In 1986, Coretta Scott King, Dr. Martin Luther King’s widow, wrote a letter to Senator Strom Thurmond, when Jeff Sessions was nominated to serve as federal judge for the Southern District of Alabama. She was writing the letter to “express [her] sincere opposition” to the confirmation of Sessions, who, she wrote, had “used the awesome power of his office to chill the free exercise of the vote by black citizens in the district he now seeks to serve as federal judge.”
A generation later, in February 2017, Senator Elizabeth Warren read the widow’s letter in a confirmation hearing for Jeff Sessions when he was nominated to serve as Attorney General. Interrupting her speech, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell accused Warren of “impugn[ing] the motives and conduct” of Sessions, in violation of a Senate Rule prohibiting Senators from imputing to another Senator any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming a Senator. “Senator Warren was giving a lengthy speech,” McConnell said, defending the move. “She had appeared to violate the rule. She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted.”[1]
Widows and judges create fascinating resonances between a first century story and the struggle for justice in the 20th century and more recent attempts to silence persistent women. I don’t know who coined the phrase persisterhood, but I applaud them for their find. Both Paul in 2 Timothy and Jesus in Luke are urging persistence in proclamation and prayer, whether the time is favorable or unfavorable, so perhaps we could adopt for the fellowship of believers the descriptive term, the faithful persisterhood.
The book of Psalms is an ancient document of persistence. Voices of exuberant praise mingle with voices of confident teaching; lonely laments rise out of the depths of shattering human experience, along with insistent questions.
How long, O Lord?
Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I bear pain in my soul,
this sorrow in my heart day and night?
How long will my enemy triumph over me?
Look on me and answer, Lord my God.[2]
How often have these questions been spoken with tears, shouted in anger, whispered on the verge of despair—and there was no answer? Will you forget me forever?
God’s people are a community of persistence in praising, teaching. lamenting, questioning and expectant waiting. “We have waited and prayed for justice so long, our knuckles are bloody from knocking on that door,” an old preacher sang from a Montgomery pulpit some sixty years ago. Bloody knuckles from praying. Blisters on your feet from praying with your legs. Praise, of course, soars like a bird on wings of joy and gratitude, but when prayer is little more than a heart’s cry for an answer, the night can be long.
Jesus told the disciples, “The days are coming when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it.”[3] He prepared us for a long Advent season of longing, an Advent season spent not in passive waiting, though, but in actively leaning into the promised day. He taught us to love and serve God and our neighbor, and he taught us to pray. Among his teachings about prayer is the story about the widow and the judge.
Widows in Jesus’ time weren’t necessarily poor, but they were in a very vulnerable position. When a man died, all his belongings became the property of his sons or brothers, and the widow depended entirely on them for her survival. Of course there were families who loved and honored mom; but you know what families can be like. The male survivors had certain responsibilities, based on law and custom, but that didn’t always mean they took them seriously. Disputes involving widows and orphans were quite common, and it was the judges’ responsibility to help resolve those disputes in the community. Jewish law and tradition were quite clear about what was expected of a judge:
Give the members of your community a fair hearing, and judge rightly between one person and another, whether citizen or resident alien. You must not be partial in judging: hear out the small and the great alike; you shall not be intimidated by anyone, for the judgment is God’s.
Consider what you are doing, for you judge not on behalf of human beings but on the Lord’s behalf; he is with you in giving judgment. Now, let the fear of the Lord be upon you; take care what you do, for there is no perversion of justice with the Lord our God.[4]
It wasn’t just the part about the fear of the Lord this judge in Jesus’ story habitually ignored. He was a man without shame. Didn’t want to hear the widow’s case. Ignored her plea for justice. Some have wondered if he was waiting for a small payment from the widow for his troubles, a little grease for the wheels of justice.
The widow had nowhere else to go. No friends in high places. No judicial complaint hotline. No Legal Aid Society. What she did have was her remarkable capacity to make a scene, and she made good use of it. She didn’t go away. She knocked on his door, “Give me justice.” She camped out on the steps of the court, shouting, “Give me justice.” She followed him on the street on his way to lunch, “Give me justice.” She called his office several times a day and left messages on his voice mail, “Give me justice.” She cut him off on the golf course, shouting, “Give me justice.” She was persistent and shameless. And she finally wore him down. No, the judge didn’t suddenly develop reverence for God and respect for people and the law, no, he just wanted to get her off his back.
Now, Jesus said, if the worst judge you can possibly imagine will respond to the persistent plea of a widow, how much more will God grant justice to you, God’s children, who pray night and day? Luke says, the story is about our need to pray always and not to lose heart. To pray boldly and tirelessly. To pray as though the coming of God’s reign depended solely on our prayers. To ask, to seek, to knock with unrelenting persistence. Do you know what they say about bulldogs? Their nose is slanted backward so they can breathe without letting go. Pray like a bulldog. Pray with the doggedness of this widow. According to Luke, that’s what the story is about. Be persistent in prayer, and don’t lose heart.
It’s quite a privilege to reflect on the state of our prayer life while many widows are struggling to pay for food and prescriptions and a roof over their head. The widow in the parable is more than a funny you-go-sister illustration for good prayer habits. She’s a human being crying out for justice, and in the story, she’s alone. Yes, she keeps coming, she keeps shouting to move a corrupt judge, but doesn’t her persistence also move us? She is making a scene, and isn’t her persistence reminding us that God’s reign is a reign of justice? Yes, she invites us to pray like her, but she also urges us to pray with her, to join her in wrangling justice from broken institutions that reflect no fear of God and little respect for the dignity of human beings.
We must be persistent in prayer because prayer keeps the flame of hope alive. The night of waiting can be long, and in prayer we engage with the living God in whom we trust and whose purposes we want to serve. In prayer we let the priorities of God reorder our own priorities.
We ask, “how long?”, we seek with honesty, we knock on heaven’s door, and we keep at it. And sometimes the questions we address to God get turned around and come back to us. Because God is not at all like this reluctantly responsive judge. God does not need to be badgered into listening. In fact, God’s presence is closer to us in the widow’s relentless commitment to justice than in the judge’s slow, unwilling response. God has responded and continues to respond, God comes to us — persistent, unrelenting, determined to get our attention. How long will you hide your face from me, she asks. How long must children in this city go to bed hungry? How long must old men wander homeless in the streets? How long must I bear this sorrow in my heart day and night and you, you do not know? Look on me and answer. In the widow’s cry, God’s demand is given voice and suddenly we find ourselves in the position — of the judge? God forbid. God help us that we may always find ourselves in the position of the follower of Jesus who joins the persisterhood.
Sometimes we pray just to keep our head above water and breathe. Sometimes all we want from our prayers is the assurance of God’s mercy in a world that’s going nuts. But Jesus reminds us of our need to pray always so that the purposes of God can reorder the priorities of our lives. We pray for God’s kingdom to come, we pray for daily bread and forgiveness, and as we knock on heaven’s door we hear knocking from the other side: God’s persistent presence, calling us to walk with Jesus.
[1] https://time.com/4663497/coretta-scott-king-letter-warren-senate-sessions
https://time.com/5175901/elizabeth-warren-nevertheless-she-persisted-meaning/
[2] Psalm 13:1-3
[3] Luke 17:22
[4] Deuteronomy 1:16-17 and 2 Chronicles 19:6-7