Have you ever been deeply puzzled by a parable or action of Jesus, as if it did not fit the image that we have of him?  An example that jumps to my mind is the story of the fig tree that Jesus curses because it has no fruit when Jesus is looking for something to eat.  The Gospel writer, perhaps also astonished by Jesus’ action, comments that it was not even the season for figs!

Now the Scripture scholars have given some wonderful explanations of the meaning of this action of Jesus - and you will forgive me for not getting into it! - because I want to look at a parable that has often puzzled me— it’s the story of the woman and the unjust judge. We are all familiar with the parable which seems to suggest that we need to browbeat God over and over to get what we pray for. So, let me quote the parable in full: “There was a judge in a certain town who had neither fear of God nor respect for anyone. In the same town there was also a widow who kept on coming to him and saying, ‘I want justice from you against my enemy!’ For a long time he refused, but at last he said to himself, ‘even though I have neither fear of God nor respect for any human person, I must give this widow her just rights since she keeps pestering me, and then she will stop bothering me.”  Jesus himself then goes on to draw this moral: “Now, will not God see justice done to his elect if they keep calling to him day and night even though he still delays to help them?”

But you see, the parable is actually less about God than it is about our faith in God. It is not that we have to badger God to get what we want. The reality is that we are never to lose heart, that we have to persevere, to live by faith, to trust that God is in charge rather than being an arbitrary, half-interested responder to our prayers. 

But I think that there is something remarkable to learn about God here—and I found it in a book by Megan McKenna, a Scripture scholar and storyteller, who relates in her book, Parables: The Arrows of God, the following experience that she had when she was meeting with a group of very poor indigenous women in Chiapas, the southernmost state of Mexico. The army and the guerillas had been waging war in that area and, as often happens, the civilians were targeted by both sides. McKenna relates the story as follows: “…I was sitting in on a group of people discussing the scriptures and talking about praying when a woman stood up—which was unusual in the group—she said she had a speech to make.  It was hard for her to do, but she wanted to say what she had been thinking….  She spoke of being a widow, of going to a judge just like the one in the parable, and pleading for her rights: to find where her son was weeks after his disappearance. She hounded the judge day and night. She watched him, his moves, his daily schedule, his friends. She approached him every chance she had. She had nothing more to lose; she had already lost her husband, her other children. She was desperate. She grew to hate the judge, despise him and all those who were connected to the military, the jail, the courts. And this had gone on so long.  She prayed to God in the same way while she pleaded and begged and got angry at the judge. And then as she listened to this parable she knew…she knew that she was the judge and God was the widow!”  

McKenna notes that “We only get so persistent and long-suffering when we want something.” But then she asks us to stop and think for a moment.  How do I treat God when I pray?  And then she turns us on our heads when she says: “It is God who is always in our face, begging, pleading, cajoling, hounding us to do justice, to pray, to adore him alone and to respond as we should. You see, God is the widow crying out for justice to us!

I still remember the first time I read this story. I was utterly stunned. I don’t think we have any idea of how great God is and how much God humbles himself in order to touch us with his Love, in order to call us to love in return. Indeed, McKenna gives us a glimpse of this God when she states very simply: “God has nothing to lose; God has lost everything trying to call us back to repentance, forgiveness, justice, to peace, mercy and living with one another as we should….Yes, we are the judge.”

We generally forget the courtesy and gentle humility of God, who calls to us, seeks us out, offers us mercy and salvation. We forget what it meant for Jesus to leave his Godhead behind and become one of us, even to the point of suffering on the Cross. And so, we rail at God and sniff at the lack of response we seem to get. Because you see, we really are the judge. And so now I would say, perhaps it is time for us to show a little mercy to Our Loving God!