A tiny insect met another bug who, by comparison, was really big. The tiny insect was looking up at the large insect and asked, “What kind of a bug are you?”
“I’m a praying mantis,” came the reply. The tiny insect chuckled and said, “That’s stupid. Bugs don’t pray!” With that, the mantis grabbed the tiny insect around its throat and began to squeeze. The poor little insect’s eyes started to bulge. Rolling its eyes heavenward, it screamed, “Lord, save me!” Meanwhile, the praying mantis prayed, “Bless us, O Lord, and these thy gifts….”
I have no idea if in their own language, bugs pray, but there comes a time when all we can do is cry out to God for help. That was essentially all the widow in the parable could do. She pestered the judge to render justice until he did so to get her off his back. Were you left with the message that if we pester God long enough, we can eventually get what we want? Yet you and I know that our prayers aren’t always answered so is there another lesson here to consider?
This parable comes with an unexpected twist. Jesus isn’t casting God as the heartless judge. After all, equating God with the judge doesn’t gel with most other descriptions of God in scripture, which tells us that God hears the cry of the poor, and that God is eager and willing to give good things to those who ask. When you stop to think about it, it makes no sense to equate God with this insensitive uncaring judge.
Instead, let’s view the widow as the image of God. After all, we are all made in the image of God. Like the widow who pesters the judge, God is persistently pestering us to seek justice when he hears the cry of the poor. Anyone who doggedly resists injustice, faces it, names it, and denounces it until right is achieved is acting as God does.
That person is God-like. With persistence, the widow in this parable becomes a biblical Martin Luther King, Jr., Gandhi, St. Mother Theresa, Dorothy Day and Oscar Romero. Against all odds, they endured until justice was done.
This parable isn’t about strategies to wear down a reluctant God with persistent prayers; it’s about justice. It is about us little people, acting like the widow in this parable, persistently seeking justice, often against terrible odds and with much opposition. How is that to be done? Confronting rather than endorsing the self serving politician who seeks to undermine the dignity of others by using scare tactics; working to protect children and improving education opportunities for them, not condoning the greed and corruption that siphons off dollars from the poor, carrying about the common good and breaking down barriers that separate peoples on the basis of their ethnicity, religion, gender or race.
In this parable, Jesus has good reason for using a widow as the star. In biblical times, widows were quite powerless. In much the same way, we may see ourselves as powerless when it comes to seeking justice where necessary. If persistence can prevail on a corrupt and insensitive judge to do justice, we must not discount what we can do to seek respect for life at every stage from the unborn to the terminally ill by pestering our politicians into recognizing that our country is founded on the principle that all life, not just peoples of European ancestry, is sacred. This vision, it seems to me, is one too many of our citizens have forgotten.
This being an election year, we find ourselves dealing with issues that demand difficult choices. What values do we use for making the choices that influence our vote? When we cast our votes, are we inclined to be spiritually correct or politically correct? Being spiritually correct demands that we listen to God, which is done by reflecting on scripture and the teachings of our Church along with much prayer.
Back in the 1950’s, a family, traveling through the South, stopped at a park along the highway. The children spotted a swing set on a playground and pulled their father toward the swing. They were too young to read the signs warning potential users that the playground was for “whites only.” Sadly, but patiently, the African-American father told his daughters that they could not play there and explained why. This was their first encounter with racism and they burst into tears. So, just as his mother did when he was a child, he embraced them warmly and said, “Listen, you kids are somebody. In fact, you are so important and so loved by God and so powerful that it takes a governor and the whole state police force to keep you girls off those swings.”
One day because another widow named Rosa Park would persist, those girls would grow up to see justice done and the signs taken down. More often than not, justice happens through the repeated actions of seemingly inconsequential people who never give up. The widow is anyone of us who acts like God in the pursuit of justice while the judge is anyone who, being self-centered and lacking respect for certain groups of people, thwarts justice and respect for others. So where do you find yourself in this parable?
Persistent prayer goes hand in hand with persistent action for justice. In our pursuit of justice, God wants us to hang in there and “pray always without becoming weary.” A Jewish rabbi once said, “Our prayers are answered not when we are given what we ask but when we are challenged to be what we can be.” In the end, our prayers will not change God, but prayer can change us.