“The Squeaky Wheel”
Luke 18:1-8 (NLT)
By John Gill ~ October 29,2023

For our scripture this morning, I have selected one of the lesser-known parables of Jesus that features, as its protagonist, a remarkable and persistent woman – a widow engaged in a legal dispute that was not being resolved who is forced to bring her case to an unscrupulous judge who refused to even listen to her petitions. He hoped that by ignoring her, she would just give up, and leave him alone.

But this strong and determined woman would not go away. Instead, she came to him day after day making her petition. Finally, just to rid himself of her, he heard her case and granted her justice by ruling in her favor. Her persistence paid-off.

This simple little drama has two actors. What do we know about these two individuals?

Of course, they are fictitious characters that spring from Jesus’ imagination. But we can make some assumptions about them based on what we know about the world in which Jesus lived.

William Barclay, the great biblical commentator, helps us bring these two characters into sharper focus:

According to Barclay, the judge in our story was clearly not a Jewish judge. “All ordinary Jewish disputes were taken before the elders, and not into the public courts at all. If, under Jewish law, a matter was taken to arbitration, one man would not constitute a court. There were always three judges, one chosen by the plaintiff, one by the defendant, and one independently appointed. This judge would have been one of the paid magistrates appointed either by Herod, or by the Romans.”

These secular judges were notoriously dishonest. In order to get a hearing, much less a ruling in your favor, you often had to offer them a bribe. The people had a nickname for these secular magistrates: they called them, “robber judges.”

That was the kind of man this woman was up against. Jesus doesn’t tell us why she has to appear before one of these unscrupulous judges, but apparently this judge was the only person who could bring her justice. For whatever reason, the widow was forced to plead her case before him. But it’s clear that the cards are stacked against her.

Barclay describes this woman this way: “The widow was the symbol of all who were poor and defenseless. It was obvious that she, without resource of any kind, had no hope of ever extracting justice from such a judge. But she had one weapon – persistence.”

Jesus says that she badgered this judge with her request with such frequency that he could stand it no longer, and he relented. She was assertive, almost to the point of being aggressive. And by the words Jesus uses in telling the story, there is even a hint of the threat of physical violence! Our text reports the judge thinking to himself: “This woman is driving me crazy. I'm going to see that she gets justice, because she is wearing me out with her constant requests!'" But the words Jesus puts on the judges lips can literally be translated, “I will grant her request, lest she give me a black eye!” That’s one strong-willed woman! She just keeps on coming and coming, and refuses to take “no” for an answer! And in the end, she prevails.

It’s a fascinating parable. A brilliant little story told by Jesus. But, what does it mean? What is the point that Jesus wants to get-across by telling it?

When you look at the story in the context of Luke’s gospel, this parable is about “prayer.” Luke sets this parable along-side other teachings by Jesus on the theme of prayer. And, just to make sure we interpret the parable that way, Luke gives it a brief introduction: He writes, “One day Jesus told his disciples a story to show that they should always pray, and never give up.”

So - according to Luke, the point of Jesus’ parable is that we should never give-up on prayer – we should be just as persistent as this widow in the story.

But right away, there is a problem. The story itself teaches us something quite different about prayer.

If Luke is right, the reason we need to be persistent in our prayers is that - God is reluctant to hear them. Luke’s introduction to the parable would lead the reader to assume that God is like this unscrupulous judge who either can’t be bothered with our requests, - or is waiting for a bribe. Our only recourse, Luke seems to imply, is to wear-God-down by hounding him with our prayers until he can’t stand it any longer. If we are persistent (Luke would have us believe), God will finally give-up, and grant our requests.

Now, I can’t believe that that is what Luke intends for us to think about prayer, or the nature and character of God. If that is what Jesus meant, I’m not sure I want anything to do with a God like that.

By priming us to understand Jesus’ parable to be “a call to persistence in prayer,” I think Luke may have missed Jesus’ point. Yes, the theme is prayer, but the point Jesus wants to make is just the opposite from the one Luke implies in his introduction.

I think the confusion people have in interpreting parables like this one lies in the fact that - not ALL parables are the same. Most of the time, we think of a parable as having one main point that tells us something about the nature of God, the kingdom of God, the qualities of the Christian life, and so forth.

Many parables offer us a positive picture of what God is like (he’s like a loving father who had two sons, or a Good Shepherd seeking for a lost sheep, - for example)… But there are a few parables of Jesus that are actually negative illustrations: - “This is what God is NOT like...” This parable is one of those.

God is NOT at all like this unscrupulous judge whom you have to hound over-and-over again to force his hand. In fact, - the opposite is the point: In contrast to the unscrupulous judge, our God is always ready, willing, - even eager – to hear our petitions and grant our requests. Jesus is saying that – you and I have no need to be like the woman in the story.

If an unscrupulous judge will grant requests simply because of a nagging woman, just imagine how quickly our righteous God and Judge will respond to his children - whom he loves! The point of the story is that we can rejoice that OUR Judge hears and responds to our petitions the very first time!

Now, nothing is wrong with persistence in prayer. We ought to be people of prayer. But the point of Jesus’ parable is that – we have a God who answers prayer. Quite a different point, indeed!

But what if this parable isn’t really about “prayer” at all? Or, isn’t only about prayer? What if this parable is also - a template for how we might “work for justice” in a world filled with “unjust judges?”

That may sound radical, until you read just the core of the parable itself. The actual parable is only 4 verses (2-5). If read apart from the introduction in verse 1, and the interpretation in verses 6-8, there would be no reason to assume this parable was about “prayer,” at all. [ Go back and read it for yourself ]

Instead, it could just as well be about how to go-about achieving justice.

As I said, the good news of the parable is that we don’t have to hound God to hear our pleas and grant us justice – He always stands ready to do that for us.

However, in order to accomplish justice in our world, we’d be wise to learn the lesson from this persistent widow. We don’t need to be persistent in “prayer,” so much as we need to be persistent in “advocating for justice!”

God readily hears and responds to OUR appeals for justice. But it is the human authorities who have the power to bring about justice – They are the ones who need to be convinced!

The widow’s tactic is the strategy of our FAITH organization. We congregations of various faiths and denominations work together to address the injustices we see around us.

We take our cue from this parable of Jesus: We pray persistently for those suffering injustice. But we know that prayer, as important as it is, isn’t enough. God is already on the side of justice!

So, we go beyond prayer. We approach the leaders of our community who have the authority and power to change the systems that cause the injustice, and ask them to “do the right thing.”

Now, some of the leaders are eager to help. But others [ for their own reasons ] - resist doing what is right. Like the judge in the story, these leaders hope that, if they ignore us, we will just go away. And if you were at the last Nehemiah Action Assembly, you are very well-aware that we were almost completely ignored by our County Leaders. Tomorrow evening at Allen Chapel AME, we will have another opportunity to petition our leaders to do the right thing! I hope you will make it a priority to be there!

But Friends - “F.A.I.T.H. doesn’t go away.” We are persistent, - like that widow. Over and over we will petition our leaders to do what is right - to make our community better for all its inhabitants.

There is an old saying that “The squeaky wheel gets the grease.” It’s time that people of faith squeak so loudly that the leaders of our communities can’t help but take notice.

Little by little, those leaders are won-over - - - or at least, they are worn-down. Many of them finally do what is right, even if it is just to get us off their backs. !!!

And, when they do, you can “Score one for the widow !!!

c 2023 John B. Gill, III