What Will He Find?

Luke 18: 1-8

            Seventy six years. That’s a long time to wait. Seventy six years from birth to becoming a Nobel Peace Prize winner and the first democratically elected President of the government of South Africa. Along the way, Nelson Mandela spent twenty eight of those years in prison. He didn’t commit a crime as we understand crime. His crime was that he wanted to effect change. We could call him a civil rights activist and we would be right, as long as we understand that Mandela stood not for dominance by any particular ethnic group, but rather for freedom based upon fairness and equality, not race. Twenty eight years in prison is a rather strange way to train for political office. It’s an awfully long time not to lose heart.

          In a life that spanned seventy nine years, Mahatma Gandhi found his most effective witness in fasting. Imprisoned numerous times, this well educated man used peaceful civil disobedience as his most effective weapon against injustice, but in a lifetime of protests, he was still misunderstood by many and assassinated in 1948. He spent his life leading others to understand the consequences of commitment; that faith holds the hand of persistence or holds nothing at all.

In Luke 18, Jesus tells a parable about a widow seeking justice. It’s not the easiest thing in the Bible to understand, but it carries a valuable lesson. It is another of those “how much more” stories that Luke likes to tell about Jesus. Remember back in Luke 11 when Jesus directs us to ask, seek and knock? That too was a story of persistence, as the man knocked on his neighbor’s door until the neighbor finally gave in. Remember how we see sinful people giving good gifts to their children, and Jesus reminding us how much more our heavenly Father, who knows no sin, can do for us.  Luke employs the “how much more” device to illustrate how much more God can do than we humans can do, even in the best of our efforts.

A widow goes to court. More accurately, a widow goes before a magistrate. This is not a Jewish court or a Jewish judge. In Jewish civil court, there would have been three judges: one picked by the plaintiff, one picked by the defendant and one picked by the two judges. This was instead a civil proceeding before a civil authority. It was a one judge panel, probably a magistrate. The scenario that Luke describes here is one where money and power will buy you the justice you seek. If you don’t have one of these, you are out of court before you even start. Nevertheless, the widow keeps coming back. She won’t quit seeking justice. The very fact that she is a widow implies that she is powerless, but she won’t go away. Like the Mandelas and the Gandhis of our time, the widow is persistent. She doesn’t lose heart. The judge finally relents, not out of any sense of fairness, but rather because she is an inconvenience to him and he wants to be rid of her.

So how can this story have anything to do with Christian faith? The unrighteous judge finally renders justice just to get shed of the pesky widow. Even those who do no more than persist will ultimately have some reward. Is that the lesson? Only in the sense that God wants us to not lose heart. This is a lesson of both comparison and contrast. We compare our persistence to that of the widow. God wants us not to lose heart, to keep coming back just like the widow. We contrast the magistrate’s justice and attention to that of God. If a sorry unrighteous judge can eventually mete out justice, how much more can God do for those in his flock! We who believe should never lose heart in our God and Savior. He loves us and takes care of us.

The danger, of course, for the people of God is that too often we fail to remember whose rulebook we play by. God has no watch, no calendar, no orbit. God is not even BC or AD. God is! His name means “I Am.” There is no past, no future. God has only one tense: “I Am.” Our telescopes can now see outside our galaxy, the Milky Way. It has taken us thousands of years to build a telescope powerful enough to see that far, and that is only one galaxy. God is not of this galaxy. God is not from another galaxy. God is outside ALL the galaxies. He is out there. He is right here. God is not confined, not defined. He is both Lord of the cosmos and Shepherd of our souls. He is the great “I Am.” So when we try to describe time, we come up with words like “wait.” What does that mean to “I Am’? God must chuckle at our attempts to define and limit him who is by definition without limits. 

And Jesus says to his disciples that God’s people cry to him both day and night, that God will not delay, but rather give justice to them speedily. We are God’s people. Are you crying to him? Is he answering you? Do you think he is speedy? Do you think he is fair? Do you think he is just?

I cry to him. He answers me, too. I don’t doubt that he is speedy. I just don’t know how to define that in human terms. I know he is just. I know he is fair. I know what that means for me and so I thank him for sending his Son to even up my ledger. If it weren’t for that, I would want God’s justice postponed forever.  But because of Jesus, I can believe and not fear. I am saved.

But then, after promising us that God hears and God gives justice, Jesus asks this haunting question. For all that God has done, for all that God will do, what will the Son of Man find when he returns? When I return, says Jesus, What will I find? Will I find faith on earth? Later in the chapter, Jesus muses that people may find their own justification, that they may find and define their own brand of righteousness.

Jesus’ question still haunts us. He put that question not to just anyone, but to his disciples. He is asking the faithful. He is asking us. When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth? If he came today, he would find both faith and the lack of it. If he came today, he would find both righteousness and idolatry.

If Jesus comes today, where will he find you? Will you have persisted? Will you have kept the faith? Will he find you his faithful disciple or will he find you trusting in yourself? We are all sinners saved by grace. Not one of us is righteous. If Jesus comes today, where will he find you? Let each of us pray always and not lose heart. Let him find us waiting, worshipping, prepared for his coming. Let him find us all doing as the tax collector in the next parable of Luke 18, standing head bowed, saying ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’

Let us pray.

10/20/13