The Widow Who Beat the Judge, Part 2| Keep Praying!

     The point of our Lord’s parable. Stay encouraged. How do we do that? Praying, and don’t be a coward. While we await the Lord’s return, are we going to drift back into the world? No. Are you going to become lazy, self-satisfied, loving comfort and ease? Refusing to strive, refusing to be uncomfortable in this life.

      No, we’re not going to do that. Will we become distracted or uninterested? Will we become disheartened and lose hope and become cowardly, staggering in faith, prayerless, cowardly, failing to do our duty? No, we’re not gonna do that. We’re gonna be encouraged as the Lord intends us to be, always to pray and never to lose heart. That’s why he’s telling us this parable.

So let’s get into the parable and just see some of the rich detail here. Second point in this two point outline for today, the parable. The parable: Keep praying. Listen, if you ever feel like shrinking back, let the impossible plight of this widow encourage you to keep on praying no matter what. Let’s look at those verses again verses 2 to 5. “Jesus said in a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying give me justice against my adversary. For a while he refused, but afterward he said to himself, though I neither fear God nor respect man yet because this widow keeps bothering me. I will give her justice so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.”

Jesus tells a simple story here, but it’s a profound story, of a contest between two very opposite characters, and the points of contrast are several and couldn’t be starker between these two characters. It’s judge versus widow. It’s male versus female. It’s wealth versus poverty. It’s powerful versus powerless. It’s influential versus inconsequential. It’s politically connected versus one who is legally, socially, and utterly forsaken.

Could there be any starker contrast? As any way you look at this, the deck is stacked decidedly in favor of the judge and against this poor widow. This is the ultimate David and Goliath story. We, in fact, if this were written first, we call it the judge and the widow story. It wouldn’t be David and Goliath themes in movies. It would be judge and window themes in movies.

So we have every expectation here that this widow, she’s gonna lose and she’s going to lose big time, she doesn’t have a chance. He calls the judge unrighteous in verse 6, the word adikia. The alpha privative, ‘a’, it’s added to the word for righteous, and it means unjust, it means lawless, it means wicked. And it’s just having a general disregard for what is right and all righteousness and that just basically crystallizes and summarizes for us the man’s character there in verse 6. But here in verse 2 Jesus is describing this man by his attitudes.

So, give you several sub-points, so you can kind of track with this, sub-point A, the unrighteous judge and his attitudes. Sub-point A, the unrighteous judge and his attitudes. In verse 2, in a certain city there’s a certain judge, and he neither feared God nor respected man. I give that to you just a little bit more literally and you can hear Jesus’ emphasis more clearly. In a certain city is a certain judge, God not fearing and man not respecting. Here’s a stark emphasis, strong emphasis on this guy’s lack of regard for either God or mankind. He is the master of his fate, the captain of his soul. He can’t be told to do anything. He’s the ultimate modern man.

As A.T. Robertson put it, this is a hard boiled judge who knew no one as his superior, and it wasn’t just the fact that he didn’t respect other people. That’s the translation, here, the verb Jesus uses is entrepo, which at its root means to turn about, lit, referring literally to a change of position. The figurative meaning, though, is to be ashamed.

So this is a guy who is not ashamed, he’s shameless. Kenneth Bailey is an Arabic scholar and professor in Beirut and Jerusalem for more than 40 years. He’s now with the Lord, but he said that in eastern translations of the New Testament that translate this verb entrepo, they don’t translate it as respected like our Western translations do, or regarded, according to Bailey, he says, starting with the old Syriac and down through all the other Syriac and all the Arabic versions for another thousand years, the only translation we have had here in the Middle East it, Middle East is he is not ashamed before people. That’s the idea.

This guy has no shame, and what Jesus is describing here is the most despicable kind of a person. This guy’s become so accustomed to sinning against God, seemingly so with impunity, because he hasn’t been judged and killed and cast off this earth. And all of God’s patience is only reinforced his pride in his arrogance against God. But he’s lost any sense of morality. With any, no sense of morality, he’s lost the ability to sense any guilt. He has no inner sensation of conscience, no feeling that would make him ashamed before anybody. So he’s chosen to give up entirely on treating anyone else with any ethical integrity at all, in order to serve himself, in order to do what’s best for he and his.

So since nothing, to include God himself, makes him afraid, nothing makes him afraid, since nothing shames him, there is nothing to appeal to in this guy. This guy’s a rock. There’s nothing there. There’s no feeling. No sense of decency, no sense of propriety. One commentator puts it this way that there’s no spark of honor left in his soul to which anyone can appeal. What are you going to do when a guy like that’s in charge?

I don’t know. I guess we could ask those who lived under the Iron Curtain, who lived under the Soviet Union and saw all kinds of people whose worldview taught them to be heartless like this, to say there is no God and I have no regard for anything except the interests of the party. Tell all the young people learning socialism today in our schools, tell them that that’s the end, the tyranny, and point to this unrighteous judge and say you want a guy like this to appeal to. You want a guy like this making decisions for you and your family, making decisions for you and your money. That’s what they’re voting for.

Listen, in our country, in our time, we’re becoming increasingly familiar with people just like this, aren’t we? No moral principles, no scruples at all. They’re called politicians. No, I’m just, just kidding there. They’re actually called lawyers. No, I’m just, that’s not fair either.

There’s a lot of good politicians, a lot of good lawyers. Many politicians, many lawyers, do have a moral compass. They do endeavor to operate with ethical integrity, and in fact I’d argue most of them do. Maybe not the most prominent, the most notorious of them, but we don’t let a few bad apples spoil the whole bunch and ruin the whole profession. But we do make jokes about lawyers and politicians because there are enough bad examples out there, and some of us have had run ins with those kinds of people. That there are enough unscrupulous ones, they do spoil the reputation of the entire profession. They create a stereotype that we make jokes about.

It’s not totally fair, but that’s the way of stereotypes. Same thing happened in ancient Israel with judges, magistrates. Only in many cases the example that Jesus uses of an unjust judge hit an all too familiar note. Common enough that everybody had a story, especially living close in to the city of Jerusalem. Everybody had a story about one of these guys. Some judges were mun, municipal authorities appointed by Herod of the Romans, and they were paid a stipend out of the temple treasury, and that meant they had a fixed income and it usually wasn’t a great income. They wanted more. So bribery was a common practice. And therefore, as Alfred Edersheim says, “Such a one was perhaps a Jew but not a Jewish judge.” Get the distinction he’s making? He may be a Jew of his ethnicity and his heritage, but he didn’t operate according to any Jewish law.

He didn’t judge impartially. He didn’t fear God. He had no shame about joining with the Herodians, the Romans, to rape the Jewish people, to fleece the Jewish flock. In fact, the common people, they made a word play on their judicial title instead of calling them by their actual title, which is dianegizaroth with an R sound in there gizaroth, probition judges. They changed the R sound to an L sound and called them dianegizaloath, robber judges

Edersheim says the reputation of these local magistrates and judges, it didn’t improve either the further away you got from Jerusalem. When you get away into the smaller cities and the towns are, these judges are just as much prone to corruption. In fact, with a lack of oversight from the capital city, maybe even more, they know they’re out in the middle of nowhere, so no one can hear the people that are victimized by their injustice. No one can hear them scream. They just continue on. They’re the sole authority in these villages, some of these guys.

Edersheim says this, “The Talmud speaks in very deprecatory terms of these village judges and accuses them of ignorance, arbitrariness, and covetousness, so that for a dish of meat they would pervert justice.” End Quote. And that is not what you want in a judge. Arbitrariness, can’t count on him from one day to the next. Capriciousness. You have no idea what he’s how he’s going to decide. And usually it’s gonna be malintended toward you and favorable toward himself or his cronies. It’s this kind of a judge that Jesus makes the main character in this parable. He’s a man who had abandoned any fear of God, any sense of shame before people.

The wider culture of our country haven’t we lost that sense of public shame? Many of our celebrated public figures live lives that are morally bankrupt, utterly shameful. We should hide our eyes and ears from them. And sadly, we’ve become pretty accustomed to this. We’ve become sullied just in reading the articles. Stop reading the articles. Stop taking an interest in their corrupt, morally defiled lives.

So we’ve become pretty accustomed to this, but that was not the case, and is not the case in Middle Eastern culture even today, about shame. Cultures of the east, southwest Asia, southeast Asia, the Middle East, Far East, those are shame, honor cultures. Shame and honor are massively important. In the way they think, like any culture. Positives and negatives for sure. But what they do understand and what is commendable in those cultures that there are some words, there are some actions, there are some behaviors that are completely and totally out of bounds, you do not do for the sake of honor.

So when Jesus makes this unjust judge the central character in his story, he’s got everybody’s attention. It’s probably a chorus of hisses that came out of the crowd, hissing at this guy. Booing him, he’s truly a contemptible man, and the only way to move someone like this is with force. Physical threat of physical violence, or by getting to his heart. Appealing to his covetousness, appealing to his greed, and giving him money.

Enter the next character in the parable, the one who had challenged the unjust judge. She’s got neither force nor money. She’s got nothing. This is this week, destitute, unprotected widow, doesn’t seem like much of a contest, but Jesus shows us here, and this is verse 3. You can put this down as sub-point B, sub-point B, the righteous widow and her actions. The righteous widow and her actions.

There’s a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, give me justice against my adversary. Vindicate me, she’s pleading. She’s doing it over and over and over. The fact that she’s coming to court herself means she’s entirely alone. Because in Middle Eastern culture, patriarchal cultures in the Middle East, women are not allowed to appear like that in court alone without a male family member accompanying them, representing them, speaking for them.

So clearly by the fact that she’s speaking, she is all alone. She is fending for herself. She’s got no one. We can safely say that the issue here at stake what’s, what’s happened. She’s been taken advantage of financially. Commentator Joaquim Jeremiah says a debt, a pledge or a portion of an inheritance is being withheld from her. She needs that. She needs that money. She got no power of earning. So it’s a reasonable supposition that this is a financial matter. Jesus isn’t specific, but that’s reasonable. That money and provision is at stake.

It’s always at stake in Old Testament protections for widows and orphans. Our ESV translation it’s portrayed the imperfect tense here, accurately that she kept coming to him. As in, she kept coming often, repeatedly, over and over. In spite of this man’s refusals to hear her case, in spite of his ignoring her and refusing to give her justice, not giving, not vindicating her cause, not protecting her from her enemy, she kept coming.

Why did he refuse her? Wouldn’t it just be easy to grant her the justice she sought? Well, he refused her because, to put it plainly, she can’t threaten him physically and she can’t buy him off. She’s got nothing to persuade him with. A.B. Bruce says “this widow is too weak to compel and too poor to buy justice.”

Alfred Plummer says “she had neither a protector to coerce the judge nor money to bribe him.” And yet she keeps coming. She comes repeatedly. She comes at different times, she comes at, on different occasions. And why? Why does she keep coming? I mean, when it seems so hopeless? What is it that’s compelling her? What’s given her the energy to keep after it? What gives her the motivation to keep on coming to this guy? Most certainly we could say the desperation of her situation could keep her coming. That could fuel her for a while anyway.

But listen if she’s not motivated deep down inside by a basic sense of righteousness of her cause, listen, she would have given this up long ago. She would close that chapter of her life knowing she’s facing yet another dead end. She’d move on, find gainful employment, do what it takes. This, judge is a waste of time. I got things to do. I got a life to live. But no, she keeps coming. Why? She knows she’s in the right. Something’s driving her. Something comes from deep inside a deep place. It gives her energy that’s greater than any physical exhaustion. It’s a sense of justice that compels her, and though she’s got no other recourse but this unjust judge, she is not about to let his bad character prevent her from getting the justice that she knows she deserves.

Leon Morris says “this widow, she is a symbol of helplessness. She’s in no position to bribe the judge, and she had no protector to put pressure on him. She’s armed with nothing but the fact that right was evidently on her side.” This is how Jesus has set up the story for us to come to these conclusions. They’re inescapable. This is how he wants us to think, and it’s certainly how the people who listen to him on that day were thinking. This is the very scenario that they’re picturing. She keeps coming. She’s in the right. She’s being denied the justice she knows that she deserves. The judge refuses to hear her case, refuses to give her justice.

But instead, for the time being, he has chosen to favor her adversary over her. How do we know that? Well, it’s easy to assume that her adversary is influential and has paid him bribes, and she has not. And so she’s stuck. Stuck. Until we get to verse 4, here’s where we see a crack forming in this judge’s impenetrable armor.

Sub-point C, sub-point C you can write down. We see how righteous actions prevail over unrighteous attitudes. Righteous actions, that is her persistence, prevail over unrighteous attitudes. That’s the judge’s lack of fear for God and lack of being ashamed in front of mankind.

Look again, verse 4 and 5, for a while he refused the widow’s petitions, but afterward he said to himself, “Though I neither fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.” I cited Kenneth Bailey earlier. He relays a fascinating account in his book, Through Peasant eyes, and he talks about what a western traveler witnessed in Iraq in the 1890s.

The account helps us picture the scene that Jesus is portraying here in this parable. And here’s what this traveler, this Western traveler, observed in his trip, to Iraq at the end of the 19th century. It was in the ancient city of Nisibis, in Mesopotamia. Immediately on entering the gate of the city, on one side stood the prison with its barred windows, through which the prisoners thrust their arms and begged for alms.

Opposite was a large open hall, the Court of Justice of the place, and on a slightly raised dais, at the further end sat the Kadi or judge. Kadi is spelled K A D I. This judge half buried in cushions. Around him squatted various secretaries and other notables, and the populace crowded into the rest of the hall, a dozen voices clamoring at once, each claiming that his cause should be the first heard.

The more prudent litigants joined not in the fray, but held whispered communications with the secretaries, passing bribes that they called fees into the hands of one another or one or another. When the greed of the underlings was satisfied, one of them would whisper to the Kadi, who would promptly call such and such a case. It seemed to be ordinarily taken for granted, the judgment would go for the litigant who had bribed the highest.

Meantime, a poor woman on the skirts of the crowd perpetually interrupted the proceedings with loud cries for justice. She’s sternly bidden to be quiet, reproachfully told that she came there every day. And so I will, she cried out, until the Kadi hears me. At length, at the end of a suit, the judge impatiently demanded, “What does that woman want?” Her story was soon told. Her only son had been taken for a soldier and she was alone and, could not till her piece of ground and yet the tax gatherer had forced her to pay the impost, that is the tax, from which as a lone widow she should be exempt. The judge asked a few questions and said let her be exempt. Thus her perseverance was rewarded.

In Middle Eastern culture, even today, a man could not get away with screaming to get his attention. He couldn’t get away with that. If he tried that in any kind of a court in a Middle Eastern setting, he’d be humiliated, thrown out, probably beaten a bit. If he continued to come back and continue to press his case, he’d probably be taken out back and shot.

A woman though, a woman in the Middle East. There’s a chivalry among men toward women. Even though in the Middle East in many places women are second class citizens, they don’t have the rights of a man in public. And yet they’re treated with honor, treated as the weaker vessel, one that should be protected. One of the ways that the Middle Easterners and the Arabs look down upon the United States is because we let our women serve in war.

They say, aren’t you protecting your women? They look at the what, what’s coming out of Hollywood and say, don’t you clothe your daughters? Don’t you tell us this is what your Christian nation is, what your Christianity looks like. They say I prefer Islam. With that story does make the point. Kadi, in this traveler story is, well, he’s really a lightweight when compared against the unjust judge that Jesus tells about in his parable.

But whether lightweight or heavyweight, neither are able to hold out against the righteous appeal persistently made by this woman. The unjust judge, he speaks to himself. We kind of, come kind of accustomed, to these soliloquies in these parables, right? These, these people speaking to themselves. It’s, it’s kind of a way that we get insight into the mindset of a character in the story. And it’s how Jesus reveals to us key information that we need to understand what’s going on.

So the judge says to himself and he knows what he’s about to do. He’s about to compromise his own fixed principles, and so he reinforces his, I stand alone, though, I neither fear God nor respect man. Yeah, I’m gonna make an exception because this woman, well, widow keeps on bothering me. I’ll give her justice so she won’t beat me down by her continual coming. Wow, what a whiner, right? She’s bothering you. Oh, well, considering the fact that you contributed to the theft of her entire livelihood, and considering the fact that you’ve conspired to rob her of all of her subsistence and that you’ve used your vaunted position for cruelty and oppression. You’re upset because she’s bothering you.

Could Jesus have portrayed a more self-centered, despicable human being who’s oblivious to anybody else but himself? He’s kind of a drama queen, too. It’s actually a bit humorous, he says, “I’ll give her justice so she won’t beat me down.” Oh, really. Beat me down by her continual coming. He becomes convinced that by her persistence, she’s never gonna drop this, she’s never gonna give up, and he’s going to be beaten down by her words.

Now, I’ve been in the company before of some nagging women, okay, and it can be, onerous. It can really beat somebody down, right? But this guy’s going a bit far. He is being a drama queen. I’m going to show you that. Fear of God has not moved him. Exodus 22:22 very clearly says, “You shall not mistreat any widow or any fatherless child. If you do mistreat them and they cry out to me, God says I will surely hear it.” Then Deuteronomy 10:18, “God executes justice for the fatherless and the widow.” Man, you do not want to get in the way of that, but he does. Deuteronomy 27:19. “Cursed be anyone who perverts the justice due to the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow.”

None of that affected him, none of it. Public opinion meant nothing to him. He went walking through town, everybody knowing he’s a cheat, knowing he’s unjust, despicable, perverted, and he has the shameless audacity to walk down the middle of the street, hold his head up high, flaunt his, his arrogant wealth and eat in public restaurants, taking in the nightlife whatever it was.

But the persistent nagging of this woman, where there is nothing else that affects him that does, it’s a terrifying thought in his mind that he should be subjected to this, which he imagines would go on for the rest of his life. Ladies, don’t get any bright ideas about nagging, okay. The Proverbs and remember the Proverbs, nagging wives are bad. But the terrifying thought in his mind is that the continual visitation, persistent pleading of this woman, it reminds him continually of her righteous cause, her pleading for justice.

He’ll take his chances with God. He’ll despise the opinions of men, but this woman’s persistence, he can’t take it anymore. Beat me down. Okay, here’s the drama queen stuff. The verb hypopiazo. Hypopiazo, it’s a boxing term. Literally means to strike beneath the eye, to give a, give someone a black eye. That’s the word.

Paul uses it in 1 Corinthians 9:27, “I buffet my body and make it my slave.” He’s talking about boxing himself in order to exercise self-discipline. The figurative meaning of this word is to wear somebody out, to browbeat them, to annoy them greatly, and so the judge doesn’t see any signs of her letting up. He’s ready to call it quits. He’s throwing in the towel. He’s done with his boxing match.

I mean, this was an uneven match from the start, and who’s winning? Fascinating. His unrighteous attitudes had seemed to form this impenetrable shield against being moved upon by anyone or anything. Remember his boast? “I neither fear God nor have shame before mankind at all.”

Prideful barrier against any and all influence, against any affectation has come crumbling down like so much sand. The demise of this man’s shield, it wasn’t due to him being threatened with any physical violence. It wasn’t due to someone inflicting physical pain upon his tender, rather well-fed body, though that’s the way he’s portrayed this. I’m going to get a black eye, all this black eye talk, his shield didn’t crumble because he’s threatened with a lawsuit.

It’s not going to ruin him financially. In fact, what’s even more interesting about this is to remember that he’s favored somebody else over the widow. That means he’s taken a bribe against her to decide in this other person’s case; this is going to cost him financially to give in to the widow. He’s gonna have to return the bribe to his crooked buddy.

This gives this woman justice as he rectifies her case. So even though he couldn’t care less about having a righteous reputation, you know what’s just happened? He’s put future bribes at risk because now he can’t be relied upon when he’s bribed. Put his future of receiving bribes at risk by reversing course with this widow. She’s the most unlikely of victors, but victor she is. This widow has become the unlikely hero of this story. She’s the true David fighting a Goliath. She’s a champion and what has she done? She’s had a righteous concern and she’s pursued it. She won’t let it alone.

One of the reasons I think it’s so important for young men to find a wife, find her quickly, rather quickly get married. Go and have a family. Is because there is something in a woman that sees issues of moral and moral issues with moral clarity. They don’t care about who’s favoring who and what the consequences are going to be. When they see an issue of moral justice and injustice they cry foul. They blow the whistle, they throw the flag, and they say something’s got to be done about that.

And for men who live in a man versus man world, where there can be compromise and, you know, respecting the other guy’s territory and, well, this has been the way it’s been going on. I don’t want to upset the apple cart. I don’t want to rock the boat here. A woman will step in and say, uh uh, you get in there and do something about that. The strength of a woman’s moral voice. It’s health for a marriage. It’s health for a family. It’s health for a church. It’s health for a nation. That’s what Jesus has just portrayed for us here in this widow, the strength of her moral cause. The rightness of her cause, and her persistence in pursuing it.

He’s portrayed a widow as everything stacked against her. She’s up against absolutely impossible odds, and nevertheless she prevails. She triumphs. The unjust judge not only gives in to hear her case, but he decides to settle the case in her favor, and he does so to his own harm. A greater reversal could not be foreseen here. Now look back at verse 7, “and will not God give justice to his elect? Who cry to him day and night. Will he delay long over them? I tell you he will give justice to them speedily.” Believer, suffering believer, sorrowing believer, are you hearing me? You ought always to pray. And don’t lose heart. Pray persistently, intently, sincerely, unbare your burdens. Cast all your cares upon him because, what? He cares for you. Let’s pray.

Our Father, we thank you for the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ, and how clear he is and how encouraging he is, how strengthening his words are. So, so powerful, and the imagination and what, the illustrations that flood his mind in a moment, and how much is packed into them. We struggle to keep up, but we’re so thankful that you have helped us and taught us and we pray that you would give us every encouragement, great encouragement, deep conviction about the end of days. About the Son of Man’s coming, about the kingdom that’s going to be set up, our place in it, our role in the future. Help us to understand our role now. Our role is to be your witnesses, to proclaim your gospel, to make disciples of all the nations, to evangelize and disciple, and to teach your people to obey everything that Jesus taught.

And in our duty, in our stewardship of this gospel, as your church, as your people help us to pray always, at all times, in all circumstances. Never to lose heart, not to become cowardly, not to tuck and run, but to lean in and pray when we’re perplexed to pray, when we’re afraid to pray, when we are joyful to pray and give thanks. When we’re fearful, to find refuge in you. To pray for your help against the adversary. To ask for your justice when we are treated unjustly.

And we do ask for your justice, father, in many cases, in our church in particular. We ask that you would be favorable to your people here. We ask that you would comfort the widow, comfort those who are sorrowing. We ask that you would provide encouragement for those who are ostracized and marginalized and persecuted by friends and family and coworkers and neighbors.

We ask that you would strengthen us, that we would not be fragile, cowardly people with thin skins. But that you would help us to grow extra layers of skin and enter into this world with boldness and deep, deep conviction because we are a praying people. We are backed by an all powerful, almighty sovereign God. We thank you for making us your people. We thank you for giving us such great hope and confidence and certainty in the truth. We thank you in Jesus’ name. Amen.