(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Sunday Worship on October 16, 2016, Proper 24)
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“I Pray You, Grant Me Justice”
In a certain city there was a judge who cared more for preserving power and privilege than he cared for justice.
In that city there was a woman who kept coming before him.
The first time the woman came before the judge, she said, “My family has always lived with the fear that something might happen to us. Many families we know have been disappearing. Finally it happened to us. My father disappeared. Left on an errand and never returned. I pray you, grant me justice.”
The next time the woman came before the judge, she said, “It happened again. This time, my husband…disappeared…on his way to work. Now I am left alone and without a way, without work, without money. I am in agony, thinking about what has become of my husband, whether I will see him again. I pray you, grant me justice.”
The third time the woman—the widow—came before the judge, she said, “Days, months, and years have gone by, a long wait, and now I know I will never see my father or my husband again. Ending up alone to raise and feed my children...how am I to survive? I pray you, grant me justice.”
The final time that the widow came before the judge, she was not alone. She came with other widows. They spoke together in loud voice, “Our fathers and husbands have disappeared, never to return. Our sons have been forced to serve in the same military that destroys our families. And we are left alone, grieving and suffering. We pray you, grant us justice.”[1]
A Nameless Widow with Numerous Names
As you may have guessed, this is not quite the same story that we read in scripture today. Or rather, it is the same story, but this time the blank spaces have been colored in. The parable that Jesus tells is timeless. The nameless widow whom Jesus praises has, in fact, numerous names. Her story is like a blank coloring page that countless widows throughout history have colored in time and time again.
The widow who lost her father and husband is Rosalina Tuyuc, a native Mayan woman in Guatemala. Her experience is a common one among Mayan women. In recent history, soldiers frequently drove the Mayan farmers from their homes, kidnapped their leaders, and forced their sons into the same army that was oppressing them, all because the military regimes that dominated the country did not trust the communal lifestyle that Rosalina and her Mayan people practiced. (Sadly, the United States supported these oppressive regimes because it too did not trust their communal lifestyle. No matter that the native farming communities, many of which were Christian, exemplified the life shared in common that Jesus preached and the early Christ-followers lived. For the U. S. government, this was communism plain and simple, and could not be tolerated.)
When Rosalina lost her father and her husband, she did not take up arms but rather took up a plea for justice. She pled always and never lost heart. Her plea inspired countless widows like herself, who eventually formed a national assembly of widows. This army of widows protested against the military and pled for peace. They pushed for the identification of their dead husbands and fathers and for their proper burial, for their sons not to be forced into the army, for a future free from the injustices of militarism and nationalism. It has been a long road, but because of these widows, Guatemala is now taking steps toward reconciliation with its native Mayan peoples. The disappeared are being given funerals. The Mayan farming communities are receiving reparations for their immeasurable losses during the repression. Perhaps most importantly, they are now gaining a voice and a place in society, whereas before they had been marginalized through violence and persecution.
Rosalina’s story—the story of the widow—echoes all over the world. It echoes in Argentina, where for years mothers wearing white headscarves marched weekly in the capital to protest the unjust disappearances of their children. It echoes in Serbia, where the Women in Black who have lost fathers and husbands and sons protest against militarism and nationalism and plead for a future of peace, so that their children may have life. It echoes the world over: wherever there is injustice, you can bet there is a widow raising her voice.
What Does Prayer Look Like?
Unfortunately for these widows, the church is too often far behind them. When the church gets its hands on today’s parable, it tends to domesticate it, de-claw it. It overspiritualizes it. It reads the instruction to pray always and never lose heart not as a call to justice but as a call to a privatized piety, an ask-in-your-heart-and-wait approach. Such an interpretation suggests a God who gauges our prayers, and if they measure up, we get justice. Such an interpretation suggests that our prayers stay locked up in our head and heart, that they don’t make it beyond to our hands and feet and most importantly our voice.
Which is a very curious way of understanding prayer, when the very story that Jesus chooses today to illustrate prayer is not an old woman kneeling serenely by her bed, but rather an old woman pleading desperately in public. Jesus’ parable points to a very different kind of prayer than what is seen in many churches. For Jesus, prayer is not something that remains by the pew or the bedside.[2] For him, prayer is earthy and desperate; prayer is a plea for justice that bubbles up from the unplumbed depths of the heart and cannot help but burst forth into the public realm.
What does prayer look like? It looks like a widow who is powerless but persistent, whose plea is personal but political, whose words are peaceful but plucky. Prayer is not a word sent up to some God who carries the ace up some divine sleeve, just waiting to be played. It is a holy word that becomes flesh and lives among us, a word that does what it says, a word that trusts so much in the truth that it will not rest until the truth is done; it is a word that performs, like the words, “I do,” or, “I promise.” It is powerless—it never takes up the sword—and yet its voice persists and never dies. It is personal—it arises from the heart of our own experience—and yet it is political, concerning the people around us. It is peaceful—it renounces the way of force—and yet it is neither passive nor indifferent, for its voice must be heard.
The Prayer of a Widow
Just half a chapter before today’s scripture, a group of people ask Jesus, “When is the kingdom coming?”
It’s difficult not to wonder if today’s parable is part of Jesus’ answer. When is the kingdom coming? The kingdom is already among you (cf. 17:21), Jesus suggests, in widows like this one. The kingdom is coming when you take notice of the widow and make your prayers like hers. This widow—and widows like Rosalina and the mothers in Argentina and the Women in Black in Serbia—give teeth to prayer. They show us where the rubber of prayer meets the road of reality.
You may have noticed that there aren’t too many folks of my generation in churches these days. Many of my generation are cynical and jaded. They’ve experienced a world that runs on the cold calculations of money and power and prestige. Anyone who’s followed the elections can sympathize with them. Anyone who’s fallen through the cracks of bureaucracy can sympathize with them. Anyone who’s observed the millions of dollars splashed around in our plastic entertainment industry can sympathize with them. To my peers, the world is heartless.
What they really want, I think, and what the world really needs, is a heart. And if today’s scripture is anything to go by, the heart of the world is to be found not in the right president or effective policies or successful programs. The heart of the world is to be found in the prayer of a widow.
Many in my generation would scoff at the idea that prayer is the heart of the world. But then they would be thinking about the kind of prayer that they see and know, not about the kind of prayer that we see today in the widow. I imagine that if they saw the church praying like today’s widow, like Rosalina Tuyuc and the women of Argentina and Serbia, then they might take notice, take interest, take part. The prayer of a widow is an earthy performance, a cry of the heart that reaches the lips, a plea for justice that persists until justice comes. It is borne of personal experience, but it extends to the lives of others. It is as weak and powerless as a request, but as strong and undying as love. It is peaceful, but it never stands down.
The Mustard Seed of the Kingdom Coming
This kind of prayer is how God lives and breathes in our world. It is God’s very heartbeat in our world. It is not so much a prayer that we consciously pray as it is a prayer that overtakes us, a prayer that makes us: like the desperate tears that turn widows into beggars for peace; like the quiet dreams that turn underprivileged children into teachers and mentors; like the gut feeling that turns a hospital patient into the founder of a teddy bear care program; like a deep yearning for home that turns a homeless Jew into the shepherd of a lost world.
The widow kind of prayer is the mustard seed of the kingdom coming. It is the heart of a heartless world. It is what real church looks like, whether it’s found under a steeple, at a dinner table, or on the congested streets of the capital.
Prayer
Compassionate God,
Whose justice comes
In the shape of a powerless widow:
May our prayers
Neither stay quiet
Nor stand down,
But instead give a voice to justice
And a heart to the world.
In the name of the crucified one:
Amen.
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[1] This story is inspired by and adapted from the autobiographical account of Rosalina Tuyuc: “Rosalina Tuyuc’s Story,” http://pudl.princeton.edu/sheetreader.php?obj=bg257g27v, accessed October 12, 2016. Her words are italicized in this retelling of her story.
[2] The obvious objection to this interpretation of prayer would be Jesus’ words in Matt 6:6: “Whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret.” In response, I would offer two considerations: first, in Matt 6:6, Jesus is speaking in the context of an admonishment of ostentatious prayer; second, the present interpretation of prayer does not preclude the possibility of prayer in private, but rather contends that such private prayer necessarily finds embodiment in the public and the political.
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