Written by Once again, in today’s Gospel, we have St Luke presenting a woman as the heroine in a story told by Jesus. In this case, the woman, who is not named, is a widow. The word for “widow” in the Bible means “silent one” or “one unable to speak.” In the Mediterranean world of Jesus’ time women did not speak on their own behalf: men did it for them. Because this widow appears alone in the story, it looks as if she had no male family member to act on her behalf. So she was truly alone and, therefore, in a very vulnerable and quite frightening situation. Furthermore, because widows were not included in Jewish inheritance laws (as is still the case in some Islamic countries), this woman would have been truly desperate, having lost all means of support and value in her life. And the cause of her complaint was, most likely, a man or men who took advantage of her vulnerable and non-status situation, possibly having to with property no longer hers.
The judge in the story would not have presided in an ordered courtroom, like we have here today in the UK. The court of law then was in the open air, by the city gates, and composed entirely of men. Thus we have to picture this lone and vulnerable widow in the middle of a raucous crowd of men, all of them competing for the attention of the judge who is surrounded by an array of male personal clerks. Some clients would gain access to the judge by supplying bribes or backhanders to a clerk; those who could not afford it would just have to shout and shout again in the hope of catching the judge’s eye to have their complaint heard.
This judge is described as having ‘neither fear of God nor respect for people’ i.e. no one, not even God, could make him ashamed of how he operated. He is moved only by backhanders and this poor widow does not have the means to grease his palm. The only weapon she has is her doggedness and persistence in endlessly nagging the judge until he stops ignoring her. And knowing that the entire community is aware of this widow regularly haranguing him, the judge eventually gives in and hears her case.
He relents because he recognised that if he did not respond to her then she would ‘worry me to death’. This is a poor translation of the original text. The original Greek word is taken from the sport of boxing (a sport still?) and means that the widow would – figuratively – give him a ‘black eye’. To figuratively blacken someone’s face or give them ‘a black eye’ means to publicly shame a person. And public shame would appear to be the one thing this judge fears.
What is the point this story? St Luke introduces it by saying, “Jesus told his disciples a parable about the need to pray continually and never lose heart.” His point is that if the widow can, by her persistence, win vindication from an unjust and shameless judge, how much more will similar persistence get a response from a loving God.
This teaching of Our Lord would have made sense to his hearers in that ancient Mediterranean world. However, our experience might be very different, especially if we have felt – after pleading in vain for something – that God really is like that indifferent or heartless judge. So how should we respond if our prayers go unanswered?
Some wags respond to that question with by saying “Well, you did get an answer to your prayer but it was no.” But is that enough to satisfy any reasonable person today?
My own experience of unanswered prayer is this:
When I begin to ask God for something, I’m telling God what I want – either something for myself or someone else. However, I usually don’t get it. So I ask again but still don’t get it. With more pleading, I ask again … and even again … until I realise that I am [literally] talking to the wall … or the ceiling … and wasting my time. And it’s at this stage that many people give up and say that either God does not care or doesn’t listen, that God is like that heartless judge.
But I find that if I persist in talking to God about my need, then something strange can begin to happen: I find that I stop telling God what I want and begin to come around to wondering what God wants for me in this situation or is going to do anyway. And as this gradually becomes clearer, I then ask for the grace to cope with what is going to happen anyway. I learn that despite the heartache and pain involved in what I must endure, I am – somehow -given the strength or grace to just about cope with the inevitable.
In this sense my turning to God in prayer for help is not in vain. I may not have gotten what I wanted but I was given the grace to accept what God wants for me. Then I come back to the words in the Lord’s Prayer: ‘Thy will be done’. This also was the prayer of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, on the night of his arrest, when he pleaded with God to be spared crucifixion. After a night-time of agony and dread, he came to say to God: ‘let not my will but yours be done’.
Such prayer, the prayer of acceptance, is not an easy thing to do. For some of us, it may take a lifetime to reach that point of surrendering and handing over control to God. But, like the widow in the story (and any successful diet), we have to stick at it, persisting like the widow and not giving up.
Michael Campion
Holy Name, Jesmond
16 October 2022
Sunday Mass: Saturday 4pm, Sunday 10am 