The Persistent Widow
Julián Carrón - “Jesus told his disciples a parable about the need to pray always, without ever growing weary.”
To make himself understood, Jesus starts with a simple experience that everyone can relate to. The example is that of a Widow who repeatedly appeals to a judge “who neither feared God nor cared for anyone” and asks him, “Vindicate me against my adversary.”
In Palestinian society at that time, a widow was the most defenseless person, without any legal or family protection. The judge in question is “unjust” because he neither fears God nor respects men and, therefore, does not administer justice according to the law. The context highlights the contrast between the Widow's weakness and the judge's arrogant power.
But this disproportionate balance of power does not discourage the woman, who continues to pester the judge. Despite her tenacious insistence, the judge “for a while refused” to listen to her. But then, to himself, he says, “Even though I do not fear God and have no regard for anyone, since this widow is bothering me so much, I will do her justice, so that she will not keep coming to pester me.” The judge gives in and administers justice when he realizes that she will not stop bothering him until she is heard.
What sustains the Widow in her boldness, in persevering until she gets an answer? Knowing that the judge “did not fear God or have regard for anyone,” that woman certainly could not count on his morality. The only thing she can rely on to not give up is her need for justice. Only those who are aware of the value of this need can verify its strength. The Widow's awareness emerges from the fact that she does not stop in the face of the judge's resistance to giving her justice. The only resource at her disposal is not obstinacy, but awareness of her need. It is a matter of judgment, not of willful persistence. Her hope of being heard is not placed in the judge, nor in his possible change of heart, of which she can have no certainty. She has only one resource: to be faithful to her need.
Those who persevere like her will understand the challenge that Jesus poses to those who are listening to him: “And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night?” It is like saying, “If even an unjust judge yields to the insistence of a widow, how much more will God, who is just, listen to those who cry out to him day and night!”
The whole force of Jesus' argument is based on the comparison between the unjust judge and God. However, the parable does not suggest that God is like that judge. The comparison is not one of similarity, but of contrast. We are familiar with Jesus' way of challenging his listeners from other passages in the Gospel.
In another passage we read: “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks, it will be opened. Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, who are evil, know how to give good things to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” (Mt 7:7-11).
In today's Gospel, too, the comparison is between the injustice of the judge and the goodness of God.
The purpose of the parable is to encourage confident prayer and perseverance in waiting for God's response. If even an unjust judge listened to the helpless Widow, “Will God make them wait long?” Jesus says, “I tell you, he will see that justice is done for them quickly.” The parable of the unjust judge, therefore, does not invite us to pray until God is exhausted, but not to lose faith in God's justice.
How can we know that we can trust God? Only those who continue to insist, like the Widow with the judge, will find an answer to this question. Only those who do not give up will be able to verify God's difference. What reason do Jesus' listeners have to trust him? The signs they see. Jesus invites people to trust God who have a history behind them in which they see God's faithfulness to his people; they learn this every time they go to the synagogue to listen to the Scriptures. But that's not all. Those who receive this invitation to trust God have before them the signs that Jesus performs in the name of this God, his Father. Only experience can convince us, because “Christianity, being a present reality, has as its instrument of knowledge the evidence of experience.”
But Jesus is aware that no sign, however reasonable, can exempt us from the risk of our freedom. Therefore, he challenges them—and us—with that last question: “But when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”
