Let’s All Emulate The Wrath of God Proper 24C
“The wrath of God is his relentless compassion, pursuing
us even when we are at our worst.
Lord, give us mercy to bear your mercy.” [i]
It’s as Jonah and much of the Bible reminds us, our God is a “gracious
and merciful God, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, and relenting
from punishment.”[ii]
This is good news!
Yet, wrestling with Luke’s presentation of a parable about a
Widow and an “Unjust Judge,” (Luke
18:1-8) leaves one feeling a bit like Jacob who wrestled with a man all night
long: he leaves limping, but with a new name, Israel (he who wrestles or
strives with God), and a new understanding of what it means to be a person of
God - "For I have seen God face
to face, and yet my life is preserved." (Genesis 32:22-33) Luke wants the
parable to somehow be about prayer, justice, and/or faith – concluding, “When
the Son of Man returns, will he find faith on earth?” If we are meant to
find examples, or even one example, of how to live a faithful life in this
parable, the answer to that most important question would be a resounding,
“No!”
There is a judge, who neither fears God, nor has any respect
for people. Luke calls him an “unjust judge.” At first glance, however, and
based on numerous judgments in our judiciary, we might find it refreshing that
this judge does not appear to allow religion or public opinion influence his
judgments.
Enter, the widow. This is no weak and vulnerable widow
without resources, the type for whom the God of the Bible repeatedly reminds us
deserves special attention and care from the community of God’s love. This
widow has the luxury of time to repeatedly, day after day, harass and even
threaten our judge. She has a self-righteous anger and seeks vengeance against
an undisclosed opponent. Our text in the NRSV translation has her seeking ‘justice,’
but Amy Jill Levine[iii]
and Richard Swanson[iv],
among many others, are both quick to point out that the word translated justice
ought to be “vengeance.” As in, “Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord.”[v] “Avenge me against my opponent,” or, “Avenge
me from my opponent.”
The judge wants nothing to do with the widow. Still, she
badgers him day after day after day. Finally, he says, “Though I do not
reverence God, nor respect people, yet, because this widow keeps bothering me,
I will grant her vengeance.” Swanson offers the more colorful and accurate
translation: “But because this widow will beat me up, I will avenge her, so
that she won’t come, in the end, and give me a black eye!”[vi]
For the Greek translated as “bothering” is literally a boxing term – to wear
out, to beat up, to give a black eye. He is feeling battered, and threatened, and
against his better judgement he caves in to her demand. Not for the sake of
justice, but for his own self-preservation.
Therefore, there is no justice in this story. There is no
compassion. There is no fairness. There is no mercy, and no evidence of
steadfast love. The judge is bullied by this widow into giving her what she
wants: vengeance. And as to prayer, it seems to suggest that if we bully God in
persistent prayer we will get anything we want – which of course is ridiculous,
and in this case is vengeance. We can be certain that vengeance is not what
constitutes the kind of faith the Son of Man wants to see on Earth when he
returns – the Son of Man who repeatedly relents from punishment and vengeance.
Where does this leave us? Why does Jesus tell us this story?
Parables are meant to shock us with their unexpected details of the story. Shock
us to look at ourselves, the world around us, and our faith, in a new and different
ways. The widow seeks vengeance. The judge colludes with her vengeance. The
unknown adversary is the recipient of vengeance, and for all we know may have
been seeking vengeance against the widow. It is a cycle of systemic vengeance
that knows no gender or class boundaries and eventually sucks everyone into its
wake.[vii]
There is no one to root for and no one to emulate. It begins to sound all too
familiar.
Such demands for vengeance confront us every day, if not in
our own hearts, then in the headlines that assault us with the same persistence
as the widow’s harassment of the judge. People demanding the death penalty,
often for others whom they do not even know. Prisoners released when it is
found the were wrongly convicted in the first place, based on new evidence or
wrongful representation, and yet there are those who petition the court to keep
them in prison. Any one of us might be among those demanding vengeance if a
member of our family was a victim of violent crime. Not to mention the daily
demands for and acts of vengeance against all sorts of groups competing for
power of some kind.
The parable, then, seems to challenge us to find our own
moral compass. Do I want to be in the widow’s company? Do I want to let myself be
manipulated into vengeance or violence by others like the judge? Why do we want
one person or group to succeed and another to fail? Does the end ever justify
the means (as it does in this story)?[viii]
Taking such a moral inventory, if we are honest with ourselves,
and if we are lucky, we ought to remember that Jesus seeks no vengeance.
Because Jesus knows that our God, his Father, is “gracious and merciful,
slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from punishment.” Being
made in the image of God; walking in the way of Jesus; simply being a
compassionate human being, perhaps reading a story like this one about a widow
and a judge ought to shock is into emulating the characteristics of God which
the Bible appears to champion from beginning to end.[ix]
If so, that would truly be Good News!
Perhaps the best takeaway from this story is exactly what
Maggie Ross asserts at the outset: that our God exhibits the kind of
persistence and perseverance the widow exercises, but in a positive way for us
all when she writes, “The wrath of God is his relentless compassion,
pursuing us even when we are at our worst. Lord, give us mercy to bear your
mercy.”
For it will only be in our exercising works of mercy and
love, not vengeance, that will assure the Son of Man that he will find faith on
Earth when he returns! Amen.
[i]
Ross, Maggie, The Fire of Your Life (Paulist Press, New York: 1983) p.137.
[ii]
Jonah 4:2b
[iii] Levine,
Amy Jill, Short Stories by Jesus (HarperOne, San Francisco: 2014) pp.239-265.
[iv] Swanson,
Richard W., (Pilgrim Press, Cleveland: 2006) p.321..
[v] Deuteronomy
32.35 (KJV)
[vi]
Ibid, Swanson p.321.
[vii]
Ibid, Levine, p. 265.
[viii]
Ibid, Levine, p. 265
[ix] Jonah
4:2b, Psalm 103:8, Nehemiah 9:31; Exodus 34:6; Numbers 14:18; Psalm 86:5; Psalm
86:15; Joel 2:13
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