As Jesus continues the journey to Jerusalem, he tells the story of a widow and an unjust judge. Luke tips us off that Jesus is using this story to teach us about the “need to pray always and not to lose heart.”
What is Jesus revealing about the nature of God in this parable? The judge is close enough that the widow can go to him, knock on his door, bow before him, and speak to him. The judge is far enough above her that he has the power to command justice when he deems the time is right. The judge is both near and far.
Just as God is both near and far, or in theological terms, God is both immanent and transcendent. “God is present and active within his creation, but superior to and independent of anything that he has created.” * Lose the balance between the two and we lose what God has revealed to us about Himself through Jesus.
If we lose the understanding of the immanence of God, we can feel lonely and abandoned. We become reliant on social solutions and human efforts. We seek justice, we thirst for righteousness, and yet nothing changes. We get up every day and work in the world to bring about justice. Poverty, violence, oppression, and injustice just laugh at us. We wonder where God is. So let us not forget to pray, to ask, to plead, to spend time with Jesus, to take our burdens and worries to the cross. Remember in these times that God is near. Like the widow, keep going to the judge. Pray always.
If we lose the understanding of the transcendence of God, we can become despondent and hopeless. We may pray and talk to God often, but we have forgotten that God is outside the creation, He is above all. God’s ways are not our ways. God is not a genie’s lamp – pray all day for everything to go our way, and when it doesn’t, feel let down. Remember in these times that God is working within His creation. God is active, and His action takes place in an eternal framework. God is faithful. Like the widow, trust that the judge will set things right. Do not lose heart.
The Old Testament reading shows us this so beautifully. God’s immanence is evident in Jacob wrestling with him; Jacob physically encounters God, rolls around on the ground, fighting with God. God’s transcendence is evident in Jacob’s request for His blessing and God’s ability to transform Jacob by giving him a new name, one that affirms his identity as a child of God.
If the widow had this much faith in a corrupt, earthly judge, how much more faith should we have in God? Do we have confidence as we confess that “we believe in Jesus, God’s only son...who will come again to judge the living and the dead?” Then let us pray always. Let us not lose heart. God is working in and through creation until Christ returns. Will we be found faithful?
*Thanks to my old text book, Christian Theology, Second Edition, by Millard J. Erickson.
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