Striving for Justice

A sermon for Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church 

14 August 2022

Parable of the Unjust Judge by John Everett Millais (1863)

Luke 18:1-8
Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart. 
² He said, "In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people.  ³ In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, 'Grant me justice against my opponent.' 
⁴ For a while he refused; but later he said to himself, 'Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone,  ⁵ yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.'" 
⁶ And the Lord said, "Listen to what the unjust judge says.  ⁷ And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? 
⁸ I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them.
And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?"
 
Genesis 32:24-29
Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. 
²⁵ When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket; and Jacob's hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. 
²⁶ Then he said, "Let me go, for the day is breaking." But Jacob said, "I will not let you go, unless you bless me." 
²⁷ So he said to him, "What is your name?" And he said, "Jacob." 
²⁸ Then the man said, "You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed." 
²⁹ Then Jacob asked him, "Please tell me your name." But he said, "Why is it that you ask my name?" And there he blessed him.
 
Striving for justice
 
Let me tell you the story of Abdul Durrant; [1]
            a Black British Muslim man who in 2001 was working nights
            as a cleaner at HSBC’s headquarters in Canary Wharf.
 
Every evening cleaned the offices of the Chairman who earned £2 million a year,
            whilst he himself earned only £4.50 per hour.
 
Having connected with others to buy shares,
            Abdul came not as a cleaner, but as a shareholder to the company’s AGM
and nervously stood up in front of all the investors and executives
            to say to the Chairman
 
“We work in the same office, but we live in different worlds.
            Let me tell you what it’s like to work on £4.50 an hour and bring up six children.”
 
Within 18 months, HSBC and other major banks signed up to pay a Living Wage.
 
The organisation that connected Abdul with others,
            to enable them to become shareholders and speak with the Chairman,
                        was, of course, London Citizens,
            which we are part of as a church here at Bloomsbury.
 
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again,
            the community organising method they use to bring about social transformation
is the most effective way I’ve come across
            of taking action to build justice in our city and our country.
 
Through them, the voices of the poor are amplified,
            the powerful voices of oppression are called to account,
and our fervent prayers for justice
            begin to take shape in the world around us.
 
Which brings me to our parable for this morning from Luke’s gospel,
            the story of a poor widow’s plight
                        as she is pitted against the indifference
            of a powerful representative
                        of an even more powerful institution.
 
This is a simple parable, with only two characters,
            there is the widow,
                        who we are told is a victim of injustice,
            and there is the judge,
                        who we are told neither feared God nor had respect for people.
 
The judge is a representative of the first century Jewish legal system,
            which was specifically charged under the Hebrew Bible’s law code,
                        with the care of the vulnerable within Jewish society,
                        including widows and orphans (cf. Deut 10.18; 14.29 etc).
 
But it quickly becomes clear
            that he is not exercising his power and responsibility as he should.
 
There are two schools of thought in interpreting this parable,
            which tend to occupy the pens of the various commentators on it.
 
One school of thought says that this judge
            is to be seen as a kind of inverted representation of God.
And that whilst we might not see God as capricious or indifferent,
            nonetheless, the point is made that if we persist in prayer as the widow did,
            then surely God will eventually hear us, and answer our prayers.
 
Needless to say, this is a problematic reading,
            because it raises for us all sorts of questions as to why it might be
                        that God would answer our prayers on the tenth,
                                    or hundredth, time of asking,
                        but not on the first.
 
            What is it that has changed in the intervening time?
                        Is it that God needs badgering into action?
 
            Is it possible that God is in fact far more unpredictable or fickle
                        than many of us would like to believe?
 
But then there is a second school of thought about this parable,
            which draws attention to the Jewish rhetorical technique
            of arguing from the lesser to the greater.
 
Such arguments were common within Judaism,
            and can be found in many other places elsewhere in the Bible,
                        (cf. Mt 7.11; 10.25; 12.12; Lk 12.24, 28; Rom 11.12, 24; 2 Cor 3.8; Heb 9.14)
            usually introduced by the phrase ‘how much more’.
 
So, for example, in Matthew 7:11  we find Jesus saying:
            If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children,
            how much more will your Father in heaven
            give good things to those who ask him!
 
By this reading of our parable, the unjust judge isn’t God,
            or even an inverted representation of God.
 
Rather, the point is made by suggesting an argument from the lesser to the greater:
            If even an unjust judge grants justice eventually,
                        how much more does God long to grant the prayers
                        of those who cry to him day and night.
 
But the lesson remains uncomfortably similar to the first reading,
            which is that we should continue to persist in prayer
                        and hopefully God will eventually get round to answering us,
                        even if at the moment God seems to be ignoring us.
 
After all, we tell ourselves,
            surely God is much more motivated to do so
            than the unjust judge in the parable.
 
But, you know, I find this second reading almost as problematic as the first,
            because it still takes us no closer
                        to an understanding of why it might be
            that God, who of course is nothing like the judge,
                        is still doing such a good impression of him
                        by ignoring our prayers!
 
So, I want to suggest a different way of reading this parable,
            and I think it’s a way of approaching it which might get us a bit closer
            to the persistent and faithful struggle embodied by the widow,
                        to see the world transformed
                        in the name of the in-breaking kingdom of heaven.
 
The way I read this parable, the unjust judge is not God
            he’s not even an inverted pastiche of God.
 
Rather, the judge represents
            the oppressive forces of power at work in the world.
 
This unjust judge who, we are told, has no fear of God nor respect for anyone,
            represents those systems and structures
                        which have lost sight of their God-given intent,
            and have become instead indifferent
                        to the plight of the poor and the vulnerable.
 
These structures could be governments,
            indifferent to the plight of those at the bottom end of society,
                        seeking to restrict benefits and cut services
                        in the interest of political expediency or ideological pragmatism.
 
They could be businesses or international financial markets,
            indifferent to the exploitative or oppressive effects
                        that their endless quest for profit has
                        upon those who find themselves standing in the way of the bottom line.
 
They could be those systems specifically charged with protecting the vulnerable
                        such as the police, the army, or the justice systems,
            when those systems become indifferent to the causes
                        that they have been established to champion.
 
            From institutional racism to military dictatorships,
                        it is all too easy for power to breed corruption.
 
And this, of course, is why Jesus used the image of a judge in his parable:
            he is a representative of the very profession
            that should have stood up for the impoverished widow.
 
But beyond these large institutions and their tendency to systemic indifference,
            the unjust judge could be you, and he could be me.
 
This is especially true those of us who have money and power.
            Because we too face choices
                        as to what we will do with that which is ours to hold.
 
            We too must make choices about who to vote for,
                        or where to invest our money:
                        which pension scheme or hedge fund to endorse.
 
            And it begs a question of us:
                        will we make our choices based on what’s best for us and ours?
            Or will we hear the voice of the widow at the door,
                        crying out for justice, crying to us for righteousness?
 
In Jesus’ parable, the widow’s continual
            and perseverant approach to the indifferent judge,
is effective in the end,
            because her weakness and vulnerability ultimately call him to account,
            leaving him little option but to act to bring her justice.
 
In many ways this is the path of nonviolent resistance.
            It has echoes of Ghandi, of Martin Luther King, of Rosa Parkes.
 
With the disempowered presenting themselves again and again,
            bearing testimony in their own bodies to the injustices they have suffered,
            holding the world to account that the world might be transformed.
 
Do you know the wonderful song ‘The Mothers of the Disappeared’
            by the Irish rock group U2, from their 1987 album The Joshua Tree?
 
It was inspired by lead singer Bono's experiences in Nicaragua and El Salvador
            and it gives voice to the pain of the Madres de Plaza de Mayo,
                        a group of women whose children had been "disappeared"
                        by the Argentine and Chilean dictatorships.
 
These women simply never stopped asking the authorities,
            what had happened to their children.
 
Through persistence and pain they eventually got some answers,
            with many of their children confirmed dead,
            but others found to have been adopted out or otherwise re-housed.
 
Some people have now been brought to justice,
            and still the mothers keep asking the questions.

And so we’re back to Jesus’ parable of the persistent widow,
            which, according to Luke’s introduction of it (v.1), is actually about two things.

Firstly, it is about the need to pray always,
            but secondly it is about not losing heart.
 
This parable is not just about praying for justice,
            or about interceding for the poor.
 
It’s about taking action,
            it’s about standing alongside the widow of Jesus’ story.
It’s about joining our voices with hers,
            in persistently challenging the forces that oppress and misuse power.
 
The lesson of this parable isn’t just that 'even a bad judge will give in occasionally'
            it's rather that 'even a poor widow
                        can effectively challenge the powers that be
                        in the cause of justice and righteousness'
 
And it raises for us the uncomfortable question of whether, in fact,
            it may be that the only effective challenge to oppressive and exploitative powers
                        can come from the voice of the poor,
because it’s only when the powers are brought face-to-face
            with the dehumanising effects of their actions
            that they can be held to account and enabled to change.
 
Those of us who would challenge the powers-that-be in the name of justice
            but seek to do so from our own positions of comfort and security
                        may find that we are already colluding
                        with he very systems we are seeking to stand against.
 
This is why we who would see the world different
            need to find ways of embracing and including within our own communities
            those with whom we would challenge the oppressive structures of the world
                        which keep all people, from the poorest to the most powerful,
                        hostages to fortune and authority.
 
We who would have compassion for the poor
            may find it helpful to remember that the word ‘compassion’
            is the bringing together of two Latin words:
                        com, meaning with, and passus, meaning to suffer.
            Compassion for the poor therefore involves suffering with the poor.
 
I’m reminded of the disability rights adage,
            ‘nothing about us without us’,
which is applicable I believe in any context, where the disadvantaged
            are finding people taking action on their behalf.
 
Any challenge to the indifferent powers of exploitation
            that does not include the voice of those who are being exploited
            will lack the power of the persistent widow.
 
But if our communities of transformation include those who are otherwise dis-voiced,
            then the cry we offer in challenge to the oppressive powers
            will be a voice of persistence informed by compassion.
 
It’s interesting to hear what the judge says as he grants the widow justice.
 
He says (v.5),
yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice,
so that she may not wear me out by continually coming
 
The Greek word here for ‘wear me out’ is a word that actually means
            to beat black-and-blue, a bit like a boxer at the end of a long round,
and it carries a connotation of ‘shame’, not just exhaustion.
 
As a defeated boxer might be said to have been shamed by his opponent,
            so the judge is ‘shamed’ by the widow.
 
When we join our voices with the voices of the oppressed,
            when we learn the language of the poor,
            and speak with them against the oppressive powers of indifference,
then God is active in the shaming of the powers-that-be
            into taking actions that bring justice and blessing to those in need.
 
In our wrestling with God in scripture,
            the stories of our faith can become for us the persistent widow,
shaming us with their honesty,
            and persisting in their challenge that we should be different.
 
As Jacob was left beaten and limping by his encounter with God,
            so we too may find ourselves black and blue after a night with the word of God.
 
But from the encounter comes the blessing,
            as we are enabled by the persistence of God
                        to disentangle ourselves from the seductions of complacency
                        and the temptations of indifference.
 
Sometimes I despair at the intransigence
            of the powers-that-be which rule our world.
 
Can they ever be brought to account?
            Can they ever be changed?
 
Well yes, says Jesus, they can;
            and it begins with those who have compassion,
            and it begins with those who are downtrodden and beaten up.
 
It is an upside down revolution,
            where the world is changed not through popular uprising
but through the telling, and living, of the stories of oppression:
            repeatedly, continually, faithfully.
 
It is a revolution which begins when people wrestle with God and with scripture,
            bringing the darkness into the light, even at great cost to themselves.
 
It is the church in solidarity with the poor
            against the indifference of the machine.
 
It is the faithful few who will not be told to be silent.
 
And so Jesus ends with a question:
            ‘And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?’
 
This is a hard task, it is a task that it would be easy to talk away from,
            especially when faced with the indifference and hostility
                        of the powers of oppression.
 
And yet, and yet…
            we are called to keep the faith,
to persevere and not to count the cost.
 
As Paul put it in his letter to Galatians,
            ‘Let us not grow weary in doing what is right,
                        for we will reap at harvest time, if we do not give up.
            So then, whenever we have an opportunity,
                        let us work for the good of all.’ (Gal 6.9-10).
 
To return to the story of Abdul and the chairman of HSBC,
 
twenty years on the Living Wage campaign
            has seen almost 300,000 workers get a pay-rise
and has put £1.5bn back into the pockets of low-paid workers.[2]
 
And so I challenge you to become involved through Bloomsbury
            in the work of London Citizens.
 
Whether you are someone who is powerless, or someone who is powerful,
            I would love for you to do some training,
so that together we can join in challenging
            the systemic powers of injustice in our world.
 
If you are interested in being a part of this,
            please speak to me and I’d love to arrange a time to sit down with you
            and we can see how together we can bring about change for good.
 
 
[1] This story is taken from https://www.livingwage.org.uk/news/we-cannot-be-anti-poverty-organisation-without-also-being-anti-racist-organisation
[2] https://www.livingwage.org.uk/news/we-cannot-be-anti-poverty-organisation-without-also-being-anti-racist-organisation