Luke 18:1-18 (Pentecost 22C)                        
St. John, Galveston 10/19/25
Rev. Alan Taylor

+ In Nomine Jesu +

Grace and peace to you, from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  Amen.

    Martin Franzman was a Lutheran pastor and doctor of the Church. He taught at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis for many years. He has been referred to as the American Luther because eloquent and staunch defense of the Gospel. He wrote hymn several of the hymns in our hymnal, the most well known being “Thy Strong Word.” He also wrote the hymn “O God, O Lord of Heaven and Earth.” I’d like to use the last verse of that hymn this morning as we make our beginning with prayer.

"O Spirit, who didst once restore
Thy Church that it might be again
The bringer of good news to men,
Breathe on Thy cloven Church once more,
That in these gray and latter days
There may be those whose life is praise,
Each life a high doxology
To Father, Son, and unto Thee.” Amen.
    Those words of Martin Franzman parallel the fundamental question that shapes the parable before us this morning; “Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” (v. 8).

    The parable, often referred to as The Parable of the persistent widow, as well as the Epistle reading from 2 Timothy 3, speak of the plight of the church as she lives out her days under the cross of Jesus, in an unjust, callous and self-serving world. The frustration and the pressures exerted on God’s people are immense and the question of “why” looms in the back of the minds of the faithful. Why must we endure such ungodliness? And, perhaps more importantly, “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”    

    The Apostle Paul wrote to Timothy, his young son in the faith. His letter to Timothy is known as Pastoral Epistle, because Timothy himself was a pastor the church. Paul wrote to encourage Timothy to remain steadfast and immoveable in his faith. ”The time is coming (he said), when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you (that is, Timothy), always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry."

    Those words of St. Paul are a timeless warning and admonition to the Church. They are as true today as they were in the waining days of the first century. Thus, Jesus prepared His disciples, by way of parables and other means, for the Church’s militant years, her time of living, as it were, as soldiers of the cross. Luke introduces one such parable this morning, saying, Jesus told them “a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not to lose heart."

    There was a judge who neither respected man nor feared God. This judge, in other words, was a prude and a reprobate. The universe, at least in his own mind, revolved around him and his judgments. He cared little for the needs of others, even when those needs dealt with justice, which was within his very vocation to give.  

    A woman, a widow, kept coming to the judge to get justice. In the broader interpretation of the parable, the woman represents the Church. The point of justice over which she pleads with the judge is intentionally left unknown, for in a world filled with injustice, the Church continually cries out for the One who judges the living and the dead to make all things just and new and right.  

    The woman repeatedly cried out to the judge for justice, but the unrighteous judge kept sending her away. While justice is supposed to blind, meaning it doesn’t show favoritism to one or another, the judge saw little in the widow’s plea to command his attention. The widow was truly one of little respect. Socially, she had no standing to insist on anything, even justice. She was humbly dependent on the powers that be for her very existence. In this case, since the judge didn’t respect men, or fear God, he didn’t care if the widow got justice or not!  

    However, he finally gave in to the woman’s cry for justice. Oh, it wasn’t that he ultimately saw here point of view, or that he finally acknowledged that a point of law had been violated. To the contrary, he had no interest in her, or in the law. Rather, he reasoned, ’though I neither fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down.’ ” What are we to glean from this parable? Clearly it relates to prayer. What then are we to take away from it?

    Since the widow represents the Church and since God is the final judge of all things, it seems like Jesus is telling us that we need to learn to pester Him in prayer, so that He’ll finally give in to our cries for help. That seems like a reasonable conclusion to be drawn from the parable, doesn’t it? God’s mercy goes to the persistent! And, ultimately to the belligerently persistent.  

    The thing is, that’s not really the point of the parable at all. If we think it is the point, we miss the crucial difference between the unrighteous judge and the true God, who will ultimately come to judge the living and the dead. In this parable, Jesus is making a comparison using a really effective technique of debate. It’s called making a comparison from the lesser to the greater. It works like this…if the lesser thing in a particular analogy is true, how much more must the greater thing be true? In this case, if the unrighteous judge, the man who doesn’t respect men, or even fear God, will finally give in to the widow’s request because of her persistence, “will not God (you see, there’s the greater), will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night?  Will he delay long over them?  I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily.”

    Again, the whole point of the parable is to encourage the disciples, the Church, you and me, to “always to pray and not to lose heart.” Persistence in prayer is a good thing. Not because it will ultimately break God down and cause Him to give in, but because those who are burdened need to be able to talk with God about what weighs heavily upon their heart. Prayer, including persistent prayer, is the voice of the faithful. It is the cry to God for mercy, it is the expectation that God, who poured out His mercy on us in Christ Jesus, desires to do that very thing even today.    

    If the unrighteous judge ultimately had mercy on the widow who cried out to him for help, how much more will your heavenly Father have mercy on you? It seems to me that, in the midst of trying times, those days when justice falters and people “turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths,” the struggle for the Church, for you and me, is to believe that God, though He may appear to not hear our cries, does indeed hear us and that He will answer us in a way that preserves our faith and upholds our confession of Him.  

    “When Christ returns will He find faith on earth?”  He will indeed among those who have trusted in Him to give faith and to nurture and sustain it. The Church finds her hope, her trust in Christ, in the gifts of His Word and Sacraments. Ironically, within these hallowed walls, in this place where we cry out to God for mercy and for justice, we are fed with the body and blood of Jesus, which were given and shed in the most unmerciful and unjust way that any of us could imagine. And so, we are convinced even more that if the unmerciful can find it in themselves to give justice to those who cry out to them, so much more the God of mercy and grace will give us what we need to sustain us in faith and trust in Him. Indeed…  

"O Spirit, who didst once restore
Thy Church that it might be again
The bringer of good news to men,
Breathe on Thy cloven Church once more,
That in these gray and latter days
There may be those whose life is praise,
Each life a high doxology
To Father, Son, and unto Thee."

In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

The peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus unto life everlasting.  Amen.

+ Soli Deo Gloria +