The widow’s way

The parable in today’s gospel begins as a story about knowing who’s we are, jumps into prayer, then moves into a story about justice and ends with a question about faith. Those topics are a lot to cover individually, let alone together. Ok, let’s see where we go. The first point of note is, that in Jesus’ time, widows were seen as Charity cases, sources of imposition, basically in a do it yourself society widows were seen to have no value. So here we have Jesus taking an example of person who's seen as a nobody, and using her to illustrate powerful points about the Kingdom of God.

Luke mentions several widows in the ministry of Jesus. From those references, we might certainly characterize them as among the vulnerable, for example, Jesus recognizes the poor widow who has given all that she has to God. There are others such as Anna. What's the point we need to be getting to here? It's really the idea that the gospels take our ideas of power, significance and impact and turn them on their heads. The gospels take those who seem to have no influence, Put the power in their hands and then say to us this is how it should work.

Here's today's first pause, in what ways has the gospel of Christ Moved or shifted your ideas of power, significance and impact? Are there people around you that you need to take a fresh look at, perhaps remove a label or limitation placed on them and rethink their role: now this could be on a personal level or perhaps a societal level who do you need to look at through the eyes of Christ? Take a moment to think about that. One of the things I find exciting whenever I get to preach on this gospel, and I think this must be the third time or so. Is that the woman, who is seen as a nobody knows who she is and what she deserves she sees beyond the placement given to her by society.

Given what women and particularly widows had to go through to be heard it would be very easy for her to say” Oh, that's just the way it, is such is life” But as we know from the parable she is portrayed as spending the whole-time swimming against the current of society and saying no I deserve better than this! We all know the line “Why is this happening to me, what have I done to deserve this” We've all heard that: maybe we've been in circumstances where that is something we've said? That's a normal human response changes, challenges or suffering come and we ask why.

Of course, part of being human is learning to take responsibility. Perhaps part of growth with God it's learning when not to take responsibility. Not to personalise everything that happens to us.

I don't know about you, but that always makes me think about how we see ourselves in relation to God's love while dealing with colourful nature of what it means to be human. Now, it would be very easy to look at the woman’s approach and think something like “Well this is just encouraging me to have a stiff upper lip to tough it out” In all seriousness and with a very open heart, I hope nobody here today is feeling like that. In fact, it could be argued that one of the key takeaways from this parable and many other aspects of the gospel is: that our circumstances are not what we are defined by or judged through.

According to today’s Gospel, we are defined by two things. The view we have of ourselves and the Lord’s view of us. Prayer, is certainly an interesting topic, isn't it? Those of you who've had conversations with me know that I have some very Strong views on the concept of Interventionist theology. It seems to me, to be a topic that can either bring a great deal of hope into a scenario or cause what we might term spiritual confusion. Do you know what I mean by that? Well, there are some out there who pray and the disease is cured, the marriage is saved, or the wayward child is back on track.

While others pray and the suffering doesn’t seem to move.

Difficult questions aren’t they? What do we do with that? Perhaps one of the paths we can take is, making sure that we understand the character of God given to us through Jesus Christ The character of Jesus shows us God's heart for love, mercy, grace and of course justice. As Christians, we should always be thinking of how we are called to live out those ideas. Here's today's second pause, I'd like to invite you to think about how prayer has worked in your life, how would you like it to work? Perhaps you have trouble being vulnerable in prayer, perhaps there is theology that you need to rethink or perhaps shake off altogether.

Take a moment to think about that. We see from the Gospel that the crooked judge gives the widow her share of justice: only to get her out of his life. How much more is being offered to us by a God who doesn’t Want to leave us. While the parable is framed by references to prayer and faith, the emphasis in verses 3-8 is on justice and how it figures in the confrontation between the vulnerable justice-seeker and the unjust powerholder. The powerful and just God takes the place of the unjust judge in the end, granting justice to his vulnerable, chosen ones who cry to him day and night.

As Christians we must find ways of standing between injustice and justice.

Crying out day and night is an interesting term, isn’t it? I don’t know about you but for myself, that represents the idea That all aspects of our lives need to be surrendered to and seen through the life of Christ. Both as individuals and society. I've often wondered in my own practise of prayer and meditation what direction the churches life would take if we developed the tools to understand what we must surrender versus what we must act upon. That takes us to the third and final topic in today’s Gospel. Faith, it’s interesting, after painting a portrait of a heavenly Father Who wants to comfort us and fight for us.

Jesus asks a question that serves as a wakeup call “But when the Son of Man comes, will he find on this earth anyone with faith? We would answer yes, right? As faith is the thing that keeps us coming back. Faith as a term, Is both strong and fragile. As we see in today's parable the widow is both strong and fragile. She is strong in the sense that she knows who she is and what she deserves and she is also fragile in the way she creates space for God’s love, grace and justice.

Faith is comforting and challenging at the same time because trusting in Jesus means that we must understand that God's timing doesn't always fit our timing and God's justice doesn't always fit our ideas of justice:

it is very easy for us to form scripts of how we think The Lord should act or shouldn't act. Of course we need safe places to unpack those ideas. While at the same time understanding God loves us and wants good things for us,so we can pass them on to others. Here's today's final pause, I'd like to invite you to think about the word faith and what comes into your mind when you hear it? What ideas you need to lean into and what ideas do you need to reshape or perhaps discard?

Take a moment to think about that. This morning, we’re being invited to think about how we see ourselves and others through the eyes of Jesus. We are being challenged to think about the limits and labels we place on each other. We are being invited to think about the role of prayer In our lives and the impact that has not only on us but on the world God loves. We are being invited or rather challenged to think about what justice represents in the Christian context and how we are called to live that out.

Where are we called to use our voices and plant our feet. And finally, we are being invited to think about what faith means in the context of daily life: when daily life can be both beautiful and challenging at the same time. I hope you will join me in accepting the call of representing the risen Christ through our lives regardless of circumstances and I hope you join me in using the name of Christ to promote a faith and world filled with justice and comfort for all people. God bless you all may love, and grace be the languages you speak and hear now and forever. Amen