HOW LONG WILL THIS GO ON?
The parable is short and easily understood. Two characters who live in the same city occupy the scene. A «judge» who lacks two attitudes that are considered basic in Israel for any human being. «He doesn’t fear God» and «he’s not concerned about people». He is a man who is deaf to God’s voice and indifferent to the suffering of the oppressed.
The «widow» is a woman on her own, deprived of a spouse to protect her and without any social support. In the biblical tradition, these «widows» are the symbol of defenseless people, along with orphans and foreigners.
The woman can’t do anything but put pressure, approach over and over again to reclaim her rights, without resigning herself to the abuses of her «adversary». Her whole life becomes a cry: «Give me justice».
For a time, the judge doesn’t react. He won’t let himself be moved; he doesn’t want to attend that constant cry. Afterwards he reflects and decides to act. Not out of compassion or out of justice. Simply to avoid the bother, and so that these things don’t go on.
If such a niggardly and selfish judge ends up doing justice to this widow, God who is a compassionate Father, attentive to the most powerless, «won’t he do justice for God’s chosen ones who cry out to God, day and night?»
The parable encloses above all a message of confidence. The poor aren’t abandoned to their lot. God isn’t deaf to their cries. Hope is allowed. God’s final intervention is secure. But isn’t God being all too slow?
That’s the unsettling question of the Gospel. We must trust; we must call on God unceasingly and without getting discouraged; we must «cry out to God» to do justice for those whom no one defends. But «when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?»
Is our prayer a cry to God begging justice for the poor of the world, or have we substituted this for something else, full of our own selves? What resounds in our liturgy – the clamor of those who suffer, or our desire for a wellbeing ever greater and more secure?
José Antonio Pagola
Translator: Fr. Jay VonHandorf
