He said, “There was a judge in a certain town
who neither feared God nor respected any human being.
Piety makes us immediately and intentionally dismiss any apparent similarity between this unjust judge and the God whom he did not not fear. We know that God has a special love, not indifference, for the orphan and the widow. Yet our rushing to produce a pious defense of God might cause us to miss some of the point Jesus was making. The comparison between the unjust judge in the parable and God himself was intentional, since the figure of the judge stood in for the one who would hear and grant or deny petitionary prayers. In one way the comparison was like another comparison between earthly fathers' care for their children and God's concern for all humankind:
If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him! (see Luke 11:13).
In the above comparison the earthly fathers are not presented as entirely unsympathetic, however. They know how to give good gifts to their children. They will not give a serpent to a son that asks for a fish or a scorpion to one who asks for an egg. The analogy is similar to that of the unjust judge in that they both reason from a lesser to a greater. But why is the parable in today's Gospel reading so extreme in presenting an apparent caricature of a figure in the place of God?
‘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.’
We may suggest that Jesus was here applying his sense of humor, which must have indeed been a self-deprecating sense of humor to use a comparison of this sort with his Father. But by leading with humor perhaps he hoped to allow us to recognize a stereotype of God which we would never consciously confess but which sometimes seeps into our thinking about him, especially when we try to "pray always without becoming weary". Do we not, at times, slip into seeing God is a judge with little interest in the concerns of women and men, even orphans and widows? Because, after all, if he was truly concerned, wouldn't more miracles result from prayer? Paul himself wrote that God was "no respecter of persons" (see Romans 2:11). Did he mean more than that he was not impressed by a person's status in society? Did he also imply a more general disinterest her most heartfelt needs and desires?
I shall deliver a just decision for her
lest she finally come and strike me.
We tend to see God as a figure whose good is competitive with our own, and who has a limited amount of resources from which to act. With this view we see our prayers as always trying to prod one who is all but disinterested into expending effort on our behalf. Since we feel as though we must purchase or earn a result it seems we have nothing with which to persuade the judge but repetition tending toward annoyance. Jesus, by giving this parable, was telling his listeners that he saw and understood this deep psychological wound that affected, most likely, all of them.
Will not God then secure the rights of his chosen ones
who call out to him day and night?
By calling our attention to our unconscious stereotypical reproach of God Jesus hoped that we would be able to transcend it, to see, by making at conscious, that it was absurd, even if it still appeared that our prayers were answered slowly or not at all. We are meant to realize that God truly is concerned with all of our needs and desires, especially those of the most needy such as widows and orphans. He is a judge who is infinitely just, whom it costs nothing deliver his just decision on our behalf. If he seems slow to answer we are meant to realize that the problem is with our perspective, not with the unseen reality.
Will he be slow to answer them?
I tell you, he will see to it that justice is done for them speedily.
In order for us to pray always it can be enough to have a limited and imperfect vision of God, and of how our prayer affects him. But in order for us to pray always without losing heart we are meant to learn more and more the perfect transcendent goodness of God. It is a goodness that is diffusive of itself, and motivated him to create us because he desired for us to share in and experience that goodness. Our images of earthly fathers and judges and authority have all been tainted by human failings. But Jesus wants to help us heal the way in which these failings have tainted our image of God himself.
For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family (see Ephesians 3:14).
Our true power in prayer and in living the Christian life will come when we learn to give reverence to "the Name" that is more than plausibly pious lip service. It is probable that for most of us this will require healings of our hearts which only Jesus can provide. How gracious of him, then, to begin this healing remedy with humor, even here emptying himself so that we might be made full.
Blessed the man who fears the LORD,
who greatly delights in his commands.
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