Saturday in the 32 Week of Ordinary Time, November 13, 2021

Luke 18:1-8

Jesus told his disciples a parable about the necessity for them to pray always without becoming weary. He said, “There was a judge in a certain town who neither feared God nor respected any human being. And a widow in that town used to come to him and say, ‘Render a just decision for me against my adversary.’ 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.’” The Lord said, “Pay attention to what the dishonest judge says. 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? I tell you, he will see to it that justice is done for them speedily. But when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

This passage from St. Luke’s Gospel begins in an unusual way.  The Evangelist tells us the meaning of a parable before Jesus relates the parable.  For just a moment, the hand of the Evangelist shows plainly in the light: “Jesus told his disciples a parable about the necessity for them to pray always without becoming weary.”  The last phrase would be better translated as “to pray at all times and not grow weary.”  Jesus and, later, St. Paul teach that we should pray not just “always” in the sense of every day, but “at all times” in the sense of continuously.  

He begins his parable with a character familiar to his audiences then and now: “There was a judge in a certain town who neither feared God nor respected any human being.”  This “judge” could be any bureaucrat.  This man would be of a lower level and have charge of what we would today call “small claims”.  “And a widow in that town used to come to him and say, ‘Render a just decision for me against my adversary.’ ”  Actually, the widow says, “Give me justice”, or “Defend me”.  Her case may have involved the property of her dead husband.  “For a long time the judge was unwilling”, that is, to hear her case.  He was not going to receive a bribe from a widow and so he saw no need to do anything for her.  “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.’ ”  There are a couple of humorous touches here.  First, the utter shamelessness of the judge, who freely admits to himself that he does not respect either God or man; and, second, the picture of the judge being assaulted by this petulant widow.  But the judge takes her seriously.  She is wearing him down by her constant badgering.  He may not get a bribe from her but she is affecting his quality of life, so to speak.  

The portrait the Lord draws is of a fairly common occurrence and his hearers would have known people much like this judge and this widow.  But the Lord surprises when he tells his disciples, “Pay attention to what the dishonest judge says.”  It sounds as though he is going to exonerate the judge in his story.  “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?”  If the dishonest judge, who has only his own interests at heart, aids this widow, then how much more Almighty God, who has our interests at heart?  “I tell you, he will see to it that justice is done for them speedily.”  We have an apparent contradiction here.  The Lord urges his disciples to “call out to him day and night”, but that he will render them help “speedily”.  We might think of “speedily” as that the Lord’s help will come “most certainly”.  It will not come instantly.  It will come in the Lord’s time.  Meanwhile, we pray continuously.  It is a similar case when the Lord tells his disciples that he is coming for judgment “soon”: “Amen I say to you, there are some of them that stand here, that shall not taste death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom” (Matthew 16, 28).  And, “Surely, I come quickly” (Revelation 22, 20).  He comes at the most propitious time for us.

One of the great questions the faithful ask is: Why did God not answer my prayer?  The answer may be that he already has and no one has noticed, or he has not answered it yet.  Thus, the need to continuously pray.  Praying in this way is also necessary for all believers because without it, faith falls away.  It is hard to believe in someone with whom we do not talk.  And so Jesus concludes, “But when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”