The Haunting Question: Homily for the 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year C

“When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” That is the haunting question that Jesus poses to his disciples at the end of today’s parable, and it’s the haunting question that Luke posed to an early Church that was struggling with persecution and conflict.

That early Church is featured in Quo Vadis?, the novel the eighth graders and I are currently studying. Quo Vadis? is the story of a young Roman military tribune and the Christian woman he falls in love with. It takes place during the reign of the Emperor Nero around 64 A.D., and since it recounts some of the persecution that those early Christians faced, I wanted to find some way to connect the story with the present day. I wanted to share some contemporary stories of Christian persecution so students would understand that it didn’t end with Nero.

So right now I’m reading the brand new book by Vatican correspondent John Allen, Jr. called The Global War on Christians. It’s a frightening account of the kinds of discrimination and violence Christians are facing at this very moment.

Allen writes that “There have been 70 million martyrs since the time of Christ.…and 45 million of them went to their deaths in the twentieth century.” “More Christians were killed because of their faith in the twentieth century than in all previous centuries combined.” If one looks at all religious discrimination that takes place in the world, Christians are the target 80 percent of the time. In the last ten years alone, from 2003-2013, there were 1 million new Christian martyrs.

In John Allen’s words, “Christians today are, by some order of magnitude, the most persecuted religious body on the planet….That’s not a hunch, or a theory,…but an undisputed empirical fact of life. Confirmation comes from multiple sources, all respected observers of either the human rights scene or the global religious landscape.”

So we find ourselves today in the same situation as the early Church: struggling to make our way in a world that is ignorant of and even hostile toward Christianity. Even those of use who don’t live in one of the 139 nations where Christians are harassed still face the pressure of living in a culture that makes it more and more difficult to practice our faith. The pressure to succeed, to be independent, to gratify all our urges and desires, create a challenging environment for disciples of Christ. It’s not all that different from the life of the Church living under the thumb of the Roman Empire.

That early Church was Luke’s audience. He’s writing to a community that is several generations removed from the apostles, and one of their greatest temptations is to lose heart, to grow weary of the struggle.

We see this even in our time in the elderly, who have struggled for so long; we see it in the middle-aged, who are fatigued with the pace and stresses of daily family life; and we see it in our young people who are tired of all the bickering and fighting they see on the news and in their lives.

Sometimes it seems it seems easier to just give up our faith.

That’s what Jesus is addressing in this parable of the unjust judge.

The parable comes just after Jesus has explained to his disciples that before the Son of Man comes he will have to suffer greatly; the world is going to be like it was in the time of Noah, and in the time of Sodom. It’s not a very rosy future that Jesus describes, and the disciples are nervous and frightened, like Luke’s audience, like today’s Christians who face persecution and discrimination.

And confronted with that future Luke writes, “Jesus told them a parable about the necessity for them to pray always without becoming weary.”

The widow in the parable has no one to speak on her behalf. In that male-dominated culture, only the men could present grievances. Since she comes before one judge, and not a tribunal, this was most likely a money matter—probably something about an inheritance. This is her life, her future, on the line.

Like those early disciples under the Romans—or like today’s persecuted Christians in their hostile environments—she comes before that dishonest judge with no power but her persistence. But she does persist. She approaches the judge over and over again, until he gets tired of her nagging and finally gives her a just decision.

On the surface it appears that the message of the parable is that we need to nag God in order to get our way. It seems that the central figure in the story is the widow.

But Jesus does not say, “Pay attention to the widow.”

Jesus says, “Pay attention to what the dishonest judge says.”

“…because this widow keeps bothering me I shall deliver a just decision for her lest she finally come and strike me.”

The dishonest judge is the central figure in this parable. Through contrast, Jesus is reminding his weary followers that God is the judge who hears the cries of his chosen ones and does justice speedily.

This parable is not like Prodigal Son where God is like the wayward boy’s father. This is not like the parable of the good shepherd where God is like the shepherd who leaves the ninety-nine to go after the one. This is a parable of contrasts.

God is not like the dishonest judge that needs to be nagged into doing what is right. God is a merciful judge who works wonders for the sake of his people, even and especially when they are persecuted.

When our enthusiasm wanes, when we lose heart, when we grow weary, Jesus says, “Take God seriously.” We have his assurance that God is present. Don’t give up on the God who is with us in our sufferings, doubts, and persecutions.

When Amalek attacked the Israelites, Moses help up his arms until he could hold them up no more. But just as the widow isn’t the main figure in the gospel, Moses isn’t the main figure in this account from Exodus. Neither are Joshua, Aaron or Hur. The main figure in the first reading today is the staff of God. It was God’s presence, and not Moses’ that made the difference. Moses trusted in that presence, and persisted in holding up the staff over the battle with Amalek. God was with the Israelites in their struggles.

God is with us in our struggles. When weariness, or hopelessness, or discrimination attack us like Amalek attacked the Israelites, we have the staff of God. When we “call out day and night” like the widow, we have a just judge, a merciful judge who hears our prayers.

The question before us is, Do we really believe that? Are we willing to accept the assurance that Jesus gives to his disciples, and that Luke gives to the early Church? Do we pray always to God who hears the cries of his chosen ones?

John Allen tells of the time he traveled with Pope John Paul II to Ukraine in 2001. “During the Soviet era, the Greek Catholic Church in Ukraine was the largest illegal religious body in the world, and in percentage terms no nation produced more martyrs.” When a million people had come to celebrate Mass with the pope, Allen saw a young woman off by herself, crying. He approached and asked her what she was feeling. She told him that her grandfather had been a Greek Catholic priest who had been rounded up and sent to the labor camps. He had refused to renounce his faith so he was beaten, starved, and tortured until he eventually died in prison, nailed upside down to the prison wall.

She explained that she was crying because she was imagining what her grandfather must be feeling looking down from heaven and seeing the Holy Father standing on Ukrainian soil.

She had persisted in faith, placing her trust in the God of mercy, carrying the staff of God that her grandfather had handed on to her so many years ago.

It was a profound moment for the journalist. He writes that it brought home to him that beyond all our frustrations, beyond scandal, persecution, and failure, “there’s something so precious about faith in Christ and membership in the church that, when push comes to shove, ordinary people will pay in blood rather than let it go.”

When the Son of Man comes, he will find faith in that young woman from Ukraine. Will he find faith in us?

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