Sometimes Faith is a Bit of a Brawl
- Pastor Serena Rice
- 13 hours ago
- 6 min read
A sermon on luke 18:1-8 and Genesis 32:22-31.
[for an audio recording of this sermon, click here.]
This Fall I am participating in a continuing education course for clergy that engages the church’s role in addressing the dynamics of “whiteness” as a powerful social construct in American society.
In one of this past week’s readings, Pastor Benjamin Boswell shared a story from his time as a pastor in Charlotte, North Carolina.
He was part of a group of interfaith clergy who wanted to find ways to respond together to the injustice and unrest in the city after the police killing of Keith Lamont Scott.
In their initial gathering to talk through options, one of the local pastors who led a large, affluent, predominantly white congregation, asked that the goals of the group be defined.
When the response was that the group was trying to build power…to advocate for the common good of the community, the pastor stood up to leave, saying, “If this is about power, then I’m out and so are my people, because Jesus was not about power, and neither are we.”[1]
Reading this story made me uncomfortable.
I knew that the pastor’s self-righteous pronouncement was, ironically, a power move that meant abdicating his responsibility to be part of trying to heal the deep pain in his community.
But on the other hand, I recognize the critique about Jesus, “not being about power,” because I have made that argument myself. Many times.
As the blasphemy of Christian Nationalism has gained traction in this country in recent years, I have spoken passionately about how the unapologetic enmeshment of the church with political power is antithetical to the cross of Christ… that Jesus’ decision to “empty-himself,” as St. Paul describes (Philippians 2:7), and to willingly submit to the cross is a direct rejection of the kind of power-over that Christian Nationalism presents as God’s will for the American church.
And I believe that DEEPLY. But I also believe that we shouldn’t use Jesus’ refusal to be a domineering, coercive Savior to remove our responsibility to confront injustice.
So how do I reconcile these apparently contradictory beliefs.
As it happens, today’s readings are incredibly helpful in clarifying a faithful way of understanding and using power.
The gospel parable is explicitly about advocacy, so the connection there is obvious.
The widow is in a situation where she is being denied justice by a corrupt and immoral man abusing his undeserved power.
Despite a status that puts her near the bottom of the social hierarchy, extremely vulnerable to the judge’s negligence, the widow is tenacious.
She leverages the power she has… the power of obnoxious persistence, the righteous power of speaking truth and not letting injustice go unconfronted.
That’s the first lesson the parable offers about how to use power faithfully… it is faithful to exercise power (even obnoxiously) in the pursuit of justice.
But the wisdom in this parable gets even deeper when we step back from the parable itself and consider the context in which Jesus tells it.
In a way, I think Luke undersells the context of this parable with the explanation he provides. He offers us a rather trite summary of Jesus’s motivation: that the parable was to convince the disciples of their need “to pray always and not to lose heart.”
But why were the disciples in DANGER of losing heart?
The SALT commentary this week presents a pretty compelling argument that Jesus’ focus is more about that danger of “losing heart” than a general instruction about consistent prayer.
The arguments starts with the content of Luke chapter 17, in which Jesus has been painting a picture of the coming reign of God at the end of time.
And since today’s reading ends with a call-back to the second coming of “the Son of Man,” that context certainly seems to be relevant.
The significance of that context is the fact that the described glorious resolution of human history is still in the distant future.
In the face of that ambiguously future hope, the SALT commentary proposes that the disciples might have offered Jesus a rather frustrated response to Jesus’ eloquence about God’s coming kingdom:
“What do we do in the meantime? We understand the Realm of God will be an era of justice, love, peace, and joy — but what about all the injustice, hate, conflict, and sorrow here and now? What does faith look like in a world like ours?”[2]
As a response to such a question, the parable of the persistent widow takes on a much deeper gravitas.
And Luke’s framing comment about not losing heart feels more pointed.
And, perhaps most importantly, the whole thing feels a lot more directly and painfully relevant to our current context.
What about all the injustice, hate, conflict, and sorrow here and now? What does faith look like in a world like ours?
Jesus’s parable as the answer to that question directly speaks to our willingness to use the power of advocacy.
Faith in the midst of an unjust, hate-filled, conflicted, sorrowful world looks like not giving up.
It looks like telling the truth about everything that is wrong because that’s the only way it will ever change this side of eternity.
It looks like being obnoxiously unwilling to stop calling-out those who refuse to use their power to make things better.
It looks nothing like niceness and everything like showing up, day in and day out, to make injustice so uncomfortable for those who are only concerned about their own comfort that they will do the right thing just to get us to shut up!
If we can do that, then when the Son of Man comes he will indeed find faith on the earth.
I won’t pretend that‘s an easy commission.
Luke knows is far easier to “lose heart.”
Jesus questions whether he will find faith on the earth.
And I know, even after more than 10 years (in my first career) as a professional advocate for justice, how hard it is to actually let go of people-pleasing, and niceness, and to actually be the persistent widow who will not stop calling for justice in the face of apathy or abuse of power.
Because we’ve been socialized to think of “faith” as being equivalent to piety, and meekness, and patience, and even thoughts and prayers as the holy response to all the evidence of what is wrong with the world.
And, after all, how can we be sure that the justice we seek is really what God wants us to persistently pursue. Morality is complicated. No party is perfect.
But here is where I think today’s first reading is a helpful companion to the gospel parable… because no one could ever accuse Jacob of being perfect, or of always walking solidly on the side of justice.
He’s a cheat and a liar.
The whole reason he is alone for his wrestling match with his heavenly visitor is because he’s afraid to face the brother whom he wronged, so he sends his whole household ahead of him… all the many servants, and wives, and children he has power over to face his potentially avenging sibling BEFORE HIM.
And yet, when he wrestles with God… when he faces his failure and his cowardice in the deep hours of the night… when he admits his need for an undeserved blessing from the only One who can redeem his legacy…his persistence is rewarded just as the widow’s is.
Apparently, God respects tenacity, even when we get some things wrong.
Of course, Jacob also got a limp as a reward for not giving up.
There a no promises that we will never pay a cost for our advocacy, or that God won’t get a bit punchy with us if we try to force God’s action in the direction that WE think it should move.
But I think I would be OK with that.
Because there are two kinds of potential consequences presented in these two stories.
Jacob got a limp, because he held on too hard… but he also got a blessing.
The disciples were exhorted to not lose heart… because that would mean being found to be without faith.
Personally, I will take an imperfect but faithful limp every time. Thanks be to God.
[1] W. Benjamin Boswell, Confronting Whiteness: A Spiritual Journey of Reflection, Conversation, and Transformation. 2024. Orbis Books: Maryknoll, NY, p. 28.
