Patrick Comerford
We are in the Kingdom Season, the time between All Saints and Advent, and tomorrow is the Second Sunday before Advent. The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers Saint Margaret (1093), Queen of Scotland, Philanthropist, and Reformer of the Church; and Saint Edmund Rich of Abingdon (1240), Archbishop of Canterbury.
Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time early this morning to give thanks, and for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:
1, today’s Gospel reading;
2, a short reflection;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
Luke 18: 1-8 (NRSVA):
1 Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart. 2 He said, ‘In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people. 3 In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, “Grant me justice against my opponent.” 4 For a while he refused; but later he said to himself, “Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, 5 yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming”.’ 6 And the Lord said, ‘Listen to what the unjust judge says. 7 And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? 8 I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them. And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?’
Today’s reflection:
The Gospel reading at the Eucharist this morning offers an opportunity to reflect on what we mean by law and justice. We read the well-known parable of the ‘Unjust Judge,’ a judge ‘who neither fears God nor has respect for people,’ and how he is forced to grant justice to a widow who keeps coming to him, saying, ‘Grant me justice against my opponent.’
Does the judge abandon his sense of impartiality when it comes to the administration of justice?
Or is he forced to realise the difference between what is legal and what is just, and the difference between justice and mercy?
We often know this parable as the ‘Parable of the Unjust Judge.’ But we might also call it the ‘Parable of the Persistent Widow,’ for we are told to take this woman and not the judge as our example: an example of how to pray to God, as opposed to an example of how to prey on people.
And yet, let us take some time first to look at the judge.
Are we asked to think that God behaves like an unjust or capricious judge?
Is this a judge who exercises his office without fear or favour?
Is justice about that?
Is justice about seeing that the law is enforced?
Or is it about seeing that justice is done, and is seen to be done?
How many judges implement the law without dispensing justice?
How many judges implement the law without dispensing mercy?
Is this not what happened in Nazi Germany, in apartheid South Africa, or in racist states in the American ‘Deep South’?
How many judges in Nazi Germany and apartheid South Africa merely applied the law?
Could a Jewish widow expect justice from a judge in Nazi Germany?
Could a black widow expect mercy from a judge in apartheid South Africa?
The woman in this parable is not asking for what is her legal right. She is not asking for her neighbour to be punished. But she may be asking for something she is not entitled to: justice.
When we find ourselves saying we cannot accept a judgmental God, is that because our image of a judge is of a distant figure who applies the full rigour of the law, rather than an accessible figure who dispenses justice and mercy?
Who chosen ones who cry to God day and night?
Certainly, a widow would fall into that category at the time of Christ. She would have no man to argue her case for her, and so would go unheard. All other cases – commercial, civil and criminal – would take priority in the courts before her request to be heard.
Who is the widow in this story?
We might consider parallels between a people who have turned their back on God or whose covenantal relationship with God has died, and a woman whose covenantal relationship, her marriage, has come to an end with death.
Without love, there is no covenant. Without love there is no true religion, and no true marriage.
A true relationship with God is marked by love – God’s love for us, our love for God, and our love for others. If that love is the foundation of our Christianity, then justice becomes more important than law, and mercy more important than rules, and God the Judge becomes a loving rather than a tyrannical image.
Today’s Prayers (Saturday 16 November 2024):
The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), has been ‘A Look at Education in the Church of the Province of Myanmar’. This theme was introduced on Sunday with a Programme Update by Nadia Sanchez, Regional Programme Coordinator, USPG.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Saturday 16 November 2024) invites us to pray reflecting on these words:
He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption (I Corinthians 1: 30).
The Collect:
God, the ruler of all,
who called your servant Margaret to an earthly throne
and gave her zeal for your Church and love for your people
that she might advance your heavenly kingdom:
mercifully grant that we who commemorate her example
may be fruitful in good works
and attain to the glorious crown of your saints;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Post Communion Prayer:
God our redeemer,
who inspired Margaret to witness to your love
and to work for the coming of your kingdom:
may we, who in this sacrament share the bread of heaven,
be fired by your Spirit to proclaim the gospel in our daily living
and never to rest content until your kingdom come,
on earth as it is in heaven;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Collect on the Eve of the Second Sunday before Advent:
Heavenly Father,
whose blessed Son was revealed
to destroy the works of the devil
and to make us the children of God and heirs of eternal life:
grant that we, having this hope,
may purify ourselves even as he is pure;
that when he shall appear in power and great glory
we may be made like him in his eternal and glorious kingdom;
where he is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Yesterday’s Reflection
Continued Tomorrow
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org
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