Persistent Prayer (Luke 18:1-8)

The parable of the persistent widow seems to have suffered from “meaning drift.” In the context of the teaching about the coming kingdom, it is less a story about nagging God for what you feel like you deserve, and more about the persistence of faith in a cruel world as we wait for God’s justice. This is highlighted in the last statement: “When the Son of Man returns, will He find faith?” i.e. Faithful servants.

Today this is often taught, as so many prayer passages are, as a formula or a key to get what you want out of God. See how the widow nags the judge so much that he gives in? That is how you should approach God, since He loves you anyway and wants to give you your heart’s desires. This is an understandable distortion in our affluent, comfortable, Western Christianity. However, for most of Jesus’s followers throughout most of Christian history, it is easier to see the widow’s attitude. She is not some “Karen” complaining that she hasn’t got what she wanted. She is an oppressed, weak person in society who is being mistreated. Christians throughout history know this condition.

However, many Western Christians today are in cultures where they have been used to being privileged, not oppressed. They are affluent, not poor. They are the judge, not the widow.

This is a good reminder to not mistake the comfort and affluence we are experiencing for God’s blessings. If anything, we may have become too comfortable in the world, compromising who Jesus wants His followers to be.

Instead, identify with the oppressed, the poor, and the suffering. Persist in asking God to correct the wrongs of the world in His returning kingdom. Be the faithful servants He will be looking for when He returns to do away with the oppressive, sinful systems that hold so many people down. Even if they don’t seem to be hurting you all that much right now.