Luke 18:1-8
October 19, 2026
Two qualities which we as Americans value highly are speed and efficiency. Just think of how many products or services all of us use that are built primarily around one or both of those qualities. I remember how excited my mother was in the 1970s when my dad gave her a microwave oven for Christmas. Potatoes could now be cooked in 12 minutes instead of an hour. You could boil water in a mug for soup very quickly, instead of having to get out a separate pan to boil the water. I think my mother had fun just thinking about all the things she would be able to make in her microwave and the time it was going to save her in the kitchen preparing dinner. Today microwaves are standard in every kitchen and college dorm room, not because they make food taste better, but because they cook food quickly and efficiently.
Think about how the internet and our phones have enabled us to do so many things quickly and efficiently. We can order food, send pictures and videos to each other, and transfer money from one person to another, instantly, without having to leave our homes or talk to anyone.
While we live in a culture that prefers speed and efficiency, our Gospel lesson for today has something to say to us about patient waiting, persistence in prayer, and faithfulness in the face of difficulties as Jesus tells a rather strange story about a widow and a judge. In the story, we see the age-old question of “why?” “Why, if God is righteous, is He so slow in seeing that justice is done? Why doesn’t God act quickly and efficiently to correct injustice and punish those who seek to harm others?
When we see headlines in the news about shootings in our schools and churches, I’m sure we are all tempted to ask, “Why doesn’t God intervene and stop those shootings, and protect innocent people and students? Why does war continue in places like the Middle East and Ukraine? Our nation has been pouring money and resources into those areas of the world for years in order to help people, and yet many people in those areas continue to suffer, even though we have been praying for years for those wars to end.” We all want quick and easy answers to complex problems and many times we become frustrated and tend to give up when they don’t happen. I’m sure we’ve all had times in our lives when we felt like quitting, times in which we prayed and prayed to God and yet nothing seemed to change. So, does this mean we should stop praying? Is it worth praying about these things anymore?
Jesus knew that His disciples would be tempted to quit praying, especially during times of troubles, opposition, and adversity, so He tells them this story in our Gospel lesson to encourage them to persevere in their prayers. Jesus begins by saying that a widow came to a judge requesting justice. It is important to note that the woman was a widow, because in those days a widow was usually poor, she did not have a husband to speak up for her, and she did not have any influence to convince the judge to do what is right. In essence, she was in a helpless situation, without any other resources or recourse.
Her only option was to keep asking the judge to help her. In other words, persevering was essential for her success. The widow in this story represents all of us, and the parable urges us to be like this widow in our prayer life by praying persistently without giving up. The problem, though, is that many times when we do not see some kind of significant results from our prayers in a timely manner, we tend to give up. This happens in many areas of our lives. For example, when people try to lose weight, many times they get discouraged and give up if they do not see any significant results in a short amount of time. Only if we approach the diet with the understanding that achieving the goal may take some time will we persevere.
In this story, a widow – a nobody in the eyes of society – is asking for a judge – a person in a position of power – for justice. But the judge has no interest in listening to her. Not only does he not care about her, but he also doesn’t care about doing the right thing Verse 2 says, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man.” And yet, this nobody gets an uncaring judge to grant her request, because she persevered.
While the woman may represent us in the story, Jesus is certainly not comparing God to an unjust judge or Christians to nobodies. Rather, Jesus is making a point by contrast. If a nobody can get a powerful uncaring judge to answer her request by perseverance, then how much more can we expect the Righteous Judge, the Creator of the universe, God Himself, who loves us, cares about us, and never gets tired of hearing from us, to answer us – His children – when we call to Him in prayer?
At the same time it says in verse 8 that God will answer our prayers and will give justice to us “speedily.” But as I mentioned earlier, we’ve been praying for wars to end in the Middle East and in Ukraine for years, we’ve been praying for shootings at churches and schools to end for years, we’ve been persistent, and yet it’s still going on. That doesn’t seem like speedy justice or a quick answer to our prayers. So what are we to make of Jesus’ words in verses 7-8 when He says, “ And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily.”
If God loves us to the point that He was willing to give up His only Son so we could live and if there is no reluctance on God’s part to answer our prayers, then why does it appear at times that He is not answering our prayers? Unfortunately, our idea of when and how a problem ought to be solved does not necessarily correspond to God’s solutions. That’s why the widow can represent all of us in the experience of waiting for justice, but the judge does not represent God’s response. God does not operate by our time-clocks. God sees the end from the beginning, and He answers the prayers of His people speedily, but speedily in relation to God’s own knowledge of the situation and according to His own timetable. It is our impatience and our desire to have every problem solved immediately that leads us to experience frustration or to think that God doesn’t care. The fact that our vision is limited and unable to see the end from the beginning, somehow escapes our mind. So we complain, we get frustrated, and we accuse God of not caring or listening to us, when in fact it may be our actions or behavior that cause what we experience as a delay or unfair treatment.
Next Sunday will mark our 24th anniversary as a congregation and I know that for 24 years this church has been persistent and patient in prayer, because we know that our God is faithful, even when appearances do not support God’s concern for us or even His existence. In the last verse of His story, Jesus asks, “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” That is the question this parable asks of each of us. It is not a question about God’s faithfulness, but about ours. For 24 years there have been numerous examples of persistent faith in this church, even during times of uncertainty and hardship. And persistent faith in our God has also been demonstrated in small ways over the years, such as by bringing a can of food to our church or the ladies who make prayer shawls and quilts. None of us ever sees the person or the family who receives the food or the shawls or the quilts, but we bring them or people make them, persistently trusting that God will get them to a child or a family in need. In other words, prayer in our church is not a bunch of empty words. Prayer has been followed by actions and it has changed people’s lives, and I know many of you are living testimonies to that fact. The message of this parable is that God is faithful, therefore the way to experience God’s faithfulness is for us to live by faith in Him and to persist in trusting God, even when He does not appear to answer our prayers or show concern for us. There is a point in our lives where we all need to let go of our desire for speed and efficiency and just let God work in His way and in His time, all the while living faithfully and praying persistently, knowing that He listens and He cares.
