If you ever pray for patience, get ready, because God will make you a teacher.
Approximately 85% of the profession of teaching is just answering the same question over and over again. I like teaching because it isn’t monotonous—but sometimes, it’s REALLY monotonous. Most aren’t prepared for this! You have to have a Professor X-level mind just to manage your sanity.
Now that I work in a school environment that features classes from preschool to seventh grade, I have considerable interaction with children younger than the smelly middle schoolers I’m used to hanging out with. With this comes great joy, but also, many more insistent questions…
There’s this one kindergartener who I’ve gotten to know since she’s there early and after school with her staff member parent. She updates me regularly on how many teeth she’s lost and today’s tooth-to-dollar exchange rate, which, I gotta say, has gone up a lot from my time giving teeth to the Tooth Fairy. On one occasion, she wandered into my classroom after school and randomly asked if I had candy.
Her kindergartener's eyes melted my cold 26-year-old heart and I relented and gave her some candy. Just one piece. Just one time…
As you can probably expect, this little girl now implicitly associates me with candy and every spare moment she finds me, she asks for a piece of candy. I don’t get as many tooth updates as I once did—I just see her pupils change to cheap, wrapped candy as she, again, asks me for candy. Once, when I was doing lunch duty and helping the little ones poke straws into their juice boxes, she had a gaggle of girls join her chorus!
I try to remain strong… but when you give a kindergartener candy… they will keep asking you for more for all eternity!
This experience with the kindergartener reminds me of a story of Jesus that features a relentless female.
Luke 18 tells the parable of the “Persistent Widow” and interestingly, it gives us the point of the story right up top. The first verse of the chapter says: “Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up.”
This time, at least, we don’t have to figure out what’s going on in the cryptic story!
Jesus’ parable sets up a nameless judge who doesn’t fear God nor care what anyone thinks—so, we aren’t supposed to be impressed. The town the judge oversaw had a widowed woman with a vague plea for justice. Apparently, she keeps going to the judge to demand justice. Constantly. Probably all the time at all hours. Like a kindergartener who wants candy, though the stakes are so much higher.
Finally, like an exhausted teacher, the judge backs down. He says: “Even though I don’t fear God or care what people think, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually come and attack me!” (Luke 18:4-5).
Nothing about his character prompts him to give her justice. It’s a matter of self-preservation—preservation from the annoyance and apparently fear that this widow will go rabid!
Jesus then explains:
“Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?” (Luke 18:6-8)
Jesus uses a classic rabbinical strategy called qal va-homer (minor to major) where something is explained by analogy: “If it’s true in this smaller case, it’s probably true in this bigger case.” Though the judge shares no similarities with God—is even quite the opposite—Jesus explains that as a corrupt judge can be persuaded, so surely God will be persuaded to give us justice when we ask many times.
It’s a timeless parable, one I’ve heard since my youth. But it’s always bothered me… is it saying that if I just bug God enough God will give me whatever I want?
The answer, as you may imagine, is a bit complicated.
The main thing to note about this parable is the use of the word “justice.” Notice that we are in the court. The topic isn’t a prayer for a new job or a girlfriend or safe travels or even healing for the sick. Something is unjust and the widow is advocating for justice.
“Justice” and “righteousness” are connected in both Hebrew and Greek, and both carry this broader context meaning “the right ordering of things.” Justice is the way things are supposed to be, while righteousness is the way we are supposed to live. However, we live in a world knocked off its axis. Things are not the way they are supposed to be! So for the widow or us to demand justice is to demand that God right the world.
Jesus’ conclusion to the parable reminds me of God’s response to the Israelites when they were slaves in Egypt.
“During that long period, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God. God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them.” (Exodus 2:23-25)
Later, God tells Moses: “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering” (Exodus 3:7)
The cries of pain—the injustice of their slavery—reached God’s ears and God reacted. God is moved by the groaning. Even before Jesus is on the scene, God is reacting to the pain of the people just as Jesus wept for the sisters of Lazarus before the grand miracle. God sees that the world is unordered and it is through the petitions of the people, vows to act.
When Jesus says God “will see that they get justice, and quickly” he is saying that God responds to people. The Creator of the World willingly bends to the will of mere mortals (sometimes). When there is something just absolutely wrong with the world, God is definitely going to act when our cries go up to the Heavens. We will get justice—we will get vindication.
However, despite Jesus using the term “quickly,” we can’t forget God’s timetable and ours are very different! This is where patience must come in. Justice WILL come and right the wrongs when the New Jerusalem sails down to earth, redeeming the brokenness of this home. We must wait on God for little justices to occur in the now and the ultimate Justice to occur at the end of things, yet we must still “always pray and not give up.”
Prayer is quite a mystery. God always “hears” what’s going on. Always. But we pray for the ways it shapes our own hearts and because, quite frankly, I think God WANTS to react to us. God wants to, in a way, serve us. Why else would God come as a lowly human, taking the very nature of a servant (Cf. Philippians 2:5-11)? That doesn’t mean God will give us everything we desire, but God does want to hear from us and then help.
Justice is around the corner. Surely, if an uncaring judge can make a ruling when pestered, a very caring God will also bring about justice when we bring up the things that are wrong with the world. Whether justice happens tomorrow or at the End of Days, keep praying, regardless, and never give up.
Question of the Week
Leave your answer in the comment section below or reply to this email.
How do you “never give up” even in the face of injustices around you?
My “Goings On”
Working on Super Jake book 3 and a revised edition of Who We Are
Trying to turn my outline of a short story for a published collection into an actual story
Please, please, please, please, please, please,
Jake Doberenz
Thanks for reading Faithful & Funny. Please share this publication with others!