Always pray, never give up

Luke does a rare thing before this parable: he tells us its point in advance. Jesus spoke it, he says, so that they should always pray and not give up. Which means Jesus aimed it straight at the worn down, the people whose prayers had gone so long unanswered that asking had begun to feel pointless. He tells of a widow with no power and no leverage, up against a judge who fears neither God nor man and has no reason to help her. She has only one thing: she will not stop coming. She comes, and comes, and comes again, until the judge, purely to be rid of her, gives her justice. Then Jesus turns the lesser into the greater. If sheer persistence can move a corrupt judge who cares nothing for her, how much more will a good God answer His own children who cry out to Him day and night? He will not make them wait forever. And then He ends with a question that hangs in the air over every wilderness: when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth? The faith He is looking for, it turns out, looks a great deal like a widow who would not quit.

The wilderness has a particular lie it tells about prayer, and the lie is reasonable. It says: you have asked for this so long, and nothing has come, so asking is clearly useless; spare yourself and stop. The logic feels like maturity. It feels like accepting reality. And it is exactly the surrender Jesus tells this parable to prevent. Notice carefully what He is not saying. He is not saying God is the reluctant judge who must be badgered into caring, worn down by our nagging until He relents. He is saying the opposite, by contrast. If even the cold and corrupt eventually yield to persistence, how much more freely will a Father who loves His children answer them? The persistence Jesus commends is not a technique to twist God's arm. It is the shape that trust takes over time, the refusal to conclude from a long silence that the silence is a No. The widow's whole secret was that she did not stop. In the disorientation, that unremarkable stubbornness is the substance of faith.