There was a judge in a certain town
who neither feared God nor respected any human being.
Jesus knew what was in human hearts. He knew that people who prayed without apparently receiving an immediate response would in fact become weary. Although they knew better, they would be tempted to come to see God is a judge who was indifferent to the concerns of others. When he didn't seem to respond immediately even to widows, who were at the top of the hierarchy of those he claimed to prioritize, it was as though his own words weren't serious, as though he didn't fear the results for the people or his own internal inconsistency. People would be tempted to see God this way no much how much they consciously understood it was not actually the case. But Jesus wanted to motivate them to keep praying even when such feelings arose. Even in a case where the judge was purely human it was not impossible that the persistence of the widow would eventually prevail. If one ought not give up even when the judge was reprehensible, self-interested, and dishonest, how much more ought one to continue to petition God, since he was in fact none of these things?
For a long time the judge was unwilling, but eventually he thought,
'While it is true that I neither fear God nor respect any human being,
because this widow keeps bothering me
I shall deliver a just decision for her
lest she finally come and strike me.'"
God is able to take our subconscious criticisms lightly, even playfully. By doing so he hopes to release pressure and defuse and potential explosions where we actually come to identify with such beliefs about him. It is a kind way of pointing out that we know better, as in fact we do. This knowledge leads us to look back on the apparent delays our prayers typically encounter and reevaluate what those delays mean.
Will not God then secure the rights of his chosen ones
who call out to him day and night?
Will he be slow to answer them?
From a human point of view God's timing will always retain an element of mystery. Even when we sometimes see prayers answered, and realize that the timing of these answers could not be improved, these tend to be the exceptions in our experience. But our horizons are quite different from God's. And our goals are never so perfectly aligned with his own that we always even understand that for which we ought to ask. Yet we still seem to see omissions where his action might have made all the difference. But when we experience these we are called to remember that he is worthy of trust, and desires better things for us than we do for ourselves. How he responds might not be the way that we requested or could have predicted. When he responds will probably always be with timing other than that which we would prefer, which, for us, is almost always 'Now, if not sooner'. But we need to remember that he sees a bigger picture than we do, that he can balance out short-term suffering with the long-term bliss of eternity. And we can remember that a part of the reason why we are asked to pray always is so that we ourselves can grow. Our commitment as time-bound creatures is always limited, fragile, and on the verge of collapse. By insisting that we grow in our own ability to persist in prayer God is helping us to become more like him, whose love for us is unwavering.
But when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?
If our criteria for faith is that Jesus responds to our desires when and how we ask, it is unlikely that such faith will last until next spiritual coming in our daily lives, let alone the last day. If our criteria is rather that he continues to transform our desires, making us more like him, we will be better situated for the long haul. Then we will be able to hear and learn from the advice of Paul to Timothy:
proclaim the word;
be persistent whether it is convenient or inconvenient;
convince, reprimand, encourage through all patience and teaching.
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