It had been a difficult month at Loon Lake Lutheran Church. Pastor Jane had done four funerals in two weeks, which was a lot for a congregation of fifty-three. Included in that number was a beloved member’s only son.
This member was named Solveig, an eighty-seven-year-old Norwegian immigrant, who emigrated with her family just before the Nazi invasion in 1940. Solveig’s life had been a hard one. Her father had died in a farming accident when she was seven, and her mother died of cancer six years later, leaving her to raise her younger siblings. When she was twenty, she married and had a son. Her husband died ten years later in a car accident. She remarried soon after, but her second husband was an alcoholic. He died about six years into the marriage. Stricken with grief, she tried to keep her son as close as possible, but he moved to Los Angeles after he graduated from high school. And then, he died in a freak accident, hitting his head in the shower after suffering a mild stroke. When Solveig came into Pastor Jane’s office that week to plan the service, she didn’t mince words: “Some loving God we have, Pastor! I have been a faithful member of our church. I give over ten percent. I have worn out my knees praying for my husbands and son every single day! And this is how God repays me?”
It's safe to say that sooner or later, every faithful Christian has an experience like Solveig’s. Feeling disappointed or unheard by God is a common experience. Even Jesus experiences this the night of his arrest, when he receives no answer to his anguished request, “Father, let this cup pass from me.” Yet, Jesus tells us God is neither unfeeling nor uncaring. The parable we hear is a parable of unlikeness. God is not like the corrupt judge
Some context first. After Jesus heals the ten men suffering from a skin disease, the Pharisees ask Jesus when the Kingdom of God is coming. His response is not exactly satisfactory. He doesn’t give them a date. Rather, says it is not coming with signs that can be observed. The Kingdom, in fact, is among them at that very moment. They’re so concerned with signs in heaven and on earth that they miss the Kingdom’s fullness in the man Jesus. Jesus then goes on to address his disciples, encouraging faithfulness and wisdom in the days ahead. He warns, “You will long for one of the days of the Son of Man, but you will not see it.” So, he warns them not to get distracted. Stay focused and faithful for the long road ahead.
This helps us understand our parable. Widows, along with orphans, were the paradigm of vulnerability in the ancient world. Without a husband, a widow had no legal status. She often had no source of income, and if she had assets, she quickly became a target, hence Jesus’s excoriation in Luke 20:47 of “those who devour widow’s houses.” So, we can assume this widow has little to lose. She is determined. She is persistent. She won’t take no for an answer.
The judge, for his part, is simply a bad judge. In the absence of a family to provide, the judge is supposed to act on the people’s behalf as the widow’s defender and advocate, abiding by Deuteronomy 27:19: “Cursed be anyone who deprives an alien, widow, or orphan of justice.” He doesn’t care about that, though. He doesn’t fear God or care about anyone. He even says that to himself! But he does seem to care about his reputation. The phrase translated “I will grant her justice, so she will not wear me out by continually coming,” is better translated, “I will grant her justice so she will not give me a black eye.” This could be literal, but I like the reputational reading better. If he continues to deny her pleas, she might wreck his reputation by giving him a social “black eye”. Even those who don’t care about other people care very much how they are perceived. This judge seems to be one of those unsavory characters who give justice, not because it is just, but because it can benefit them in some way.
Our heavenly Father, Jesus tells us, is precisely not like that. The world as we know it is governed by self-interest. That isn’t necessarily bad or sinful; it’s simply how the world works. If you work for an employer, you expect to be paid. If you sell your home, you expect to receive the fair market value for it. Even if we selflessly give our time, abilities, or money, we do so (at least in part) because we get something out of it, even if it’s just a good feeling. It does something for us to give. It meets a need within us. But not with God. God, by definition, needs nothing. God is complete in and within Godself. God is already perfect, loving community—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And yet, God reaches beyond Godself to bring us into this community of perfect love. That happens in the man Jesus, God enfleshed. Jesus descends into our realm tarnished by sin and pours himself out completely for us. He is God’s Kingdom made human, God’s reign of love, mercy, and peace, not won through force of arms, terror, or domination, but by his love shown us on the cross. On that instrument of humiliation and death, Jesus shows God’s judgment on all systems that dominate and destroy. And God vindicates us. In the cross, God denies justice to Himself so that we can be justified. So that we can be reconciled to God and our neighbor.
Of course, this isn’t usually the sense of justice and vindication we have in mind. We can be like Solveig who wonders where God’s justice is. And that can be a fair question. There’s a lot of pain in the world. Many of you have experienced great heartbreak and great injustice. It’s fair to grieve that. But we can’t afford to tie ourselves in knots with unanswerable questions. Our task is summed up in Jesus’s question: “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”
Our job is not to wonder where God’s justice is. Our job is to point to and live out the justice of God that has already been done for us in Jesus Christ. That is faithful living. Such justice may come about in any number of ways. It may mean advocating for the most vulnerable in our society now, people like immigrants, or those in danger of losing health insurance, or those vulnerable to environmental degradation. It may mean living differently within our own families and communities, deliberately showing grace, love, and forgiveness where our wider culture preaches division and mercilessness. And it may especially mean more disciplined prayer. However we’re led to live, we live with persistence and tenacity, like the widow. We don’t give up. Because we know God’s justice is sure and certain, just as God’s mercy is sure and certain. And in God, those aren’t opposites; they are complements. Amen.
© 2025, David M. Fleener. Permission granted to copy and adapt original material herein for non-commercial purposes with appropriate credit given.