God is Nothing like the Judges of this World

Made Flesh

Here we are, once again, in Luke’s gospel, where the writer places those that have little political power or religious clout – social outsiders – at the center of the story. This usually happens to the dismay of those that consider themselves righteous and worthy of being at the center. The three stories at the beginning of Luke 18 represent this well.

And, in this chapter of Luke’s gospel, we get a few lessons on prayer –  what prayer is, and what it is not. 

I hate writing reflections on prayer. I am not very good at it. My prayers often digress to begging for parking spots on a busy city street. More often than I want to admit, I catch myself looking towards the Divine love we call God as a big vending machine in the sky. So I am somewhat comforted by the two stories that follow our lectionary text today, about persistent prayerful instructions. 

The story of the widow in this week’s text is followed by one about a tax collector and children. Once again, we see Luke using those considered the least of these as our instructors on our approach to mystical practice. We learn, in the two stories that follow verse 8, a bit about our posture for prayer: We are invited to come as children, and to show the transparency of a tax collector, which matters far more than the perceived righteousness of a pharisee.

But here, in Luke 18:1-8, we learn something about the God who hears those prayers in light of the judges most of us face. 

The judge in this story is way too familiar. He’s much like the judges many in my community have faced. In my experience, the more familiar the judges got with little Ronnie from the block, the less compassionate the judge became. I once had a judge tell me I should bring a toothbrush the next time he saw me, because I was going to stay awhile. (I think he meant jail, but I didn’t hang around long enough to seek clarity; I hadn’t yet read about the persistent widow.) 

Experiences like this tell me this story can’t just be about the widow and her persistence. If we take this text at face value, all we really learn is, “Keep asking: that parking spot will manifest itself.” But the text is clear: the judge cares little for people and less about God. If he truly has no respect for anyone, then the widow, even in her persistence, has no chance at convincing the judge to do what is good and right. All she has is her persistence, which is nothing more than a desperate, ongoing vulnerability to the unjust and uncaring legal system.

In my mind, this story’s ridiculousness – its absurdity – is the point of the parable. The story seems to reorient us away from the belief that God is anything like the judges of this world. In the parable, a judge is someone who, maybe, on a good day, and simply because of a persistent annoyance, might be tolerant – might consider the pleading voice of an old lady, just to shut her up. The parable invites us to consider that when we treat God as a cosmic vending machine, we also insinuate that God is just a bigger judge, confidently rendering verdicts from within a fundamentally broken system. Are we really okay with those implications?

Karl Barth has been attributed as saying that God “is not a man speaking loudly.” God is not simply a bigger and better judge. Rather, God is completely other. God is not annoyed into responding to injustice. Jesus is teaching a lesson on transcendence, on the complete otherness of God – a God who is nothing like the judges of this world. A God who is not constrained by broken systems but moves despite them, hearing and responding to the cries of the humanity God has chosen. 

To be honest, I still don’t know what prayer is. At its best, in my community, it can mean we carry together what one cannot or should not carry alone. But I cannot ignore the parables of Luke 18:  God sees the honest request of a tax collector, and God welcomes the faith of children who are simply not old enough to know any better. Such tenderness throws off our natural expectations of how justice works, making us vulnerable. But it is the good news of the text: God is nothing like the judges of this world.

Can we respond to Jesus’ invitation and cultivate a prayerful faith in a God whose systems of mercy are so radically other from our systems of justice?

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Dwelling Among Us

How do we help communities so hurt by systems and judges of the world to build a trusting allegiance to Divine Love?

In your community, where does the image of God as “cosmic vending machine” or as a confident, impartial judge most visibly show up? Are people comforted by the idea, or afraid of it?