Two Sundays ago, the apostles requested of Jesus, ‘Increase our faith.’ Last Sunday, Jesus told the Samaritan who returned with gratitude, ‘Your faith has saved you.’
This Sunday, we close our trilogy on faith as Jesus challenges his disciples, ‘When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?’
Our Gospel today (Luke 18:1-8) begins with a parable that pits a persistent widow against an unjust judge. To allow the story to lead us further, we must first clear the way of possible stumbling blocks. First of all, the unjust judge is not supposed to stand for God. Proof: The judge himself says, ‘I neither fear God nor respect any human being.’ The unjust judge is there to make the persistent widow’s character stand out all the more.
One might think that the defining attribute of the widow is her persistence. One might then conclude that the point of the story is that persistence in prayer will get you what you want. No, completing the nine days of Simbang Gabi or any other novena is not a guarantee that you will get your wish. Kulit and kupit are just one letter apart, but kulit is not the key to stealing favors from God.
What is praiseworthy about the widow is her faith. What is faith?
In the Jewish Palestine of Jesus’ time, widows were among the poorest of the poor. To start with, they were women who were not attached to any man. Most women then were not allowed to earn from a trade or a profession, and most also could not own property. (My apologies to the women of today – that was just how things were, and though things are not as oppressive today, we still have a long way to go in advancing how we see and treat women.) Most women then were voiceless and powerless. Imagine then the chutzpah of this widow to confront the judge in her town.
Faith is audacious. I hope we can see that we have this audacity every time we approach God in prayer. Imagine: We dare to call the Creator and Lord of the entire universe our Father. We brazenly bother him for something as trivial as our daily bread or our petty fights with our neighbors. And we confidently believe he cares. Faith is our assurance that indeed, God does care and wants to be intimately involved in the tiniest nooks and crannies of our lives.
There is still much more to learn from the widow. She does not ask the judge to decide in her favor – which is what we would most probably do if we were in her position. Her petition is: ‘Render a just decision for me.’ She is able to go beyond personal preference. She asks not for what is best only for her; she asks for justice – which is what is best for all.
Faith sees beyond our own needs and wants. Faith trusts that what is right for all is also what is right for me. Faith is not just personal; it is communal.
What the widow does is seen as a model of what the parable is all about: ‘To pray always without becoming weary.’ The Greek word for pray that is used here comes from proseuchomai. It is made up of two parts: euchomai, which can be translated as to wish; and pros, which lexically means to or towards. But proseuchomai isn’t just about bringing your wishes to God. Pros goes deeper.
Pros is also the word in that famous line from John 1:1, ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.’ With is our inadequate translation for pros. Jesus Christ isn’t just beside God. Better: Jesus is always oriented towards God, in a dynamic relationship of mutuality, of give and take, of exchange. I guess this is why some Greek scholars see another way of translating proseuchomai: ‘to interact with the Lord by switching human wishes for His wishes as He imparts faith’ (see https://biblehub.com/greek/4336.htm).
If prayer is an intimate exchange with God, to pray then is to approach God and ask him to change our wishes to his. This is what Jesus prayed before he was arrested: ‘Father, if you are willing, take this cup away from me; still, not my will but yours be done’ (Luke 22:42). This is not at all easy. Remember that this scene is also called the Agony in the Garden.
Maybe this is what’s really behind the tradition of bringing a wish to the nine days of Simbang Gabi. After nine days of closely interacting with God in prayer, you can finally say: ‘Not my wish, but as you wish.’ And for sure, God’s wish will be brought to fulfillment.
How can you do this without becoming weary?
This is where the strange story found in the First Reading (Exodus 17:8-13) comes in. The Israelites were in the midst of a battle against Amalek. ‘As long as Moses kept his hands raised up, Israel had the better of the fight, but when he let his hands rest, Amalek had the better of the fight.’ So two men, Aaron and Hur, had to support Moses’ hands. Is God so petty as to decree Israel’s victory or defeat based on Moses keeping his hands up? I don’t think that is the point of the story. I think the lesson it is trying to teach us is that we can only win our battles if we raise our hands to God, if we pray. And we can only keep our hands up and pray with the support of our community.
Again, faith is not just personal; it is communal.
Jesus, in our Gospel today, promises that the justice we pray for will come ‘speedily.’ In your experience, has God always answered with haste? Or with the Psalmist, do we find ourselves many times lamenting, ‘How long, O Lord?’ Scripture tells us, ‘With the Lord one day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like one day’ (2 Peter 3:8). So maybe we should just change our understanding of ‘speedily’?
Faith is patience, yes, but faith is also trusting that even if we don’t see its fruits yet, God has already answered speedily. Maybe all we need to see is the beginning, not the full promise fulfilled. Recall our reflection on the Samaritan who gave thanks to Jesus.
Justice will be done speedily-even when it seems nothing seems to be happening, something is. Even when it seems that God is far, God is near. Faith is holding on to the God who is both near and far. Recall the reflection with which we began this three-week journey of faith.
Maybe much of faith is also re-calling, not just ‘not forgetting,’ but actively calling to mind how we have seen God’s faithfulness in the past and experiencing him calling us again. and again.