In the name of God ☩ Father, Son, and Holy
Ghost. Amen.
On this blessed morning, we have before us one of those
short stories by Jesus that we call parables. What makes the parables so
compelling and powerful is that they are stories that begin on earth and take
us into the Kingdom of Heaven. As such, a parable is not something that we
take, analyze, and then learn a lesson from; instead, a parable is a gift that
we receive and enter into. We don’t study a parable to transform its meaning
for our modern lives, rather a parable transforms us. This morning I want to
quickly give you the fairly standard reading of the parable and then get to two
examples of how the parable has continued to be true throughout history.
The parable of the persistent widow, or the unjust judge,
both titles work, is a parable using the literary device called “how much
more.” Many times in Luke’s writing, he uses this tool to show how even a
flawed person can do good things, reminding us that the good God will always do
good for us. A good judge is one who compassionately and fairly applies the
law. Luke’s judge is not that sort of judge; he doesn’t fear God and he doesn’t
respect any person. So when this widow, someone without many legal rights,
comes to him to plead her case, he really couldn’t care less about her. So this
judge dismisses her and tells her to “get lost.”
Now, in this parable, we don’t know what the widow’s case
is about. She might be in the right or she might be in the wrong. But that’s
not what matters. She is persistent and scrappy and decides that she’s going to
get justice by annoying this judge until he hears her case. Well, it works.
This unjust judge might not fear God or respect people, but he doesn’t like
being bothered, so he makes the problem go away by listening to this widow. And
if this unjust judge is willing to grant justice because he doesn’t want to be
bothered, then how much more will our very good and very just and very loving
God grant us justice? It’s a parable of grace because God doesn’t make us argue
our faith or prove our worth. It doesn’t matter if we are good people or bad
people, and the reality is that we are all both. But we are found righteous not
because of the merits of our case, but because of the mercy of God who forgives
us and grants us justice in Jesus Christ.
This isn’t a parable about providing a formula for prayer.
The point of the parable is not “If you annoy God with incessant prayers, like
this judge, God will eventually get tired of hearing from you and give you what
you ask for.” Parables aren’t about us, they always point us to the grace of
God. So it would be a very incomplete reading of this parable to come away and
think that the point is that we just need to be persistent in prayer. Instead,
the parable points to the fact that we can trust in God to grant justice; and,
indeed, this is exactly what God does on the Cross. Our sins are not forgiven
because we are persistently faithful, but rather because God is persistently
and relentlessly loving. This parable wants us to put our faith, trust,
obedience, and hope in the God who persistently grants justice. And because we
know that God is always with us and for us, we then have a firm foundation to
stand upon when we demand justice in our own day.
There are two stories about this sort of persistence
rooted in faith in a persistent God that I want to consider as we celebrate our
patron saint, Luke, and this parish that bears his name. The first is related
to this afternoon’s debut of our Becoming Beloved Community video and panel
discussion. Black faith is something that is certainly about persistence rooted
in the persistence of God. About a month ago I realized that I,
unintentionally, had a rather narrow focus when it came to what, or rather,
who, I was reading. So far this year, I’ve read 54 books and when I went
through my list to see how many of the authors were white males, it found that
only seven were written by women and four were written by non-whites. If it’s
true that you are what you eat, then it’s also probably true that you think
what you read. The next several books that I will be reading will be authored
by black theologians.
I’d
commend such an audit to all of you. Think about what you are engaging with.
Who is writing the books you read? Who is making the music that you listen to?
Who is producing and acting in the shows and movies that you watch? Who are the
politicians that you find yourself supporting? If the people that you read,
listen to, and follow are all people that look exactly like us, then I’d
suggest that we need to widen our vision. Scripture tells us that humanity is
created in the image of God, but if we’re only looking at one corner of that
image, then we’re missing out on a lot. And I’m not saying that white men
should be ignored, that would essentially end my career, but I am saying that I
have found great richness in paying attention to a greater diversity of voices.
One of
those voices has been an Episcopal priest and scholar, Kelly Brown Douglas. She
splits her time between being the Dean for Episcopal Studies at Union Seminary
in New York and being the Canon Theologian at the National Cathedral in
Washington. In a book called Stand Your
Ground: Black Bodies and the Justice of God, she writes about the black
faith, the way that black people experienced Christianity. She says that black
faith is rooted in the understanding that God is the God of freedom. By that,
she means that God is ultimately free and can do whatever God chooses to do,
and that God is most fully expressed in the acts of liberation and freedom.
This
faith insists that God works for justice, the very same trust that the parable
points us towards. With this trust in God’s justice, black faith is grounded in
the hope that God’s got the whole world in his hands. So even when we are
surrounded by pain and brokenness, there is an abiding trust in God to make all
things right. And because of this, black faith is about resistance to anything
that denies freedom. Since God is about freedom, freedom is our calling and our
cause.
In the
parable, the judge says “I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me
out.” That’s really not the most accurate translation – the term the judge uses
comes from the sport of boxing, so a more linguistically faithful translation
would be “I will grant her justice, so that she doesn’t keep giving me a black
eye.” This is what black faith is about. With hope and trust in God to grant
justice and freedom as the foundation, black faith then expects, demands, and
works for justice in this world. Because to demand justice is to worship the
God of justice. With this understanding of black faith as articulated by Brown
Douglas, I have come to more deeply understand the persistence demonstrated by
people who have suffered so much discrimination. The Beloved Community video
and panel discussion this afternoon is an expression of this hope and trust in
God to make all things right and gives us all an example of what a persistent
faith in a persistent God is all about.
Another
place where the truth of this parable can be seen in our own history as a
parish. St. Luke’s was established in 1753 by an act of British Parliament, but
it wasn’t until 75 years later, in 1828, that our first, and current, church
building was constructed. This very church in which we are sitting is a
testament to a persistent faith in a persistent God. When St. Luke’s was
established, it was really more about establishing colonial boundaries than it
was about setting up a congregation. And when you read the letters from the
second half the 1700s, you read about the struggles of establishing a
congregation in Salisbury, the western frontier at the time. And the reason why
we have this great legacy of faith at St. Luke’s is because of a group of
scrappy women who remind me of the widow from the parable.
When
the first Bishop of North Carolina, John Ravenscroft, came to Salisbury on
September 7, 1823, he Confirmed thirteen people, all women, who in the face of
adversity and struggles for funding, nevertheless persisted and got this church
built. They reestablished the heart of St. Luke’s as a worshipping
congregation, and because of their persistent faith in a persistent God, we are
here today.
My
brothers and sisters, as we celebrate this parish today for the Feast of St.
Luke, we do so with a reminder in Jesus’ parable that God is fiercely
persistent and reliable when it comes to granting justice. And this trust in
God has been seen throughout history in the form of a persistent faith in a
persistent God. Because of the history of St. Philip’s congregation in
Salisbury, we are blessed to have a more diverse congregation than we typically
would have. When St. Philip’s, a historically African-American Episcopal
congregation, was closed in 1970 and absorbed into St. Luke’s, those members
brought with them a faith that is rooted in God’s desire for freedom, and we
have all benefited from having that aspect of the faith lifted up in our
community. We see this persistent hope in the 75-year struggle through
obstacles to establish this parish not only as a geographic boundary, but as a
beacon of abundant grace, intentional worship, and beloved community in
Salisbury.
And so
now, it’s our turn. We are the St. Luke’s of 2019. As Jesus’ parable shows us,
we are grounded in the grace of God who persistently loves us. We have the examples
of black faith and faithful women in our history to inspire us in this faith.
We have a patron saint, Luke the physician, who knew something about the power
of God to heal wounds and bring reconciliation even in the midst of illness and
disease. This is our legacy – a persistent faith in a persistent God.
We are
blessed with the opportunity to participate in this legacy. And we can do this by
taking part in these conversations about race and the Beloved Community, by
giving generously in our stewardship drive to make sure that St. Luke’s
persists and thrives as a parish, by finding our peace not in making a strong
case for ourselves but in trusting that God has already declared us to be
righteous. The question that our patron saint asked 2,000 years ago as he
recorded the Gospel is still one for us to wrestle with today: “When the Son of
Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”
