There was a judge in a certain city,” he said, “who neither feared God nor cared about people. Luke 18:2 (TJANT)

Turning the Gem – Widows and Judges Series – Part 4

Go to PART 1  |  PART 2  |  PART 3  |  PART 4  |  PART 5  |  PART 6

In a story that Jesus used to teach his disciples about prayer, why are we so quick to give this guy (the judge in the scripture above) the role of God? The judge who neither feared God nor cared about people… yep, we should liken him to the divine, gracious, almighty, loving, creator who got this whole world started. (note the sarcasm).

N.B.: if something doesn’t make sense in scripture, don’t ignore it. It’s often done (written that way) on purpose so that you’ll seek it out, dig into the meaning, question it till you find something you can sink your teeth into. The ancients were not ignorant idiots. They had a writing style full of humor, satire, and hyperbole; all used to cause the reader and the hearer to think, question, and be challenged.

We need to keep “turning the gem” of scripture (as discussed in Part 1 of this series), to see its many layers and faces.

Back to our parable: The judge doesn’t fit the role of God. He doesn’t care about people. He doesn’t fear the divine. He is an independent, narcistic judge, in it for his own purposes, or at least, not for the sake of justice.

Which, as we know, is nothing new.

Still today, I know many of us marvel at the sentences and decisions of judges and the people in control of our legal system. A lot of the time, the justice system seems to be the institution least concerned with justice in our society. I guess in this case, nothing has changed since the days of Jesus. And then we have to ask what IS justice? Ghandi said: “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind…” For many of us, the idea of relying on the justice system to provide justice is as weak a dependancy as relying on chocolate to provide us with good health.

Don’t get me wrong… I’m not trying to be insensitive or dishonoring of the system in its entirety. I was on my way to university to become a lawyer myself. So there is some respect in me for it. But it's not a new idea that the justice system can often look like anything but justice. 

The judge in Jesus short story had no intention of granting the widow her request: “For a while he refused…(Luke 18:4).

Was the widow seeking justice from the judge?

A more correct translation of the original language used suggests that what she sought was vengeance. (1.) She wanted the judge to avenge her, to make her opponent pay up. And what makes the judge finally give in? Was it her tenacity? Her persistence? Of her threat of violence?

Jesus said that the judge thought to himself: “Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.”

In the original Greek, the judge isn’t worried that the widow will “wear him out” as in make him tired, but will give him a “black eye.” (1, again.)

Now whether or not a judge should fear physical violence from a widow is something you might question, but that in and of itself calls into question our own default to stereotype and label individuals. We read Jesus short parable and think: widow = vulnerable and weak, judge = upright and Godly. But in this parable, these figures don’t fall in line with our typical stereotypes. They defy the conventional; they turn our labels on their heads. The story begs us to see the individual separate from the group we would categorize them in.

Jesus was brilliant at this; taking figures that we would put in one box and display them as acting outside of it. Our labels don’t work. Not then, and not now.

We have to think outside the box.
Or perhaps think (and pray) as if there is none…

Go to Part 5 – Will He Find Faith »

Written by Lizzy Milani

(1). Short Stories by Jesus. By Amy-Jill Levine. Pg 221 – 246.

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