Gospel text for Sunday 16 October 2016

Luke 18:1-8        Jesus told his disciples a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart. He said, "In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people. In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, `Grant me justice against my opponent.' For a while he refused; but later he said to himself, `Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.'" And the Lord said, "Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them. And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

Reflection        Never stop turning and returning to God, or as our Jewish friends might put it, “Cultivate your inner nudge,” which is a rough translation of, “Because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice.” Rather than look at this instruction as a formula to manufacture an obnoxious personality I prefer to think of it as inspiration to sustain single-minded purposefulness in pursuing what is right and good and true. 

Sometimes it is hard to hold onto what is right and good and true, especially when the deck seems stacked against us. In the story of the widow we have no idea who her opponent is nor do we know the nature of her grievance. We do know the widow seeks justice in a situation that is stacked against her, having to rely on a merciless judge to hear her complaint.  Which begs the question, what gave the widow, a person of neither value nor status and certainly no education in her first century community, the courage, the chutzpah to persevere and bother the judge? From where did the widow derive her strength of purpose to repeatedly confront the truculent judge? 

It is unlikely the persistent widow was aware of Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein definition of a nudge. Here is what they have to say. “A nudge…is any aspect of the choice architecture that alters people's behavior in a predictable way without forbidding any options or significantly changing their economic incentives. To count as a mere nudge, the intervention must be easy and cheap to avoid. Nudges are not mandates. Putting fruit at eye level counts as a nudge. Banning junk food does not.” *

Perhaps the widow heard Jesus teaching on a hillside, on the plain or in the synagogue and was moved to hope for justice in spite of her desperate situation. Perhaps the widow was inspired by the story of Job who never stopped calling out to God despite the unspeakable adversity of his situation. We will never know what kept the fire going in the widow’s heart such that she held fast to her desire for justice. Nonetheless her story gives us hope that each and every one of us may be heard as long as we never stop calling out to God for justice. In the throes of this political season it might behoove us to never stop bothering God. “O Lord make haste to help us, all of us. O Lord, come quickly and make our ways straight. Amen.”

*  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nudge_theory

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Gospel text for Sunday 2 June 2013

                                         Luke 7:11-17        Soon after healing the centurion's slave, Jesus went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd went with him. As he approached the gate of the town, a man who had died was being carried out. He was his mother's only son, and she was a widow; and with her was a large crowd from the town. When the Lord saw her, he had compassion for her and said to her, "Do not weep." Then he came forward and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, "Young man, I say to you, rise!" The dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother. Fear seized all of them; and they glorified God, saying, "A great prophet has risen among us!" and "God has looked favorably on his people!" This word about him spread throughout Judea and all the surrounding country.

Reflection      If ever I wondered what Jesus’ position was regarding women this story about the widow and her dead son clinches it for me. When Jesus looked at the woman walking next to her son’s body in a funeral procession what he saw was a person with no status, no home, and no way to survive. In an instant Jesus  assessed the situation, decided the widow’s presumptive fate was not good enough and he was roused to action. Nothing would prevent him, not even death, from subverting the assumptions that would seal the woman’s fate. If it meant doing a miracle, raising her son from the dead, so be it. Nothing could seperate the widow ( every woman, every person) from the love of God through Jesus. Not even first century cultural assumptions that an unmarried woman with no son was essentially worthless and had no place in society could steal life from her.

Which brings us to the subject of miracles.  Miracle stories are problemmatic no matter how I sit with them. But the more I hung out with Jesus and the widow the more I realized the real problem is - we don’t expect miracles. We are willing to capitulate to circumstances. We accept social conventions as if they were inevitable (ie. a woman has no place in the world without a man). We allow our lives to be guided by probabilities and jaundiced assumptions. We are willing to succumb to a reasoned or likely outcome. We don’t expect miracles!

But reasonable or likely outcomes were not good enough for Jesus and should not be good enough for us. Jesus intervened to right a fundamental socio-cultural flaw of his time. Jesus acted without restraint to excavate the assumption that women have no worth or rights without men.  Jesus intervened to reverse the widow’s status. 

Now just in case you imagine Jesus’ miraculous intervention with the widow of Nain set the world of believers straight regarding the worth of single women, not so fast. On two occasions in the 21st century I personally have been told by a person set in authority over me that I was less credible (and presumably of less value) because I am a single woman. I refuse to accept the assumption. And therein lies the miracle. As soon as we ally ourselves with Jesus, unveil oppressive social conventions and refuse to accept ‘inevitable’ outcomes, the game is changed. The world is turned upside down and life is restored to the dead. It is a miracle!

Gospel Test for Sunday 11 November 2012

Mark 12:38-44       Teaching in the temple, Jesus said, "Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets! They devour widows' houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation."

He sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny. Then he called his disciples and said to them, "Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on."

Reflection

Wow! Jesus is bold. While standing in the temple and teaching he publicly insults the scribes, the very people whose job is to record and sustain temple tradition. He accuses them of being hypocrites, taking money from the most vulnerable (widows) who are required to pay for prayers and using that money to elevate their position of honor. It makes me think of a true story Bishop Kirk Smith told last Sunday during his stewardship sermon. I shall paraphrase.

When parishioners were invited to respond to God’s generosity in their offerings of financial pledges one man told the priest that his economic situation was difficult, that he did not have enough, and he would not be able to make a pledge that year. A week or so later the man bought a  pair of “his and her" mercedes for his wife and himself. The thing is, as I thought about the story it occurred to me that the person in Bishop Smith’s story who was the most vulnerable, the most spiritually impoverished was the man with two mercedes. 

I am willing to speculate that no matter how much he had, the man with two mercedes did not believe he had enough. The man with two mercedes had no idea that everything he had was gift - every breath, every beat of his heart, every stitch of clothes, every cent of his wealth. I believe the man with two mercedes was telling the priest his truth when he told the priest that he did not have enough. He did not have enough gratitude for the abundance in his life. He did not have enough humility to know that all that he had was gift. He did not have enough faith to know that the God who had provided for him would continue to do so. Much like the scribes in Jesus’ parable who fluanted their long robes and took the took the seats of honor, the man with two mercedes flaunted his riches and exposed his spiritual impoverishment.