Luke 18: 1-8
“The Face of Justice”
October 20, 2019 Children’s Sabbath
“People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of mass extinction. You are failing us…We will not let you get away with this…change is coming, whether you like it or not.” With these powerful words and details of the devastation that she and her peers are inheriting, 16 year old Swede Greta Thunberg used her platform as one of the younger yet most persuasive of environmental activists last month at the U.N. Climate Action Summit in New York. She is still standing up for justice on the issue this weekend where she took her voice to Canada as the school strike entered its 61st week. This teenager who began striking over a year ago by herself outside of the Swedish Parliament is not backing down on what she knows to be the devastation of our planet. Something must change and she’s willing to stand up to powers and principalities to carry her call for environmental justice.
Greta continues to make her case with statistics and science to those who are in positions to change the trajectory of the health of our planet.
In today’s parable of Jesus’ we don’t know what the widow is complaining about. What we do know is that a widow at that time was among the most vulnerable of people. There’s a good chance that she would be coming before this judge, who self-admittedly doesn’t care about God or other people, because of something to do with her dead husband’s estate. Under Jewish law she would not have inherited that estate, instead it would go directly to her sons or her brothers-in-law. She would be allowed to live off of it unless someone was trying to rip her off. Since she presents herself alone to the judge it probably means that none of her male relatives are backing her case. Widows then were survivors because they had no other choice. They did what they had to do for their own survival and that of their family. She is tough and determined and the judge has not only lost his patience with her but may also be afraid of being humiliated by her because the Greek translation of what we heard as his worry that “if I don’t help her, she will wear me out” is actually more accurately translated to mean “If I don’t help her, she will punch me under the eye.” Obviously, he recognized that she meant business!
As we look up at the faces of our children, this is Children’s Sabbath which the Children’s Defense Fund established 28 years ago as a way for faith communities to consider the injustices faced by our children and gives thought to how we as a church could respond. The most recent statistics from 2016 show us that 13% of Vermont’s children live in poverty. For a family of 4 that means they have an annual household income under $25,750. Our support of programs like Summer Lunch and Red Stocking, the Arlington Food Shelf and Prayer Shawl’s provision of scarves, hats and mittens as well as assisting with emergency needs through our Mission Fund all address needs of our community’s children. We are called in today’s passage to continue to speak out and not take no for an answer when it comes to justice. This means that we, all of us, need to work for justice so that children are not forgotten. These are the most vulnerable of humans and it is up to us, the adults, to work to ensure that they have their basic human needs met for the long haul and that no child is left behind. The problems we typically view as the hardest are exactly the ones we know we are supposed to do something about. We are to continue to advocate with policy makers, vote for officials who are looking out for children and not lose sight of how our laws and organizations work on behalf of children who do not get a vote and are relying on us to persist and not lose heart. What does justice look like? I’m not sure of all of it but I do know we can get a glimpse of it in a mirror.
I don’t know about you but my heart, of late, hurts at the pain of this nation’s and the world’s children – the ones who get caught literally and figuratively in the crossfire of armed conflicts, political standoffs and rhetoric used to polarize us. And this is where prayer comes in, not the wishing kind of prayers that we so want to offer, waiting for a yes or no answer, but the prayers that speak of our relationship with God when it comes to justice. It was Rabbi Abraham Heschel when he was marching with the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. who described it this way – “I felt as though my feet were praying.” What are the ways that we can pray with our feet and hands? Perhaps our hands will pray when we write a letter to one of our state or federal legislators calling on them to make sure our children, and that is all children, are safely housed, fed healthy food and assured access to health care and education that will help them thrive. Maybe the way to pray with our hands and feet is as simple as shopping for an extra item each month for the Arlington Food Shelf. Many of you are committed to organizations that serve children – keep on keeping on.
The persistence that Jesus marks with this parable is a persistence of prayer, a sign of not losing heart and thus connection to our faith. Some may call it pleading or begging, while others might characterize it as whining or obsessing but to stay in connection with God through prayer is to also recognize that prayer is a two-way form of communication. Barbara Brown Taylor answers the question of whether persistent prayer works by pointing out that, “Of course it does. It keeps our hearts chasing after God’s heart. It’s how we bother God, and it’s how God bothers us back. There’s nothing that words any better than that.” (Home By Another Way, 204)
Perhaps the prayer that Jesus is encouraging doesn’t have to be as hard as we make it. To live a life of prayer is to not lose heart, in spite of hard times or dry spells. In the spirit of unending prayer, to pray without ceasing maybe these words from Todd Jenkins (Tuesday’s Muse 2, 52) can help us. It’s called, “Living Prayer:”
When I realized that all is prayer,
it changed everything,
or at least it changes everything
On those occasions-
more rare than I would like to admit-
when the prayerfulness
of each present moment
does not elude me.
Those careless or caring words
with people who are committed,
by genetics or betrothal,
to spend a lifetime with us?
Prayer.
That erupting criticism or praise
of people whose livelihoods
are purposefully tied to us,
by shared employment
or economic interaction?
Prayer.
Those words never spoken,
because they’re never thought,
about the invisible ones
we walk and live right past each day?
Prayer.
That post you shared,
whether or not you envisioned
those with whom it would resonate
or those whose rage it might ignite?
Prayer.
That wishing, both backward and forward,
past regrets and future hopes,
sometimes wholly selfishness
and others, holy selfishness?
Prayer.
Never imagine, then,
that you didn’t have/make time for it,
that you didn’t do enough of it.
Just try to pay attention to how
you’re constantly doing it.
Prayer.
Our lives are our prayers. May they be prayers for justice for all God’s people. Amen.