all about violence. Regimes are good at violence. If we take up violence we play right into the regime's hands. Violent revolution leads to more violence. Nothing really changes. God's dream is for a revolution in human living that sticks, not for more of the same.

So if violence isn't the answer, what is? I think Jesus told this story to give us a hint about what does work. In the strategy of the merciless widow I see God's dream at work. She knows that she can't oppose strength with strength and win justice for herself. But she is clever enough to discover that the system has a weakness, a vulnerability, where she can bring her own strength to bear. When she is denied justice, she decides to wear the judge down, to wear him out, to keep repeating her demand no matter how long it takes, to make his life miserable until he yields. And he will yield. He values his comfort more than any principle. She pits her strength against his weakness and wins. Just like Gandhi never said, "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."¹

The challenge that God's dream offers us goes beyond learning to see it in the corners and obscure places where it is emerging, it goes beyond the requirement to resist the forces that block its emergence. The challenge of God's dream calls us to ways of acting on behalf of God's dream that actually work, that actually bring justice to where it is needed. The challenge this offers is that there isn't one method that works everywhere and all the time. The challenge is finding our own strength and pitting it against the particular weakness of an unjust system. The merciless widow did that. In the struggle of the poor to earn a real living, in the struggle of black folks to live free of the fear of being killed by systemic racism, in the struggle of young adults brought to this country as children to remain in the only home they know, in the struggle to get everyone access to decent health care, it is our turn to find the weaknesses in an unjust system, to find our own strength, and to outlast the reactions of the system until God's dream wins.

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1 "First They Ignore You, Then They Vote for You?" Snopes http://www.snopes.com/first-they-ignore-you/ September 9, 2017. "First they ignore you. Then they ridicule you. And then they attack you and want to burn you. And then they build monuments to you." Nicholas Klein in "Fourth Session," chapter in Proceedings of the Biennial Convention of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, [1919], p 53.